Saving Moore Park - Newsletter #33
7 August 2023
Dear Supporter,
Landscaping begins on Moore Park
Anyone who’s wandered around the Upper Kippax area of Moore Park in recent weeks will have noticed a landscaping face-lift is underway. A spokesperson for Greater Sydney Parklands (GSP) says a program of ‘mature native trees and extensive understory planting is going on at the north and north-eastern edges of the park’. We are encouraged by the early plantings.
According to GSP, the first stage of landscape works under the Moore Park East Landscape Plan will involve more than 8,000m2 of native planting in this north eastern area, including five new Hill’s Figs along Driver Avenue and a further six mature native trees (red gum, spotted gum, brush boxes and a weeping lilly pilly) in the south western corner of the cricket field.
More broadly, as part of the Landscape Plan, GSP is planning to widen and slightly re-orientate the cricket wicket in Moore Park East (near the corner of Moore Park Rd and Anzac Pde) to bring it up to ‘contemporary game standards’. GSP says the movement of the pitch is important to maximise boundary length and mitigate against sun glare;
GSP is presently piloting temporary ‘lighting activations and wayfinding’ during the FIFA Women’s World Cup period (until 6 August) to boost public safety. Some funding has been provided by Transport for NSW for extra, permanent, lighting infrastructure to be attached to existing lighting poles near Tramway Oval. This is to assist pedestrians moving between the stadium and the light rail station.
In correspondence to us, GSP has listed other plans including the building of ‘nature play areas’ for children with ‘mounding, timber logs and stepping stones’. However, these are listed ‘for the future’, presumably when funding is made available, beyond the seriously limited $2.5 million already provided.
Saving Moore Park pressed both NSW Labor and the Liberal party prior to the March election to commit funds to properly implement the 2016 Moore Park Masterplan. Unfortunately, no further funds have been committed to date. That means, as best we can tell, that plans for future works under the Landscape Plan for Moore Park East remain precarious, with limited detail at present and only the vaguest timeframe for completion.
Supporters with long memories may recall many hundreds of people contributed to the careful creation of the Moore Park Masterplan through an extensive public consultation process seven years ago. Little of the detail in the Masterplan has ever seen the light of day.
Resident campaign to oppose plan to leash dogs
Under GSP’s Landscape Plan for Moore Park East, it was initially proposed that the entire area would become ‘on leash’. That represented a significant change, in that the large area of parkland at the junction of Moore Park Road and Anzac Parade (Upper Kippax field) is presently off leash and is frequently used by dog owners to exercise their pets. By contrast, the area adjacent to Kippax Lake is on leash for dogs, because of the risk to wildlife using the lake, particularly black swans. While the signage around the lake is not easy to find, and in our view, is not located far enough away from the lake to adequately warn dog owners, that area has long been on leash only.
Saving Moore Park met with GSP representatives and indicated our view that making all of Moore Park East on leash was unnecessary and an overreaction to some dog owners leaving their dogs off leash around Kippax Lake (which tragically led to the death of a male black swan in 2022). We suggested that it should be possible to permit dogs off leash in the Upper Kippax field area, and to also do more to post signs around Kippax Lake and have park rangers enforce the off leash restriction. We also forwarded to GSP a petition from 25 local residents similarly opposing the plan to make all of Moore Park East on leash.
In recent correspondence SMP has received, GSP has committed to consult and communicate with the community further about the proposed changes to dog activity before they are made. However, a Q&A section on the Centennial Parklands website in respect of the Landscape Plan for Moore Park East states as follows:
“Dogs will continue to be welcome at Moore Park and across Centennial Parklands, however, all areas of Moore Park East will become on-leash at the completion of the Village Green works, which will see better protection for wildlife at Kippax Lake”.
SMP is troubled by that discrepancy and concerned that a decision may have already been made that dogs will be required to be on leash across all of Moore Park East. While we appreciate that as more picnic and play areas are established in Moore Park East, as part of the works under the Landscape Plan, there will be a need to manage potential conflicts in park use, we remain strongly of the view that a sensible compromise would involve leaving some areas of Moore Park East off leash.
If you would like to add your name to the campaign to prevent all of Moore Park East being made on leash, please send an email to savingmoorepark@gmail.com. We will report back in due course.
Public parking banned on Moore Park during World Cup
Saving Moore Park is pleased to note that fans to World Cup games at Allianz Stadium will have to leave their car at home, or else park at the Racecourse or at one of the nearby schools. Parking on the grass is being preserved for FIFA officials. While we oppose any parking on the grass, we do acknowledge this will be a terrific test for the integrated ticketing process and will help patrons realise the many ways of reaching an event that don’t involve nosing a bumper bar up to the stadium doorstep. Remember, parking is already banned on the Upper Kippax area and will be illegal around Kippax Lake from the end of this year. Parking will be completely banned from the park by 2025.
Cricket nets near the cricket field on Upper Kippax?
Since the removal of parking on Upper Kippax field, we have been pleased to see the resumption of regular cricket matches. Saving Moore Park is aware of GSP receiving some recent correspondence in support of building cricket nets in Upper Kippax. Cricket New South Wales made a submission to GSP to that effect and more recently, we are aware that a former state cricketer, David Hourn, sent a letter to GSP urging that nets be built in Moore Park East.
Saving Moore Park met with GSP recently and raised the issue of cricket nets being built on Upper Kippax field, as part of the establishment of the Village Green in that area.
GSP has expressed some concerns about conflicting uses if cricket nets were built in that area and also identified some possible issues about the adequacy of the available space. It has however committed to investigating (as and when funding is available) the provision of cricket nets within the wider parklands, such as in Moore Park South, where there are already five synthetic cricket wickets.
We will continue to raise the possible construction of cricket nets, as part of the implementation of the Moore Park East Landscape Plan.
A reminder
Saving Moore Park meets quarterly with the senior executive team of Greater Sydney Parklands, led by Joshua French. If you’d like us to raise any issues that concern you, please email us at savingmoorepark@gmail.com
