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Parks and Recreation Collection – Narratives

Category: Planning, policy and legislation

federal, state and local plans and policy; legislation and regulations; planning guidelines; tenure administration; land use

SEQ Community Alliance

Posted on date by author

This small group is keeping alive a torch for people-friendly urban planning in South-East Queensland.

 

See their website: https://seqalliance.org/

 

The Autumn-winter Newsletter

  • An Update on E-Mobility reforms
  • Campaign Update from Games Watchdog 2032
  •  Blessing or Curse? Rejuvenating Queensland’s tourism in the lead up to the Olympics
  • The Intersection of Commonwealth and State bioregional planning measures
  • Suggestions for Improving Queensland’s draft new Environmental Offsets Policy
  • To plan or to purchase? Reflections on SEQ’s original Regional Open Space System (ROSS) 1994-
    1996
  • From Bad to Worse: Community Coalition raises serious concerns following changes to Coochin
    Creek Tourist Park conditions
  • State Government allows Ormiston College to destroy koala habitat trees
  • Again the Community Wins against the Boral Quarry at Reedy Creek, Gold Coast
  • The community role in guarding public open space.
Review Status: Pending
Posted in Narratives, Planning, policy and legislation |

SEQ Greenspace Strategy 2032

Updated on date by author

Queensland will be hosting the 2032 Olympic Games. A few people with experience of parks and planning in the past 30 years have been concerned at the absence of any strategic plan for enhancing the liveability of the South East Queensland region. The advent of the Games offers an opportunity to bequeath a first-class network of parks, reserves and open space as well as enhancing Queensland’s reputation as a liveable community. ‘Liveability’ includes ensuring that new urban development is steered towards locations not unduly constrained by topography, biodiversity, scenic amenity or other planning criteria.

The liveability of Queensland’s urban settlements has been compromised by four significant policy milestones:

  • the destruction of the Regional Open Space System in  1995
  • the introduction of performance-based planning via the Integrated Planning Act in 1997, thereby making it more or less impossible for local governments to prevent development in heavily constrained locations such as floodplains
  • the destruction of the replacement Regional Landscape Strategy in 2012
  • the demise of regional strategic planning in 2012, leaving development to proceed case-by-case, parcel by parcel, through negotiation between developers and councils, often with little reference to regional strategic considerations.

A new campaign called “SEQ Green Space Strategy 2032” was born in March 2026. This page accesses documentary materials relevant to the campaign.

For background materials, prior to March 2026, see Open space in SEQ 1994-2021; ROSS supplementary materials; and a chronology of 2004-2012 by the SEQ Community Alliance, as well as numerous other relevant documents in the twin PaRC collections.

See also the website of the SEQ Community Alliance and a separate post for the SEQ Community Alliance.

 

Review Status: Pending
Posted in Narratives, Planning, policy and legislation |

Nick Safstrom OAM (1947-), Landscape Architect and Artist

Updated on date by author

                            A sample of Nick’s art

Nick Safstrom OAM (1947-  ) as described by Neil Hordern, formerly of the firm EDAW:

“In a word or two as a leader, the best and still my benchmark for which I am always grateful!  As a Landscape Architect – rigour and creativity underpinned by a strong moral compass. Someone who could deal with significant urban challenges and at the same time, share the marvel of often over looked cultural and environmental undercurrents. In my time at EDAW, Nick cultivated so many young landscape architects to collaborate and enjoy problem solving and in doing so operated at a level beyond their years of experience. “

Who is this man, Nick Safstrom who earned such a high accolade from a previous employee?

Profile

Nick Safstrom studied architecture and fine arts at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology for six years (1966-1972), worked in that discipline for one year and then decided, as he was much more interested in landscape, that he would pursue studies in landscape architecture at RMIT (1973-1977). Nick’s design training as an architect, with the ability to mentally visualise an entire concept before he started working, certainly enhanced his landscape design practice as well.

