Here is the trust’s full list, including its explanations of the sites’ significance, the threats they face, and suggested action to protect them:

Lower Lakes and Coorong

Significanc e: The Lower Lakes and Coorong contain a high diversity of ecological systems and species including many of particular conservation significance (at national, state and regional level). The area is recognised as one of the top six water-bird sites in Australia and is listed as a wetland of international significance under the Convention of Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran 1971). The Lower Lakes and Coorong region is also of high cultural value to the Ngarrindjeri people, who maintain a strong connection to the land, fish, birds and other living things. It is a major tourist and holiday destination popular for recreational, social and cultural activities.

Threat: Existing regulatory structures and excessive water extraction have, for many years, placed stress on the natural systems of the Lower Lakes and Coorong by changing the volume and pattern of seasonal flow of water. This has been exacerbated by the current drought and will further deteriorate under proposed new regulatory structures and reduced River Murray flow. The ecology of the region has already changed under this stress. Studies show there has been an ongoing decline in biodiversity and population abundance for various species, including aquatic plants, migratory and sedentary birds, fish and frogs.

The SA Government is taking three actions at present, none of which address the problem of lack of provision for environmental flows. In March it released a Draft EIS under the EPBC Act for the Proposed Temporary Weir near Pomander Island, Wellington. The sole purpose of this weir is to ensure water supplies for urban users. The EIS does not give confidence that all the impacts described in both the construction and the filling phases are minimal or manageable during the three to six months when no flows will pass into Lake Alexandrina. In particular, it acknowledges that the following three matters of National Environmental Significance will be adversely affected: 1) wetlands of international importance – a whole suite of already degraded habitats in a critical state of ill health due to contraction of the water body; 2) listed threatened species – three fish, the Yarra pygmy perch, Murray hardyhead and Murray cod, and one frog, the southern bell frog, and 3) listed migratory birds.

In addition, the SA Government is constructing three barriers to pump water out of Lake Alexandrina into the lower Finniss and Currency wetlands and Goolwa channel to mitigate against the effects of acid sulphate soils. It has also stopped pumping water from Lake Alexandrina into Lake Albert. While governments and the community agree that an increase in the volume of water is desperately needed, no allocated water has been returned to the lower river system for the environment under current legislation or policy.

Action: Our vision is that the biodiversity of the Lower Lakes and Coorong be conserved. This can only be achieved by ensuring critical environmental water requirements are met by increasing the volume of water reaching the Lower Lakes and enabling seasonal flow patterns to be at least partially restored into the Coorong. The EIS for the temporary weir shows that the impacts are not manageable or environmentally responsible.

Port Adelaide Maritime Heritage

Significan ce: The Port of Adelaide was one of South Australia’s earliest settlements, and has historically been the major port of entry to the state. Its diverse maritime heritage includes the old Customs House (on the State Heritage Register), the Fletchers Slip, (now provisionally on the State Heritage Register), the ketch “Falie”, the auxiliary ketch “Nelcebee”, the Port Adelaide Sailing Club and the Waterside Workers Federation Hall.

Threat: Lack of appropriate maintenance, and in the case of the last two items, the threat of demolition from Port Adelaide waterfront development

Action: Urgent maintenance, and where appropriate, heritage listing.

Bells Plumbers Shop (15 Payneham Road, College Park)

Significance: This shop (which is on the State Heritage Register) is believed to have been built in about 1883, and was purchased by David Bell in 1893. It was in use as a plumbing business until at least 1985. It is significant as an example of a Victorian era shop and dwelling in what was until last year in an unusually original condition.

Threat: The present owner has applied to the Norwood, Payneham, and St Peters Council to demolish the building.

Action: Refusal of the application to demolish and the urgent undertaking of repairs, including repairs to a large hole in the side wall caused by an explosion.

Glenside Hospital (226 Fullarton Road, Glenside)

Significance: Glenside Hospital occupies a large site close to the Adelaide CBD. The hospital is one Australia’s best examples of mid 19th-century planning for the mentally ill.

The original concept was for a series of substantial and high-quality stone buildings, formally arranged within a park like campus, surrounded by farms. The heritage values of Glenside relate not only to the architectural quality of individual buildings but also the sophistication of the original site planning. The quality of this scheme has been diminished, particularly by the design and location of new buildings erected from the 1970s, but remains discernable and recoverable. The spirit of the original campus plan has the potential to provide a sympathetic basis for guiding the location, form and scale of new buildings on the site. The 2003 Conservation and Management Plan does not adequately assess the significance of this aspect of Glenside.

