Your views: on CBD offices and more
Today, readers comment on office workers staying home, ambulance pressures and planning laws.
Photo: Tony Lewis/InDaily
Commenting on the story: Omicron surge deters more city office workers
Maybe people don’t want to work in the city anymore. Instead, create jobs in the suburbs (or low and behold – The Country).
To me, the biggest thing that Covid has said is: rethink centralisation and concentrate on diversification. More jobs everywhere, less “supply chain issues”, less reliance on central manufacturer /suppliers. – Garry Shearing
Commenting on the story: Govt taskforce to report on using MFS to ease ambulance pressure
I’m certainly not putting myself forward as any type of expert but I was an ambulance patient three times over the last summer period.
Of the three trips, I would suggest that one of them was urgent for which I got magnificent quick service, the other two could have been regarded as taxi trips.
In both of those cases I sat in the back of an ambulance for between two and three hours to get to triage, in both cases taking an ambulance off the road. – Geoff Stewart
Commenting on the story: Eight-storey block wins bid to rise on The Parade
The approval by the State Planning Commission (SCAP) of the development on The Parade, Norwood, represents the many deficiencies in planning policy since the introduction of the Planning, Development & Infrastructure Act 2016 (POI Act).
It is a matter of public record that many people across South Australia have long voiced their concerns regarding this legislation introduced by the former Labor Attorney General John Rau. The legislation ditched South Australian local council Development Plans which represented the accumulated wisdom and knowledge over many decades of historians, heritage advisers, local councillors and local resident groups – not just developers, investors, architects or expert planners.
The Planning, Development & Infrastructure Act 2016 (POI Act) through the infamous Code now represents a generic one-size-fits-all approach to planning policy in South Australia. However, the concept of heritage value and cultural identity cannot be reduced to a single value.
By examining the artist’s rendition of the approved development for The Parade it is obvious that the building is out of scale with the surrounding streetscape and will forever change the cultural landscape of The Parade and the aesthetics of the surrounding areas.
The building’s massive footprint and its bulky architectural form will dominate the local skyline. It simply is at odds with the heritage character of The Parade and Osmond Terrace. This new development, like many other major projects along this once beautiful main street, is not sympathetic to the scale or ‘spirit’ that defined and made Norwood unique until recent years.
The continued destruction and loss of built heritage in Adelaide’s urban and regional areas is a daily occurrence. If nothing else, Covid 19 and climate change have made it clear that our buildings impact on our well-being. Isn’t this why city workers don’t want to go back to their office towers and shops? Governments ignore the lessons of history at their peril. – Denise Schumann