 

Loder & Bayly

Nick was initially employed to establish a landscape architecture division for Loder & Bayly (L&B) a multi- disciplinary office in Hawthorn during the late 70s & 80s.  It was an innovative practice with planners, urban designers, architects, sociologists, civil engineers, traffic designers and geographers, all working collaboratively under the same roof, to create strong design solutions for Melbourne and Australia. (One time an egyptologist was eagerly accepted onto staff as one who would bring innovative perspectives to the mix).

Loder & Bayly’s office work culture

Nick reflects that “Loder & Bayly had an amazing work culture. It was a very family-orientated practice with children and partners coming into the office after work every Friday night for drinks, while the children would play around the spaces of the open plan office in Power Street, Hawthorn and often head off for a Vietnamese meal in Victoria Street afterwards. If you had a birthday or won a project, you brought cake the next day! The group periodically holidayed together and their friendship links remain strong to this day. Sadly it was the economic downturn in the late ‘80’s which led to L&B being forced to close and then merging onto the engineering firm Sinclair Knight, but not before they had found a job for everyone in that practice.”

Loder & Bayly colleagues: L-R Jan Martin, Nick Safstrom, John Loder, Don Glasson, Bill Chandler, Michael Daff, Michael Read, Ian Wight.

Brown bag sessions

Nick established a weekly meeting for the whole office over lunchtime, called a brown (lunch bag) session. It became a very valuable ideas-sharing time. It could have been about a specific work project; philosophical ideas; world events; work culture; but everyone at that session was on equal parity. It was of enormous value for more junior staff to feel valued and a learning tool as well.

Master Planning for Melbourne’s metropolitan parks

One important assignment received by L&B in 1985 was Nick Safstrom’s appointment to design the master plans for all of the regional metropolitan parks around Melbourne. Alan Croxford, a visionary leader of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, observed that when most people visited national parks, their most common activity was to gather with families, have a picnic, kick a football and do a little walking. So he proposed and implemented adding a parks levy to every landowner’s rates bill, which gave the funding (via the Metropolitan Improvement Fund) to establish and maintain these important recreational spaces around Melbourne. These included Jells, Brimbank, Westerfolds, Banksia and Point Cook Coastal Parks.

His wife Heather writes: “I recall Nick walking around Jells Park directing the bulldozers to shape the ponds, which feed into the large lake in the flood plain valley, with islands shaped within it. This has become an important habitat for ibis and other wetland nesting birds and a greatly valued family recreational space for metropolitan Melbourne.”

Litchfield National Park 

In about 1986, the Northern Territory Government envisioned establishing a second park project following Kakadu, to increase tourism opportunities. They wanted to open access for visitors to Litchfield, which was officially declared a national park in 1986. Loder & Bayly was engaged to do the master planning for this project. Nick Safstrom, John Wood and Jan Martin, along with others drove in through wilderness areas, with snorkels on the exhausts of their 4×4 vehicles, to mitigate the effect of mud and floodwaters, to finally access the Wongi Falls area.  There on the sandy banks of Wongi Pool, trestle tables were set up to do the master planning.

They asked themselves questions such as

  • which were the most important areas for development?
  • sites for parking, facilities & camping areas?
  • how to protect the special Horseshoe Bats in an area – with the determination that a viewing platform would be made, rather than allowing people into the gully?

Then a helicopter was flown in to give them an overview of the whole site.

This project has proved to be very successful, with high visitor demand creating the need for ongoing strategies by others to continue management to protect this beautiful area.

West Gate Bridge Park

The Chair of the West Gate Bridge Authority, Oscar Meyer, is credited with the inspiration for the establishment of Westgate Park. He wanted to create “a beautiful park straddling the Yarra River” to complement his sculptural bridge. He developed this vision soon after the completion of the bridge in the late 1970s. The federal government funded the development of Westgate Park to mark Victoria’s sesquicentenary in 1984-85.