The campus includes nine State Heritage-listed buildings, 11 structures nominated for local heritage listing and almost 200 significant trees.

Threat: The Department of Health plans to erect a new hospital on part of the site. This program involves the sale and redevelopment of large areas of the campus.

The best practice approach to a site of Glenside’s significance is to prepare a well researched masterplan for the whole site. This must, firstly, document the key qualities of the place which need to be sustained and then identify appropriate new uses for redundant buildings and suitable sites and forms for new buildings which will not compromise the heritage significance of the place as a whole.

Unfortunately the current Glenside Campus Concept Masterplan is a poorly conceived, ad hoc planning document which does not represent best practice principles in managing and developing an historic place.

The current masterplan divides the site into five precincts: a heritage precinct, a commercial precinct fronting Fullerton Road, two precincts identified for residential development and a precinct for the development of a new hospital.

A proper masterplan is needed which treats the site as a whole, and respects and recaptures some of the spirit of the original landscape plan.

Action: Preparation of properly scoped masterplan for the whole site, including a thorough assessment of the landscape values of the whole site, the brief to be prepared in consultation with the Heritage Branch of the Department for Environment and Heritage and the National Trust. The master planning process to include full consultation with key stakeholders including local residents, hospital staff, patients and their families Burnside Council and the National Trust.

No action should be taken regarding the sale and further demolition of any part of the campus until a new masterplan is completed. This must, firstly, document the key qualities of the place which need to be sustained and recovered, particularly the landscape values, and then identify appropriate new uses for redundant buildings and suitable sites and forms for new buildings which will not compromise the heritage significance of the place. A review of the land required for current and future mental health services should be part of this process.

Adelaide Park Lands, former railway yards

Significance: The City of Adelaide Park Lands are the most distinctive and unique asset of Adelaide's cultural and natural landscape. The Park Lands are of unique and potent character and natural beauty, a place for solitude and recreation, a definitive icon and invaluable asset of the city, essential to the city's cultural identity and growth of the State's tourism enterprises. The former railway yards near the Morphett Street Bridge were constructed in the 1860s, effectively alienating a large area of open space from the Park Lands.

Threat: After the railway yards were decommissioned, they were identified as a priority target in the master plan, developed under the 1999 Park Lands Management Strategy (PLMS). The master plan was to guide the return of this alienated land. The Government of South Australia passed the Adelaide Park Lands Act in 2005, establishing an authority to prepare and maintain a new Adelaide Park Lands Management Strategy (APLMS) covering both Adelaide City Council and state-controlled areas of the Park Lands. However, in order to pursue its proposal to build a major hospital, medical research centre and retail hub, it has bypassed the authority and the new APLMS process to create a special precinct for this, the largest development funded by government in the city’s history.

Once again, a State Government project will exacerbate the existing and inappropriate interference with the primary purpose of the Park Lands and is contrary to its desired character. Increasingly, commercial developments such as this have been permitted in the Park Lands along North Terrace, such as the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Adelaide Convention and Exhibition Centres and the Wine Centre. Last year the Adelaide City Council and community groups fought hard and successfully to defeat the State Government’s Victoria Park redevelopment proposal.

Action: The vision for the Park Lands is that it be protected and enhanced as a place of unique and potent character, natural beauty, active and passive recreational and cultural endeavours. To do this, the Park Lands should be recognised as one of South Australia's most valuable assets and essential to its cultural identity by its entry on the State Heritage Register. The power of the Adelaide Park Lands Authority should be respected and enforced, the creation of the “special precinct” rescinded, and until the new APLMS is adopted, then the objective of the 1999 PLMS for the return of the railway yards to open space should still stand and be respected.

Harris, Scarfe Ltd

Significance: The Rundle Street building is a substantial neoclassical style structure and one of the last remaining of Adelaide’s old departmental store buildings. It is architecturally significant and has rich historical associations. Its façade makes a strong presence to the street. It was assessed and recommended for local heritage listing in 1982 and again in 1993.

Threat: The present owner proposes to demolish all the buildings on the site and to construct a 14-level retail building. incorporating the existing ACC’s carpark.

