Other Facilities

In Alice Springs, we are blessed with a range of unique and won­der­ful parks that offer a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent uses. Over­all, Coun­cil oper­ates and main­tains 69 parks, includ­ing local recre­ation parks and ameni­ty parks across the municipality. 

To help with the strate­gic main­te­nence of our parks sys­tem, Coun­cil have devel­oped a Parks & Play­grounds Imple­men­ta­tion Plan. This plan takes a detailed look at our parks sys­tem and is the result of exten­sive con­sul­ta­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion with var­i­ous stake­hold­ers, chart­ing the path for­ward in regards to our parks.

It out­lines a com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy, detail­ing our com­mit­ments to enhanc­ing exist­ing parks, explor­ing sus­tain­able and effi­cient options to main­tain­ing our parks and improv­ing live­abil­i­ty for all res­i­dents. We aim to pro­vide inno­v­a­tive, inclu­sive, and sus­tain­able parks that cater to the diverse needs of our com­mu­ni­ty, from chil­dren and fam­i­lies to our senior res­i­dents and visitors.

Imple­ment­ing this plan will require the con­tin­ued sup­port and engage­ment of our com­mu­ni­ty and we encour­age you to get involved. You can take part in this process through active par­tic­i­pa­tion in future con­sul­ta­tion ses­sions, pro­vid­ing feed­back on park designs, or sim­ply enjoy­ing the parks with your fam­i­ly and friends. The Parks Imple­men­ta­tion Plan is avail­able below:

Parks Divest­ment 

In devel­op­ing the Parks & Play­grounds Imple­men­ta­tion Plan, it was clear that Coun­cil has more pub­lic spaces than the aver­age Aus­tralian town. Alice Springs has 6 hectares of pub­lic open space per 1,000 res­i­dents, that’s rough­ly 1.5 MCGs! This is com­pared with the Aus­tralian stan­dard of 2 – 4 hectares. While this is a unique strength of our town, it also makes main­tain­ing them all an unre­al­is­tic goal: the more parks we have, the hard­er and more cost­ly it becomes to main­tain all of them to a high standard.

That’s why Coun­cil is explor­ing the idea of divest­ing nine under­utilised parks across the munic­i­pal­i­ty. This means poten­tial­ly sell­ing or repur­pos­ing spaces that are no longer meet­ing the needs of the com­mu­ni­ty or are not fre­quent­ly used. By focus­ing resources on our most pop­u­lar and val­ued parks, we can improve their qual­i­ty, safe­ty, acces­si­bil­i­ty, and ameni­ties — deliv­er­ing bet­ter spaces for every­one to enjoy.

We under­stand that local parks hold per­son­al and com­mu­ni­ty val­ue, which is why any deci­sions will be made with com­mu­ni­ty input. Our goal is to ensure that pub­lic open spaces con­tin­ue to sup­port a healthy, active, and con­nect­ed Alice Springs — both now and into the future. 

Con­sul­ta­tion

The nine parks iden­ti­fied for pos­si­ble divest­ment were select­ed after a range of fac­tors were con­sid­ered, includ­ing park usage, prox­im­i­ty to oth­er parks, main­te­nance costs, and rein­vest­ment poten­tial. But don’t wor­ry, absolute­ly no deci­sions have been made about the future of these parks. We want your feed­back first! 

Coun­cil will be hold­ing infor­ma­tion ses­sions to speak about divest­ment in more detail, with the times, loca­tions and dates list­ed to the left. These ses­sions will be a chance for you to ask ques­tions of the Coun­cil team and best under­stand what the poten­tial impacts of this project could be. If you can’t make an in per­son con­sul­ta­tion ses­sion, you will still be able to give your feed­back through our online sur­vey. You can fill out the sur­vey below!