Nick was involved with L&B and landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie OAM to win a competition with an ambitious design relying on a constructed landscape of hills and access tracks which framed and created views of the West Gate Bridge as the central sculptural feature, and with fresh and saltwater lakes as focal points. Planned features included an island visitors’ centre, as well as the planting of Australian vegetation, improvement of bird habitat and the incorporation of a narrow-gauge railway, a sound shell and sculptures. To this day this park has an active team of volunteers who continue to develop the planting and management of the park, under the banner of Parks Victoria. It is thrilling to visit this park today to see the wide variety of birds that now call this park home, only 4kms from Melbourne’s CBD.

For further information see Westgate Park Masterplan and implementation or enter Westgate/Lower Yarra River Project or Loder and Bayly in the Victorian Government’s Library Service catalogue.

Karkarook Park / Sandbelt Masterplan and Lower Plenty River Concept Plan

For reports of these projects, visit https://www.parksleisure.com.au/library/ and enter keywords.

Click here for the first Newsletter of the practice, issued in 1986.

 

EDAW Australia – Architecture & Design

(EDAW is an acronym derived from Eckbo, Dean, Austin and Williams, the names of four of the firm’s original partners). Peter Haack has shared some background about this practice.

“The EDAW story is certainly an interesting one. EDAW Australia was a national practice of multi-disciplinary design and planning professionals covering planning, site and urban design and landscape architecture, under the umbrella of the international landscape practice EDAW.

The arrangement with EDAW came about as a buy out by Sinclair Knight Mertz (SKM) of the Loder & Bayly practice. SKM took the urban planners, social planners and the traffic engineers, but the Landscape Architecture (LA) team went to EDAW. (Jan Martin as an urban designer and urban planner went with the SKM team). EDAW was 40-50% owned by SKM at that time and SKM helped EDAW break into the Australian market. EDAW already had a strong presence in NSW.

As part of the EDAW takeover of the L&B Landscape Architecture team in 1995, Andrew Irvine came from EDAW Sydney to join with Nick and Peter Haack to form the new EDAW Melbourne practice. John Wood and Michael Erickson of L&B Brisbane became part of the Brisbane EDAW practice. After the recession of the early 1990s, the L&B team was pretty thin with Neil Hordern and Marius Brits being some of the first new EDAW recruits.”

This then led to Nick’s managing the Melbourne office and eventually all of the Australian offices of EDAW in Queensland and NSW as well as a new office in Adelaide that Nick established, (managed by John Holland) – four offices in total. It was a highly successful international planning and design firm. EDAW was eventually taken over by AECOM in 2008. Following that takeover, much of the Australian design leadership within EDAW left AECOM. Click here for a capability statement of EDAW, date uncertain, but probably not long before 2008.

Some significant projects undertaken by EDAW

  • Nick and Andrew Irvine led the creative vision for the South East City Link Project, with technical expertise provided by Neil Hordern. They developed the landscaping plan along the South East Freeway, with the blue wavy lines on the sound walls referencing the river. Nick reflects: “I recall Neil’s frustration when contractors, rather than leaving planting space, filled the base of one of the sound walls along the freeway with concrete!”
  • Many more bike paths were designed and built, linking up parklands and watercourses.
  • EDAW sent Andrew Irvine, one of its landscape architects, on a world tour to visit significant waterfront developments, then together with Nick, developed the master plan for the Victoria Harbour precinct, including the stadium.  Bill Chandler was also involved in this Docklands planning.
  • John Wood from EDAW’s Queensland office undertook a safety audit of Ormiston Gorge in the West MacDonnell Ranges of the Northern Territory.  He was flown in to Alice Springs, had to walk the perimeter of the pound, photographing every trip/safety hazard and note its GPS co-ordinates – so that a work team could go in later to repair them. “Landscape architecture offers such a variety of opportunities!”
  • Maroondah City Council Design Service’s contract. Nick was responsible for managing the contract for three years. Works included wetlands, parklands, sporting fields and streetscapes. This was the first major local government outsourcing of design projects.

Nick returned to RMIT to join the teaching staff on a part-time basis to train landscape students in business practice.