Action: Retention of the Rundle Mall façade, and incorporation of the cast iron columns (originally part of an arcade that ran from Rundle to Grenfell Street), and adjoining warehouse buildings at 15 Lindes Lane and 14-18 Francis Street.

Chelsea Cinema

Significance : The cinema was built to a late art nouveau design by Adelaide architect Chris Smith. It opened in 1925 and has operated continuously ever since. In 1941, the building was renovated under the direction of F Kenneth Milne, who designed a new art deco auditorium, foyer and façade. The cinema retains a majority of its 1941 features. It is on the State Heritage Register. It is owned by the Burnside Council and leased to Wallis Cinemas. It is one of Adelaide’s most intact large suburban cinemas and is one of those special places which give a sense of character and identity to a locality.

Threat: The Burnside Council has decided to sell the cinema. Heritage listing alone is unlikely fully to conserve the site. In private ownership, at best, the cinema would be divided into a number of smaller cinemas, thus compromising the interior, and at worst the building would be converted to other uses.

Action: If it cannot be leased as a cinema, it should preferably remain in public ownership and, for example, be used as a shared resource by a number of adjoining councils.

Cheltenham Park Racecourse

Signific ance: The Cheltenham Park Racecourse is part of Adelaide’s metropolitan urban landscape. Located north-west of the city centre in the suburb of Cheltenham, it comprises an area of 49 hectares of open space in a heavily built-up area. The Port Adelaide Racing Club bought the site in 1921 and the champion horse Tulloch became the first Australian horse to pass the $100,000 stakes mark when he won the S.J. Pullman Stakes at the track in 1961. In 2006, the South Australian Jockey Club (SAJC) asked the State Government to rescind the legislation that prohibited “residences, shops, factories or other like premises” in order to sell the land to private developers for housing.

Threat: The re-zoning proposal was contained in a Development Plan Amendment document released by the Minister for Urban Development and Planning and open for public consultation until January 2008. The rezoning allowed for 17 hectares of open space for recreation and wetlands to capture on-site stormwater. The SAJC then sold the racecourse to AV Jennings and Urban Pacific for $85 million.

In the face of community opposition, in February this year the Government announced that the stormwater scheme would be enlarged to capture about 1.2GL of water. However, the Cheltenham Residents Association (CRA) has taken the Government to court, claiming its decision is unreasonable given the previous open-space proclamation, and that it has failed to take account of risks from flood plain mapping.

Poorly conceived urban consolidation and design threatens our cultural and natural heritage landscapes due to the loss of open space and the loss of identity. Cheltenham Racecourse is yet another example of the continued erosion of public land or open space that is occurring in South Australia. The Glenside Hospital redevelopment and the new Royal Adelaide Hospital proposal in the Adelaide Park Lands are others.

Action: A recent survey of residents by a local politician showed that more than 85 per cent valued the land for open space and wanted it retained for recreation. This strong expression of community will, as well as the CRA’s court case and judicial review underway into the Minister’s decision to grant planning approval for housing development, should cause the State Government to reconsider its position and conserve the land as open space for multiple recreational and environmental purposes.

La Eurana Convent, Naracoorte

Signific ance: The building dates from 1900 and is a handsome two-storey structure of random stone with dressed stone quoins, lintels and window sills. It was a convent school from 1904 until 1973.The Fitzpatrick family then lived there until 2004.

It has been identified as being of local heritage significance, but has not been protected because the local council does not have a heritage list.

Threat: The current owner has indicated his intention to demolish it for a car park, and has permission to do so.

Action: The building should be retained and adapted for commercial tenancies. Alternatively, as the building has been decontextualized, it could be moved to another site that is actually available. It is understood that the Save the Convent Group has applied to the Federal Government for a jobs grant.

Morgan Building, (Pulteney Grammar School)

Significance: This is a large and imposing two-storey bluestone building (circa 875) on South Terrace which retains a large degree of original detailing and structure, apart from some alterations to the verandah form and capping of the central section of the roof.

The later verandah, while not in the original style, has been carefully designed to complement the original form of the house. The house indicates the original use of this major street as prime residential land facing the parklands. It forms a counterpoint to the heritage listed building on the western corner of Symonds and South Terrace.

Threat: The school has applied for a federal grant with a view to demolishing the building and building another in its place.

Action: That the school be urged to use its grant to add to, and incorporate, rather than demolish, this historic building.