Adelaide’s Parklands have been under threat from the moment they came into existence | Peter Goers

This never ends. It’s death by a thousand cuts. One sad day the Adelaide parklands will just be a memory, writes Peter Goers.

Colonel William Light’s original plan was even better. Picture: Cross Simon

Let’s hear it for the Adelaide Parklands - what’s left of them. Other cities have parks in them, Adelaide is a city in a park. Our world famous parkland belt is our greatest glory and our eternal problem.

City planner, Colonel Light, had a great idea which didn’t work. Adelaide would’ve been better served if the entire square mile of the City of Adelaide had been one big park with the city ringing the park. Maybe it would’ve been less encroached.

Central Park in New York is the greatest, most respected and most enjoyed urban park in the world. It is unencumbered by development, unlike our poor old parklands.

The parklands were proclaimed in 1837 and instantly the government hived off 198 hectares. Since then, everyone wants and largely gets a piece of the parklands for good or ill and the parklands are endlessly compromised by development.

This never ends. It’s death by a thousand cuts. One sad day the parklands will just be a memory.

There has always been tension between those who want to leave the parklands natural and undeveloped and everyone else who wants everything else on and in the parklands often for commercial gain. The worst offender has always been the SA Government and there’s currently a bill before parliament to allow the wholesale development of the North Adelaide Golf Courses. Trees will be razed, car parks built and facilities enlarged for the LIV Golf Tournament in 2028. We continue to pave paradise.

Adelaide’s famous Parklands have been under threat since Day 1. Picture: Metric

In the 1830s an abattoir was built on the parklands where the new RAH is. This gave rise to the “butcher” glass of beer at nearby hotels.

Then a cemetery. Then Government House and a cultural precinct along North Terrace took parklands as did the railway station and rail yards, hospitals, schools, a university etc.

This was never enough.

Other developments include the Adelaide Bowling Club (fenced off and with a function centre available to hire), the National Wine Centre, an aquatic centre, restaurants, and golf courses. Of late, sports clubs have been allowed to develop the parklands.

For generations those clubs flourished in the parklands with rudimentary change rooms and equipment sheds then they all wanted, and achieved, function centres with bars and cafes in which to host private parties.

One of these sports clubs is three storeys tall and another fences off the parklands. Another one looks like an Encounter Bay beach house and was developed for frisbee players.

Apparently those chucking frisbees in front of a private function centre have more rights than those wishing to preserve the parklands. Temporary events such as the Super Duper Vroom Vroom Car Race, the Fringe and rock festivals close off crucial through traffic and cause chaos which is reputedly good for SA.

Public access and use is good. Private access ain’t. Why should the parklands be commercialised?

Conversely, there’s a good argument that any use of the parklands is better than no use. I am at two with nature and the only time I step foot in the parklands is for an event. Most of us would say the same.

The irrepressible Shane Sody and his Adelaide Parklands Society have their work cut out for them. Until the parklands are fully protected, controversy and development will continue apace. Hopefully the only other town with a parkland belt - Owen in the mid-north doesn’t have its green belt encumbered or tightened.

The North Adelaide Golf Courses are actually parks. You can legally have a picnic on any fairway but I wouldn’t recommend it. Fore!!!!

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Originally published as Adelaide’s Parklands have been under threat from the moment they came into existence | Peter Goers