New plan has Alice Springs Town Council looking to off-load 10 parks in town

The Red Centre capital’s council – which currently owns 69 parks – could instead be managing 59, a new plan is proposing. Find out more.

Alice Springs Town Council Mayor Matt Paterson holds the council's latest parks and playgrounds implementation plan, May 2025. Picture: Alice Springs Town Council

Ten parks in Alice Springs are earmarked for “divestment” as part of a new plan by the town’s council, as the Mayor says they’re struggling maintaining so many parks to “a consistently high standard”.

The proposal is part of the Alice Springs Town Council’s latest parks and playgrounds implementation plan, recently released and open to public consultation.

With 69 parks within the Alice Springs Town Council’s municipality, the new plan is proposing the “divestment” of nine of the town’s parks: Beefwood Park in Sadadeen; Davidson Park in Eastside; the Chalmers, Spencer, Day, and Poeppel Gardens parks in Gillen; and the Maynard, Dixon, McCoy, and Dixon Community Parks in Braitling.

The tenth park, Madigan St in Braitling, has already been rezoned from a public open space to low-density residential to facilitate three lots in November last year.

A notice for the proposed rezoning at Madigan Park, Braitling, Alice Springs. Picture: Gera Kazakov

Alice Springs Town Council Mayor Matt Paterson said while parks were an “important part of life in Alice Springs” the council is facing “challenges in maintaining so many spaces to a consistently high standard”.

“This plan sets out a more strategic approach to managing our open spaces, helping us invest in the parks that people use most and value most,” he said.

In the plan, 66 per cent of respondents to a 2022 council survey which about 300 people responded to said they supported the council selling off parks “to fund the development of others to a higher quality”.

In the same survey, 40 per cent of residents said they felt unsafe in parks within Alice Springs, while 61 per cent said they thought the parks were poorly maintained.

The biggest issue, according to the survey, was the lack of shade, as identified by 68 per cent of the respondents.

Mr Paterson said punters in Alice want “want better maintained, higher quality parks — and we’re listening”.

Alice Springs Town Council Mayor Matt Paterson. Picture: Gera Kazakov

In October last year, Braitling resident and former Alice Springs councillor Jane Clark was vocal in her opposition of the proposed Madigan Park rezoning.

“A neglected park can be renewed. A sold park is gone forever,” she said.

A report on the Madigan Park rezoning hinted the council was seeking to “to undertake similar proposals across their under-utilised and over supplied park lands to minimise maintenance costs while contributing to more residential potential for the community”.

“I understand the challenge of limited budgets … But when a Council says it can’t maintain basic infrastructure, the answer should not be to sell it off. The answer should be to look at smarter, fairer ways to fund it,” Ms Clark said.

Jane Clark at Madigan Park, Braitling, Alice Springs. Picture: Gera Kazakov

The new plan is open to public consultation, with the council also hosting information and consultation sessions in Alice Springs on the plan.

An information session on the proposed plan will be in the Andy McNeill room at 5.30pm on June 2.

Consultation sessions will take place from 5.30pm at McCoy Park on June 19, Day Park on July 2, and Beefwood Park on July 9.

Mr Paterson said the new plan “isn’t a done deal”.

“We want to understand what matters most to you when it comes to parks in your neighbourhood, and we’ll be using that feedback to guide our next steps,” he said.

The community can provide their thoughts on the new plan via an online survey on the council’s website or in person at a consultation session.

Originally published as New plan has Alice Springs Town Council looking to off-load 10 parks in town