David Plumridge

2014 candidate for Adelaide City Council.
Heritage survey responses.

1. What do you think Council's role is in protecting and conserving heritage?
   1. To identify and list for protection all items of heritage value including buildings and places of architectural and social significance to the community. 2. To work with the Government to ensure that all heritage places whether of Local, State or National significance are listed under relevant legislative instruments and are genuinely protected and preserved. 3. It is also important for council to recognise and protect the overall character of the city by establishing conservation zone overlays which retain precincts of character which may not be deserving of heritage listing.

2. What measures and incentives do you support to protect and conserve local heritage?
   I support thevAdelaide City Council's HeritagevIncentives Scheme and will advocate for it to be funded at current levels in real $ values. I also believe that the scheme should be applied more flexibly and be allowed to fund bigger projects where justified. It should also be used to assist in the adaptive re-use of heritage buildings. Council should advocate more strongly for the return of State funds to assist with the preservation of State-listed heritage properties and the provision if technical advisory services.

3. What is the most important heritage protection issue in your local government area?
   Getting Minister Rau to agree to the listing of professionally assessed and deserving properties and establishing heritage overlays in the current Residential and Mainstreet DPA which is awaiting his sign-off and to get him to allow Council to reintroduce its Heritage DPA covering the CBD and southern part of the city.

4. What policies and programs will you advocate to protect and conserve heritage in your local area?
   I think I have covered the required policies and programmes in my responses above. I would like to see Council strengthen its partnership with the National Trust on the website listing of our joint activities in such programmes as identifying Adelaide's major heritage buildings, the streets naming programme and I would like to see the National Trust work with the Council to establish its own list of Heritage Buildings and Places (as the Trust used to do) to at least draw attention to significant buildings that the Government is failing to do.

5. Do you support local Councils retaining development approval powers for projects over $3m in value?
   Yes The new provisions introduced by Regulation whereby a bureaucrat on North Terrace can strip away from Councils - and therefore the community - are draconian and must be resisted. Any such changes should at the very least be considered in the context of the findings of the Expert Panel on Planning Reform which had yet to report.

6. Do you have any other thoughts about the protection of heritage in your Council area?
   It is a matter of extreme importance to the City of Adelaide. The beauty and attractiveness of Adelaide relies heavily on its heritage character. Even if your interest is based on economic or other considerations you cannot ignore the value of heritage as a driver of tourism and environmental benefit. A city full of high rise glass and concrete boxes with only tokenistic older buildings retained as some kind of museum pieces will not be attractive and will destroy one of the most important characteristics of the City, the one major feature that sets Adelaide apart from many other cities.