Upper Cobbler Creek

The Upper Cobbler Creek is a much-loved recreation area which provides excellent opportunities for walking, cycling and horse riding in the north-eastern area of Adelaide. Located within the suburbs of Golden Grove and Greenwith, the Upper Cobbler Creek Corridor was established by Delfin as part of the Golden Grove development but is now owned and managed by the City of Tea Tree Gully. The corridor is highly valued by the community as an environmental asset due to its remnant vegetation, watercourse, habitat for native animals, and links to the Cobbler Creek Recreation Park.

Prepared by URPS and Swanbury Penglase, the Upper Cobbler Creek Action Plan provides a vision, strategic directions and associated actions to better manage this important recreational and environmental asset. The plan seeks to address a number of environmental issues such as the deposition of sediments and weed infestation. It also recommends creating a multi-use trail; improving the connections with Cobbler Creek Recreation Park; providing additional facilities such as toilets and signage; and providing a 'main entrance' to the corridor. Improvements such as these will encourage greater use of the corridor by both local residents and visitors. Importantly, the action plan will ensure that the corridor can continue to be loved by future generations.

The Minister for Urban Development & Planning released the Ministerial Mount Barker Urban Growth Development Plan Amendment (DPA) in June 2010 for public consultation. This DPA proposes to rezone approximately 1300 hectares of rural land on the edges of Mt Barker and Nairne for residential and light industrial use.

With the aim of ensuring that its community was well informed and empowered to comment on the Ministerial DPA, the District Council of Mt Barker engaged URPS to run a series of information sessions for the local community. These six sessions were extremely well attended, with more than 300 people able to hear about and ask questions regarding the Ministerial DPA process and how to go about getting involved in this part of the planning system.

In a letter to the editor of the Mt Barker Courier, Jean Lovell of Nairne said that "Mt Barker Council is to be congratulated for its commitment to proper community consultation" and that URPS was "highly professional and responded in detail to questions in an articulate, honest and informed manner".

This is evidence of the success of these types of community information sessions and the goodwill and engagement that Mt Barker Council has fostered with its community through the process. We also believe that this type of process leads to informed and valuable input from the community to key planning initiatives such as this Ministerial DPA."