Stealing Helen Mayo Park for private profit

Proposals for a huge new hotel in Helen Mayo Park (part of Park 27) were an issue in the October 2018 Adelaide City Council election.

The artist’s impression below was released in January 2018 by a Minister in the former State Labor Government. At that time, the former Investment and Trade Minister Martin Hamilton-Smith was brazenly offering international investors the opportunity to take away yet another part of your Park Lands heritage.  All they needed to do, he said, was to stump up enough money for a suitably large commercial hotel, such as this:

Since being elected in March 2018, the Liberal State Government has not (so far) pursued this proposed Park Lands heist.  But in the leadup to the November 2018 local government elections, the former Lord Mayor, Martin Haese appeared to have taken up the campaign to sell the proposal to international investors.

During a mission to Singapore in July 2018, the then-Lord Mayor presented a glossy 32-page brochure "Adelaide Investment Prospectus".  The "Prospectus" bearing the logo of the "City of Adelaide" identified this as a proposal for Helen Mayo Park:

Such a proposal had NOT been considered by the City Council (then or since).  Ironically in 2017 the Lord Mayor and a majority of City Councillors wanted to have a commercial helipad on exactly the same site, in Helen Mayo Park (part of Park 27).  However, neither a helipad nor a hotel is consistent with the management plans for this Park.

One of the candidates for the 2018 election to the City Council, APPA Committee member Stephanie Johnston, campaigned to head off the threat to Helen Mayo Park. Read the story here.

THE DEATH OF 1,000 CUTS

Repeated Park Lands losses were once characterised as like "mice nibbling away at cheese".   However recent attacks seem more like a debaucherous feast with participants devouring whatever is available, while it lasts.

The rate of Park Lands loss seems set to ratchet up exponentially unless the public can be alerted to save what's really precious and priceless.

There are many other sites within Adelaide Park Lands that are under imminent threat, or current attack.

If you think Adelaide can do better than this, then TAKE ACTION!