City of Marion

S.E. ANDREWS (Gibson) (15:13): I would like to take the opportunity this afternoon to recognise the many positive statements that the City of Marion have made over the last couple of years in regard to their commitment to trees and our environment. The City of Marion wants to preserve the large trees in our council. When asked about what are the priorities that council should focus on, the following theme emerged: increased tree canopy coverage and environmental protection. What did the community tell us? We asked the community: what is the one word that comes to mind when you visualise a great Marion council in 2040? Number 1, green. Number 2, sustainable. In their other strategic planning documents, they state:

We will continue to improve sporting and community facilities, encourage business, and bring life to our city with better looking streets and thousands of extra trees.

They also state:

Trees are a community asset that provide tangible benefits to the public and we therefore need to be consistent in our decision making.

I emphasise 'we therefore need to be consistent in our decision making'. There are many statements that Marion council has made in support of trees and our environment and their commitment to a sustainable future, yet two weeks ago the City of Marion made the decision to cut down two significant trees, trees that our community desperately care about, to make way for a private, for-profit, interstate organisation on council land, purely to give the council guaranteed income of 42 years of rent.

Not only are the community worried about the loss of two significant trees, trees which provide habitat, provide shade, cool our community and are of course a beautiful visual amenity, but they are also concerned about the increased traffic on Sturt Road that this private, for-profit ice rink will bring to our community. This section of Sturt Road is at the intersection of Marion and Sturt Roads, which has the highest number of accidents in our city. The highest number of car accidents in our city are at the closest intersection to where they want to build a private, for-profit ice rink in our community, which will only bring increased traffic.

In addition, the sports clubs at this precinct at 262 Sturt Road all want to grow. We have football clubs, cricket clubs, gridiron clubs, softball clubs and soccer clubs all using this space, all of which have waiting lists they want to be able to provide for our community. I would have thought that a council would prioritise supporting community sports clubs in preference to a private, interstate, for-profit organisation, namely an ice rink.

In addition to this, we have the Marion Tennis Club on this land. Marion Tennis Club, another community sporting organisation, has a membership that has doubled in the last few months and is a tennis club that plays all year round, yet Marion council determined earlier this year to bulldoze it. Marion council want to bulldoze one of their own sporting clubs in order to make way for another development.

That development, in this case, is worthy of its proposal because it is another community sports club, which has a large playing group and wants to expand and I absolutely support that, but that place where the ice rink is proposed to go could absolutely be a space that continues to be open space and continues to be accessible to our community and the Marion Tennis Club, or one of our other community sports clubs, could take up that land. I know the cricket club is looking for a place to put nets. They could use it and it would still be open and accessible land for our community.

I invite you all to come along on Saturday morning at 10.30 to 262 Sturt Road and join with me and the community and the sports clubs and the Conservation Council to stand together to sink the rink.