Volunteering

An interesting piece of advice Nick received from a mentor in the early stages of his career was to volunteer his skills to an organisation. Acting on this, over a period of 30 years he gave his time to the Victorian National Trust on their management board, to eventually become Vice-Chairman of the National Trust, alongside Simon Molesworth OAM. Nick’s particular interest with the National Trust was preserving historical landscapes. This voluntary work for the Trust, along with his leadership in the landscape architecture field, eventually earned him recognition as a Fellow of the Institute of Landscape Architecture and an award of an OAM in 2007.

Mooramong

One role Nick managed on behalf of the Trust was running Mooramong, a property that had been bequeathed to the Trust. Mooramong is on a working farm in the Western District of 4,000 acres, running sheep and producing crops. Nick would attend monthly management meetings with local farmers who also donated their time and advice to run the farm. What should be planted and when? How should sheep be managed and purchased or sold? Using profits from this farming activity, a large area was fenced to exclude predators to re-establish a nature reserve with habitat for Eastern Barred Bandicoots and other Australian species including the Wedge-tailed Eagle and Brolga. It was a very exciting day when the first release of bandicoots was made into the compound. For further information, enter Mooramong into the search box of the website of the National Trust, Victoria.

Early retirement

In 2000 while in his early fifties Nick experienced a stroke, which left him with aphasia and unable to talk or write. It’s just as well that he can draw, as all communications are now made by mime and drawing. Heather writes: “You won’t catch his wife playing Pictionary just for fun!” However the multiple skills he had developed over his lifetime have led to his enjoying his unexpectedly early-retirement with great satisfaction.

Once back on his feet he returned to painting, something for which he hadn’t had time, during his busy career. Multiple successful art exhibitions were held in their family home between 2002-2023 and his work has been sold all over the world. He still draws using his non-dominant left hand.

Until recently, he and Heather travelled with their campervan and 4×4 through outback Australia for fifteen years, spending three months each winter in very remote places, exploring beautiful landscapes, painting and exploring. A musician all of his life, he now sings in two choirs and still plays his tjembe for the Stroke A Chord choir.

So, his enjoyment of life continues, enriched by his innate curiosity and varied interests with great contentment.

He certainly deserves a place under the heading “Inspiring people”. He is an inspiration to many.

Nick in 2023, in his ‘habitat garden’, a creation 40 years in the making.

 

NICK SAFSTROM’S COLLEAGUES

With characteristic modesty, Nick has asked that some of the achievements of his colleagues be recognised in this narrative.

John Loder and right hand turn lanes – An enduring L&B innovation

Loder & Bayly was the first stand-alone planning firm in Victoria.. Prior to that, planning was an add-on to civil engineering and architect offices. The founding Principals were John Loder, a transportation planner and engineer, and John Bayly, a town planner and architect.

 

One of the important legacies left by John Loder (deceased) was to introduce the concept of right hand turn lanes.  As an inspiring planner, frustrated by delays at traffic lights by right-turning vehicles, he organised a trial project within Hawthorn and following its success, this concept was run out all over Australia.  It’s something we take for granted now – but what a difference that planning initiative has made to all of the driving public.

 

  Don Glasson and Melbourne’s bike paths

Don Glasson, also a town planner and architect, joined the firm early after its inception and later became the third partner. Don played a key role in the growing recognition of cycling as a significant transport mode. He prepared comprehensive bicycle plans for many cities, towns, suburbs and regions from Cairns in North Australia to Adelaide and parts of South Australia. He carried out the first Rail Trail Policy and Evaluation work in the Victorian Ovens Valley, followed by many other trails in Victoria and South Australia. As part of the MMBW’s and L&B’s overall strategy of linking parklands throughout the metropolitan area, Don, a keen cyclist, designed many of Melbourne’s bike paths.

 

     

Nick, Natalie Grey, Peter Haack                Bill Chandler                         Jan Martin                      Andrew Irvine

(Bill, Jan and Andrew are all deceased).

 

 

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Open Space Planning in SEQ – 1994-2021

Updated on date by author

More than 25 years after the creation of a regional open space network was recommended in the SEQ 2001 Regional Plan, South East Queensland does not have a regional park system or any coordinated network of recreational open space worth the name. The narrative of what-might-have-been is a story of opportunities lost, at least three times over.

