Open Spaces Should Not be Closed

Successive governments, be it Federal, State, or Local, will want to improve infrastructure and spend money. So they should. Whether it be new sporting facilities, roads, paths, tourist attractions… many worthy projects will benefit generations to come.

With this in mind, it is easy to lose sight of why people were attracted to an area in the first place. In the City of Burnside, what makes our area so unique is the number of and proximity to our parks, gardens and reserves.

Colonel William Light, when he designed Adelaide included open space so that every citizen could have access to nature, we all know how important that is. Of the 930 hectares of the Adelaide Parklands, 230 hectares have been lost over the years. Since 1837 we have lost 4,500m2 annually – how many tennis courts is that a year?

Worthy and valid projects are aplenty; our open space is not. Destroying open space is easy. It is already flat unencumbered ground. At present, just under half of the space at Kensington Gardens Reserve is occupied by sporting clubs, and that’s great; being active and healthy is a good and worthy cause, and the current clubs have my full support.

But… there will always be a brand new good idea where successive governments will look at the open space and say – that is an easy and cheap spot to build something new. Before we look to build on open space, we should consider all other alternatives first; let’s not call that “Big Yellow Taxi” before we have to.