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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-04 Daily Xml
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Belair Park Golf Course and Country Club

Mr DULUK (Waite) (15:14): My question is also to the Minister for Environment and Water. Can the minister please provide an update to the house on the Belair National Park master plan and future use of the old golf course site and country club?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (15:15): I thank the member for Waite for this question. This is an issue that I know both he and the communities he represents are particularly passionate about. Belair National Park is South Australia's oldest national park. It was actually brought into the protected reserve system in 1891, so it is celebrating its 130th anniversary this year. It is a great environmental and recreational resource in the foothills around Belair, Glenalta and Hawthorndene and reaching up into the Upper Sturt area, and it is a site that this government is very excited to be investing in.

We do know there has been a challenge there in recent years. The old country club and golf course had been located in a fairly strategic site within the park, not only creating a buffer zone of open space between the area of suburbia and the national park but also providing a once thriving business within that community. Unfortunately, in early 2018, that business went bankrupt and the site, including the country club, was surrendered to the state government.

Since then, we have found it difficult to find a tenant to take over that site. There is no doubt about that. We have made repeated efforts to get other businesses interested. The site has been listed for tender for some time, looking for an alternative business or businesses to go in there to activate it and to use either the old country club facilities or to find a purpose for the golf course site. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find anyone to take on the country club premises.

We have had a few ideas emerge for the broader open space that forms that buffer zone. It has been great to work with EscapeGoat, a mountain biking company that are hiring out bikes, teaching mountain biking skills and the like. They have been working with us on the trail network there, so it is great to see that little business go onto the site there and get up and running. There is also a proposal out for consultation at the moment as part of the master plan to see Sturt Lions soccer club go up there. This is potentially a more controversial approach and we are certainly out to community consultation for that at the moment.

It is a tricky balancing act here. We want to keep that golf course and as much open space as possible because it gives the suburbs of Hawthorndene and Glenalta that sense of security in terms of bushfire protection. It is a uniquely large buffer zone for any national park we have that comes up towards suburbia; however, in combining that buffer zone with a useful use, we are also looking at other recreational options. One of these is soccer and we will work through that with the community. Absolutely nothing is set in stone. The community and the member for Waite have perhaps rightly raised some concerns about the size of that proposed activity and we will work through that.

In terms of getting the community involved, there is a YourSAy consultation, which will be open until 4 May. We are not rushing this process. There is also going to be a second community engagement session held on 20 March from 1pm to 3pm at Belair National Park to continue to get the community's views to feed them into the master planning process so that we get the planning and the future use of one of South Australia's premier national parks right for the local community, for conservation and for the wider state.

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