 

Purlingbrook Falls adjacent to the rainforest purchased under ROSS in 1994 – G. Edwards

Continue Reading

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Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart Statements

Updated on date by author

The Brisbane Conference Statement, arising from the 2024 Parks and Leisure Australia Annual Conference, builds on the foundation from the 2023 International Congress’s Adelaide Statement. The Statement continues to pursue the six Pledges in the Adelaide Statement:

  •  Promote Sustainability
  •  Advocate for Equity
  •  Foster Collaboration
  •  Embrace Innovation
  •  Champion Health and Wellbeing
  •  Community Engagement.

The Hobart Statement was endorsed by the November 2025 Annual Conference, with the same six themes re-endorsed. Further information  is available on the website of our partner Parks and Leisure Australia.

 

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Victorian Protected Areas Council

Updated on date by author

Victoria’s national parks and other “protected areas” on public land form a world-class network of areas encompassing representative examples of many of the State’s diverse ecosystems and much of the biodiversity they contain. They safeguard many of the State’s flora and fauna species, preserve sites and features of indigenous and historical heritage, provide vital environmental services like carbon storage and water catchments, and offer nature-based recreation that supports local and regional visitor economies. They are valued as a living cultural landscape by Traditional Owners, with many now jointly managed.

“Protected area” is a clearly defined geographical space recognised, dedicated and managed through legal means to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values (adapted from International Union for Conservation of Nature, 2008). In Victoria protected areas on public land include: national, state and wilderness parks; marine national parks and sanctuaries; conservation parks; nature conservation, nature and bushland reserves; some natural features reserves; and reference and remote & natural areas.

Despite their significance, Victoria’s public land protected areas face ongoing management and resourcing challenges. Marking the 50th anniversary of the National Parks Act (1975), a group of retired protected area managers identified the need for a professional body to offer independent advice and advocate for improved resourcing and management of Victoria’s public land protected areas. They also identified the need for a professional body to connect and represent current and former protected area management staff and facilitate opportunities for former staff to stay connected and make ongoing contributions to public land protected area management.

On 28 October 2025, the group incorporated as the Victorian Protected Areas Council Inc. and approved its Constitution and Terms of Reference. Click here for the Terms of Reference.

The purpose of the new body is “To advocate for:

  • The critical role of protected areas in conserving and protecting natural, cultural and visitor values and ecosystem services;
  • Improved effectiveness of public land protected area management in Victoria; and
  • Strategic additions to Victoria’s public land protected area network to ensure comprehensive, connected and adequate representation of the State’s natural areas, diverse ecosystems and biodiversity.

“To be a professional association for Victorian public land protected area managers to:

  • Support the professional development of current public land protected area professionals; and
  • Provide a forum for former public land protected area professionals to stay connected and continue contributing to protected area management in Victoria.”

For more information, refer to the Council’s website https://victorianprotectedareascouncil.org/.

 

Review Status: Pending
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Parkland surrendered at time of subdivision

Updated on date by author

In the late 1990s, the planning profession in Australia became enthusiastic about performance-based planning, by which applicants for development were supposed to justify their projects in terms of satisfaction of idealised principles, as distinct from the prescriptive planning by which applicants hitherto were required to satisfy detailed or at least specified standards. Whether by design or as an unintended consequence, this shift has been beneficial to the property industry as it placed local government officers and public servants on the defensive in attempting to condition developments so that ample public space is brought into public ownership to cater for the needs of new residents.

Practice between local governments and between states has long been disparate. In Victoria, the legislation specified a minimum charge and some local governments used the provision to extract large tracts of open space. For example, the  Shire of Sherbrooke negotiated sometimes as much as 90% open space contribution, in steep or fire-prone localities of the Dandenong Ranges (such as became the Selby Bushland Reserve). By contrast, in Queensland prior to 1997, legislation specified a maximum statutory charge, reflecting the state’s pro-development ethos.

