Yarra Park 2 August 2010The East Melbourne Historical Society has published a gallery of photographs recording the current condition of Yarra Park, perhaps at its worst in living memory.
As many residents of East Melbourne have noticed, car parking in Yarra Park throughout this wet football season has been severely damaging to the Park. As an estimate, 70% of the Park's surface is now down to bare dirt or mud. Scores of trees are damaged, dead or vanished. Trucks and cars are driving over the roots of trees and parking hard up against them. Even the historic Aboriginal trees have only thin, narrow fringes of grass around them. The gallery tells the story quite unambiguously.
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Under the management of the City of Melbourne, Yarra Park would have been closed for car parking long before it reached the current state of devastation. It has become so bad that rotation of parking areas is no longer sustainable. The Park will now take months to repair naturally and hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace the trees that are dead and dying and to stop the erosion.
However, the dollars are not the issue. Yarra Park is an essential part of the heart and spirit of Melbourne. It cannot be allowed to continue in this condition or to sink even further.
Despite the management of Yarra Park transferring to the MCG, the City of Melbourne has a critical and continuing interest in its well being as demonstrated by its active support of the Park's recent Heritage listing.
Residents of East Melbourne might care to approach the Lord Mayor and encourage him to exert his influence on the MCG to close Yarra Park for car parking until the end of the football season at least.
It might also be worth suggesting that he convene a Lord Mayor's standing committee of community representatives and experts to advise on the management of Yarra Park and to develop a plan for its long term development and sustainability.