Patrick – whose campaign for Lord Mayor is centred around drafting new 10 and 20-year planning strategies for Adelaide – this morning released his proposed timeline for developing and implementing his “City Plan” within 18 months of November’s Adelaide City Council elections.

The former senator and submariner is running against incumbent Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, who has emphasised that the current council already has work underway on a long-term planning vision for the city.

The timeline for Patrick’s City Plan – encompassing strategies for population and transport, greening and sustainability, streets, squares and the Adelaide park lands – would see preparation work commence in January 2023 through to April 2023.

“On day one I’ll be asking the new Council, with whom I’ll be working collaboratively, to adopt a five-stage highly transparent and consultative process to develop a City Plan,” Patrick said in a statement.

“18 months after the Mayoral elections we’ll have a plan for all to see and for the state government to commit to supporting beyond the next state election.”

Patrick also vowed, if elected, to release any prior planning studies completed by the council “but kept secret from the public”.

Those documents would then be published on a new “City Plan web portal” along with a call for submissions from individuals and organisations.

Patrick said stage one of the process would also involve the Adelaide City Council establishing new “planning participation agreements” with the state and federal governments and neighbouring councils.

Patrick’s proposed City Plan would then go out to tender for six weeks in May 2023 seeking applications from two planning firms, which would then have from July 2023 to September 2023 to draft a preliminary City Plan.

The plans would undergo eight weeks of public consultation from October through to November 2023 with “public meetings” chaired by the Lord Mayor, ahead of a final plan being signed off by the council in a three-month period from February to April 2024.

Patrick said the final stage would see council develop the legal instruments, actions and procedures to carry out the final City Plan.

“No-one knows what the city will look like in 10 years,” Patrick said.

“All development seems to occur haphazardly. Some promised developments seem abandoned – a bikeway, a concert hall, child care centres – while other ad hoc projects have gone ahead.

“I know that you can’t get good outcomes without a plan and so I’m putting a City Plan forward as a priority platform.”

Verschoor said earlier this month that her council had already begun work on developing a long-term planning vision.

“We’re the first council in years to actually have it in our strategic plan and we’ve already started work on it,” she said on August 8.

“The delivery of that, which is sort of the spatial and strategic vision for the future of development and experiences in the city, is something that we’ve been working on for quite a long time now.”

The centrepiece of Verschoor’s re-election campaign is a $1 million cultural infrastructure fund – $500,000 of which will go towards “contributing” to the build of a 150-seat theatre – and a promise to plant a minimum of one tree for every day she’s in office.

“Running for Lord Mayor is not my plan B,” Verschoor told CityMag last week.

“I’ve dedicated my life – my working life – to the city in many forms.”

Patrick said he acknowledged work had already commenced on a City Plan this year but claimed: “We have seen nothing in terms of progress on the April announcement.”

He has since filed Freedom of Information requests of the City of Adelaide seeking access to any timeframes associated with the incumbent council’s plans.