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Alice Springs Town Council is releasing its new Parks and Playgrounds Implementation Plan for consultation, inviting the community to help shape the future of local parks.

The Plan presents a long-term strategy for managing open spaces across the Alice Springs community, focus­ing on improving quality, accessibility and sustainability in how parks are devel­oped and maintained.

Advising that the Council currently operates 69 parks with more than six hectares of public open space per 1,000 residents - well above the nation­al standard of 2 to 4 hectares - Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson commented "our parks are an impor­tant part of life in Alice Springs, but we face 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.”

As part of the strategy, the Council conducted a community survey with more than 300 responses. It says feedback showed that 66% of respondents would support divestment of some open spaces to allow for a more sustainable approach to parks maintenance.

From this feedback, Coun­cil has iden­ti­fied eight parks for poten­tial divest­ment con­sid­er­ing usage, proximity to other open spaces, and ongoing maintenance costs. Council says no deci­sions on these parks have been made and it will undertake extensive community engagement before progressing further.

Mayor Matt Paterson added "we’ve heard clearly that people want better main­tained, higher quality parks - and we’re listening.

“This isn’t a done deal. We want to understand what matters most to (residents) when it comes to parks in your neighbourhood, and we’ll be using that feedback to guide our next steps.”

Click here to view the plan.

Images: Alice Springs Mayor Matt Pater­son with the Parks and Playgrounds Implementation Plan consultation document.

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