In developing localities, it’s vital that sufficiently large corridors of land are reserved for public purposes and it’s particularly important that floodplains, wetlands and ridgelines be reserved from incompatible development and (in the case of watercourses) to allow space for soft engineering works to manage stormwater.

The Land Planning Branch of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources sought to draft some guidelines for planning officers in local governments and departmental staff in dealing with development applications. The intention was to provide an authoritative benchmark to fortify officers in negotiations with developers and even perhaps in court. Jeremy Addison, a qualified planner and an officer of the Department, produced a draft working paper that was not considered finalised and was not published by the Department. It is replete with references to the statutory planning and land tenure legislation in operation in Queensland in the late 1990s-early 2000s, after the passage of the (now superseded) Integrated Planning Act 1997. It is included here because there are few known similar guidelines in public circulation and so the paper has contemporary value beyond historical interest. Its shortcomings should not be attributed to Mr Addison.

 

The “Parkland Surrender” paper addresses how much land should be offered up for public purposes in new subdivisions like this site of a proposed estate at Caboolture West, South East Queensland.

 

Surrender by developers is not the only method and perhaps not the most effective method of securing public open space. Melbourne’s metropolitan parks system, including Petty’s demonstration orchard at Templestowe, was funded by a general “metropolitan improvement” rate.

 

Some notes

In Queensland, performance-based planning was introduced in the Integrated Planning Act 1997, modelled on the Resource Management Act of New Zealand, although without any provisions for allocating (privatising) state land or mineral assets.

Previous legislation had specified that land taken at subdivision was to be surrendered to the Crown and then (usually) reserved for public purposes with the local government being invited to serve as trustee. Local governments objected to this safety net provision which provided a brake against disposal of the parkland, because (they argued) it was easier to rationalise their park holdings and sell isolated pockets if held as freehold. Yes, small pockets of land are inherently more expensive to maintain than a comparable acreage added to a large district park, but they are serving a different clientele.

It has been argued that land surrendered at subdivision is a tax upon the future residents, so only land of benefit to them should be taken; in other words government has no right to levy developers on behalf of users in a regional or or remote catchment. However, subdivision is a privilege, not a right, and a district- or regional-scale surrender is appropriate, so long as the levy is for a public interest purpose and is permitted by the legislation. (The precise wording of the legislation is critical).

Invitation to planners and landscape designers

Critical feedback is invited from any person with survey or planning expertise and who would like to collaborate with PaRC in building the working paper Parkland Surrender at Time of Subdivision into a modern guideline applicable across Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands. Please contact secretary @ parcaustralia.com.au. PaRC would also like to know of other comparable current or historical guidelines that can be re-published here.

UPDATE 2024

Eminent planner Marcus Spiller has drawn attention to an Occasional Paper on this subject, Public Open Space Contributions in Victoria.

 

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Open Space Contributions in Victoria

Updated on date by author

Renowned planner Dr Marcus Spiller, Principal of the eminent planning and economics firm SGS, has granted approval to upload some signature documents to PaRC.

 

In 2024, Dr Spiller and colleague Jo Noesgaard  published an Occasional Paper proposing a preferred approach to the calculation of public open space (POS) development
contributions under Victorian legislation. Councils rely heavily on development contributions under Cl53.01 of the Victoria Planning Provisions to acquire and develop public open space. However, there is little formal guidance from the State Government as to how the rates which are potentially enshrined in Cl53.01 might be calculated and strategically justified.

Business as usual arrangements, under which most of metropolitan Melbourne is covered by contribution rates of 5 per cent or less of site value, would see a rapid
deterioration of access to POS given the projected strong growth of the city. As councils go about reviewing their Cl53.01 rates, it is important that they have regard to four key principles.

These include:

  • treating the municipality as one planning unit;
  • ensuring that POS supply is adequate in quantum, accessibility, and quality;
  • applying contribution obligations equitably regardless of the timing of development; and
    applying contributions to all land use types.

This timely and authoritative report complements an earlier post on PaRC Parkland surrender at time of subdivision featuring a draft guideline by Queenslander Jeremy Addision.

