5 Jun 2023 | ABC RADIO ADELAIDE | 9.36am -9.42am | Jayne Stinson, Member for Badcoe
HOST: David Bevan: Jayne Stinson, Member for Badcoe, good morning to you … just before we ask about Morphettville Racecourse, last time we spoke to you it was about the intersection on South Road next to the Black Forest Primary School, a lot of parents were worried that there had been two cars, or two vehicles that had come off the road and into this place where the kids cross the road, has there been any development on that?
JAYNE STINSON: I’m actually standing here right now, so that was a very well-timed question! I’ve been at the school this morning collecting petition signatures from parents, I can tell you that not a single person refused to sign the petition, absolutely everyone was very, very keen to sign it.
The petition is calling for bollards and fencing and whatever other measures can be taken to ensure road safety at the site.
The reason why it’s come up is two years ago there was a really bad crash, and someone actually fainted behind the wheel and their four wheel drive ploughed into the area where kids usually waiting to use the pedestrian crossing, and at the time nothing was done.
The former Government said, ‘look it was just a freak accident it’ll never happen again’ and then a few weeks ago it happened again. So, as you can imagine parents are pretty scared and they want to see something done now. There will be a permanent solution when the Torrens to Darlington is …
HOST: Yeah but that’s years away
STINSON: Yeah it is. So, the petition’s up and running and we’re getting the CEO down here to have a chat with people in coming weeks.
HOST: Ok, so, from South Road at Black Forest to Morphettville, my understanding is that the Jockey Club, and good on them they want to make good use of their land, they’re thinking of putting in a whole lot of townhouses, maybe some apartments on the northern side of their property, this would straddle the tram line, so some would be close to Anzac Highway, some would be inside the Racecourse proper, it’s the ones that are on the southern side of the tram line that are causing some angst for your residents, is that correct?
STINSON: Yes, that is correct. As you said there’s hotel developments and upgrades of entertainment spaces and function spaces on the northern side, on the Anzac Highway side of the tram line, but then there’s a little pocket, a little triangle that basically hugs the racecourse and is to the south of the tram line.
And what’s happened there, if people know where Magic Millions is, it’s basically surrounding where the Magic Millions site is. So, there’s 250 townhouses that are planned for that spot and of course people in my area are questioning, ‘well hang on, there’s only one exit there from those townhouses onto Park Terrace’ and they’re questioning what that’s going to mean in terms of a sudden increase in traffic going through Plympton Park for people to try and get out onto Marion Road.
So, 250 townhouses, probably most places would have two cars, maybe more, and then visitors coming and going, that’s a lot of traffic movements that are added to our local area.
HOST: And anybody who knows the area knows Park Terrace, Bray Street, where Bray Street connects Marion Road to Morphett Road, it’s already a bit of a nightmare, you’ve got buses and trucks and horses further down Bray Street, there are problems in that area in terms of traffic already, is this a smaller number of townhouses because, is it Mr Harvey who owns Magic Millions? He hasn’t sold his property, but it’s only a matter of time, or could be a matter of time in which case you’d have a lot more townhouses.
STINSON: In the original plans, which were first published a few years ago, the Racecourse was saying that it was going to purchase that Magic Millions site and it was looking to put 400 townhouses on the site, so they’re saying ‘well, this is actually a good thing for your constituents, Jayne because we’re only going to build 250 now’ but I think rightly my area is sceptical and are thinking that maybe in the future that Magic Millions site could come up, we don’t know if it will or not and then maybe there’ll be even more housing than the 250 townhouses.
HOST: At the same time, to broaden our scope of this, we know that the Government wants to spend hundreds of millions of dollars putting an overpass to the tram over Marion Road, Cross Road, and eventually they’re going to have to do something similar with that same tram line when it gets to Morphett Road. Could you, just out of the box, why not elevate the whole thing from Marion Road all the way to Morphett Road, in which case you could then have a housing development on the Racecourse and people could access Anzac Highway underneath the tram line?
STINSON: [laughs] I suppose anything’s possible, it depends what the developers want to do, this is land that is owned by the Racecourse, so it’s privately owned land.
Obviously where the tram line itself is is owned by the Government, there’s actually a planning study commencing fairly soon in relation to the Morphett Road level crossing and what might be done around removing that level crossing.
So there’s no funding committed to that yet, it's just a planning study and they’re going to be looking at over, under, what other solutions might be at that location, which is of course the other side of the Racecourse, so that’s a pertinent thing to keep in mind as well.
But I would note that at the moment the Racecourse’s plans really do incorporate the tram line basically creating an area where people could arrive at the Racecourse, at the Racecourse station, and step straight off into the Racecourse precinct, so I think they’re pretty keen.
HOST: They’re pretty keen to keep it at ground level, yeah.
STINSON: Yeah, because they want people to be able to come directly to the Racecourse, to the events and races that are on and get right into their business essentially.
HOST: Alright, well, we’ll keep an eye on it, thank you very much Jayne Stinson.