South Australia

Location: Significant and Inspirational Landscapes

Threat:     Failure of the planning framework to identify and protect. Significant and inspirational Landscapes

Significance of Place

Over the next ten years otherwise familiar tracts of rural land around Metropolitan Adelaide, and along the coastal areas of South Australia’s South-East, and the Eyre and Yorke Peninsulas, will be slowly colonised by an army of friendly giants.

Standing approximately 100 meters tall with sleek arms waving almost constantly, these wind turbine generators will capture the power of the winds and produce clean-green electricity.

The National Trust acknowledges the importance of developing renewable energy infrastructure in Australia. However, the National Trust is committed to the protection of significant and inspirational Australian landscapes.

Correlating geographic features mean that it is common for sites favoured by developers for their high wind speeds to also be landscapes of outstanding visual attractiveness. This means that large areas of the South Australian coast are viable locations for wind farms for example.

These landscapes throughout the State that are regarded as picturesque or inspirational and which have high scenic or natural landscape value, must be protected from this kind of intrusive development.

Description of Threat

With just over 451 wind turbine generators already having been granted planning approvals to farm the wind in South Australia, and more licences being approved, the matter is intensifying.

Currently the State Government is unable to advise developers where Wind Farms may or may not be placed. It is the developers’ responsibility to provide the identification and assessment of significant landscapes, and to indicate the visual impact of their proposals.

There is a need to establish a classification and assessment methodology to assess the cultural value of SA’s landscapes, in order to efficiently direct these developments to less sensitive areas.

Excessive time is being taken to process the Wind Farms Plan Amendment Report (PAR) and Planning Package. Given the community’s interest, the delays by Planning SA in the processing of the PAR and Planning Package may be at risk of being viewed in a cynical light.

Action Required

With so much attention being focussed on South Australia by the renewable energy industry it is important for the government to rapidly develop a balanced planning framework that will both encourage developers, and protect the community’s interests in our significant landscapes.

A careful approach will prevent the visual-erosion of our breathtaking natural and rural landscapes.

The National Trust has called on the State authorities to immediately commission

independent landscape-classification surveys identifying vistas of significant cultural, scientific, historical or aesthetic value, for developers as well as the community, and thereby remove our most inspirational landscapes from unacceptable risk. In assessing development applications, the relevant authority should be required to have regard to those surveys.

In the face of obvious state inaction interim measures requiring higher standards of landscape

classification, should be introduced to ensure protection is provided to South Australia’s most attractive, inspirational, and still relatively unspoilt landscapes.