Review Status: Pending
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Valuing Good Urban Design

Updated on date by author


Renowned Australian planner Marcus Spiller, Principal of the eminent planning and economics firm SGS, has granted approval to upload some signature documents to PaRC.

A consultancy with Gold Coast City Council resulted in the report Valuing Good Urban Design on the Gold Coast, which includes a substantial account of methodology and the justification for urban design:

 

 

 

 

 

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Regional Planning and Regional Coordination – Qld, 1973

Updated on date by author

This is an important report, dated about 1973, explaining the intentions of the benchmark 1971 legislation the State and Regional Planning and Development, Public Works Organization and Environmental Control Act 1971-1973.

it is an important statement of the views of the Queensland Government of the day about regional land use planning, development planning, consultation and coordination. Published by the Office of the Coordinator-General.

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MidCoast Walking Cycling and Trail based Activity Strategy

Posted on date by author

MidCoast Walking Cycling and Trail based Activity Strategy

 

This strategy is part of the MidCoast Parks & Recreation Planning Portfolio, a group of 9 strategies and plans for the management of the 827 parks and reserves, and the activities that take place in them, on the MidCoast of NSW.

 

This strategy sets out a 10 year plan for the management, enhancement and addition of paths and trails throughout our urban, coastal and mountain reserves.

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MidCoast Playspace design and maintenance guidelines

Updated on date by author

Playspace design and maintenance guidelines

 

These guidelines have been developed by play planners and designers, as well as council operational staff who are experienced with play design and maintenance.

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Queensland Government Statewide Outdoor Recreation Framework

Updated on date by author

In 2014 the Queensland Government issued a policy statement endorsed by 17 public authorities, the Local Government Association  and the peak body for outdoor recreation, the Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation. Titled the Queensland Government Statewide Outdoor Recreation Framework: A Collaborative and Coordinated Approach to Outdoor Recreation in Queensland, to achieve endorsement from such a large number of authorities was no mean feat. The statement was intended to replace an earlier one Queensland Outdoor Recreation Strategic Framework 2009—2014 which had run its course.

The Framework was designed to protect and improve access to outdoor recreation places and spaces; promote outdoor recreation opportunities and participation; and enhance the sustainability and capacity of the outdoor recreation sector.

Yet despite the fact that there is nothing political in the statement, after the government was replaced by one of the opposite partisan denomination the following year, the Framework disappeared from the Department’s public website and public servants were instructed by the incoming government to work on something different.

It is not difficult to be quite angry at the waste of human capital when the work of representatives of 19 different entities is discarded in this manner. Anyone who has worked in an interdepartmental role will understand how time-consuming it is to gain endorsement of their agency to a multilateral policy position.

It gets worse. By law, all Queensland publishers, including government departments, commercial organisations, clubs, churches, societies and private individuals, are required by law to deposit one copy of their publications with State Library of Queensland (SLQ). The document appears in the SLQ catalogue, but clicking on the hotlink within the catalogue record yields the following message:

Oops, page does not exist!

Fortunately, the Queensland Outdoor Recreation Federation (now Outdoors Queensland) salvaged a copy and PaRC is pleased to re-present it here.

Researchers in this field should also search the PaRC Document Library which includes a number of reports on the subject, including the Outdoor Recreation Demand Studies of 1998 and 2007.

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Regionalisation and regional development – Phil Day

Updated on date by author

Dr Phil Day was a tier 1 advocate of regional development, as explained in a separate post. His personal papers contained a selection of press releases, letters to editors and speeches to conferences on the subject of regional or balanced development. This compilation includes:

  • “Regionalisation”, 13 August 1974
  • “Dynamics of Regional Development” and “Regionalism Resurgent?, papers  to a National Conference on Regional Development, 30 August 1974
  • press releases on the North Queensland New State Party, 12 July 1977 and 28 July 1977
  • North Queensland New State Party Conference, 1 September 1977
  • correspondence, 30 July 1980
  • “Towns in Search of a City” (Canberra”), 22 August 1984
  • letters to the editor of two newspapers, 25 May 1997 and 2 February 2002.

The papers are in chronological order. Scanning of the first of these papers is rather suboptimal but the other papers in the compilation are quite legible and provide a valuable insight into Dr Day’s deep insights into the issues.

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Melbourne’s Metropolitan Parks – 1974-1990

Updated on date by author

This Post presents a number of documents, mainly by officers of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, during the period of establishment and rapid development of that city’s metropolitan parks system.  For details about individual parks, search for their name.

First a compilation of some 13 documents (33 MB) including maps, tracing the evolution of the system “as it happened”.

Some of the documents in this compilation were written for internal purposes and are unpolished. Taken together, they explain what in the words of Denis Simsion, then Deputy Chief Planner commencing at page 41, “The Metropolitan Parks programme and policies of the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works are among the most enlightened and far-sighted of any metropolitan area in the world today.”

Mr Simsion is entitled to take a good deal of the credit for the system, as is Neville Wale, commencing at page 29, who provided much of the intellectual justification. All of Victoria owes a huge debt to these and the other officers and Commissioners who picked up a bright idea and turned it into practice.

The Premier Rupert (Dick) Hamer and Chairman of the Board Alan Croxford should not be forgotten. It is rumoured that the Premier instructed the Chairman that he ought to do something about open space. A figure always larger-than-life, Mr Croxford apparently presented a program to a subsequent Board meeting of more than 50 Commissioners. It is rumoured that as the Commissioners were starting to question the wisdom of making an open-ended commitment  to purchase huge acreages of land (by virtue of zoning as Proposed Public Open Space in the 1971 amendment to the  planning scheme), he cut off the discussion with a brusque command “All right gentlemen, enough debate, all those in favour-against-carried” before any of the sceptics had a chance to object. Thus was born a program of incalculable value to the people of Victoria and beyond.

PaRC Secretary Geoff Edwards writes: “In my capacity as Acting Manager of the Metropolitan Parks Branch in 1985, I was able to personally observe that this public-spirited mentality had endured when I presented a draft platform to the Board (by that time much reduced in number of members) requiring a multi-million-dollar commitment to capital works and maintenance over the forthcoming year. The Chairman, Ray Marginson, when questioned by a sceptical Commissioner about the implications for the budget, remarked “We will find the money somewhere, borrow it or raise rates or whatever”. If only today’s political leaders could take such an approach towards the fiscal naysayers!

A document entitled “Metropolitan Park Policies – Adopted 14.4.75” and dated May 1983 has survived; unclear whether it was original or a 1983 revision.

For a concise summarised overview of the metro parks journey, see the separate post by John Senior “Evolution of Melbourne’s Parks and Waterway System“.

 

 

 

 

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Definitions of sport, open space, recreation and NRM

Updated on date by author

From its first establishment, PaRC has focused on parks, open space and ‘passive’ recreation, without aspiring to cover active sports, because of the existence of the Australian Clearinghouse for Sport. Over the years, the Clearinghouse has increased the range of valuable knowledge materials that are freely available on its Internet page and PaRC’s current policy is not to duplicate those materials. (By way of exception, we have been re-publishing some legacy documents on sport that have otherwise disappeared from public view).

The December 2024 Newsletter of Parks and Leisure Australia has drawn to attention a series of definitions of sport and related concepts published on the website of the Clearinghouse and has prompted us to make another exception, given their likely value to the entire sports and recreation sector. We have extracted those definitions and place them here in durable PDF format as a benchmark document What is Sport?, one that may reach a different audience and does not depend on an external hotlink.

This set of definitions nicely complements several other documents in PaRC:

Dictionary of key terms, including Western Australia’s 2012 Classification Framework for Public Open Space.

Definitions for natural resource planning and management

Definitions of outdoor recreation, including Outdoor Recreation: Key Concepts, Trends, Issues and Stakeholders – a 1999 in-service training manual by Queensland’s Department of Tourism, Sport and Racing.

Definitions of open space

Definitions of scenic amenity.

Review Status: Pending
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