Have you seen the new works at Davies Park? What do you think?

Last week The Westender wrote to Brisbane City Council requesting an update on the the progress of the Davies Park Improvement Project.

Council advised today that the work on the upgrade has been continuing during the COVID-19 shutdown and announced that the works are now complete.

The works included:

  • creating new greenspace and improve vistas;
  • building a new multi-use games area, including some skateable elements;
  • resurfacing part of the internal park roadway;
  • installing drainage to reduce flooding in the park;
  • replacing the existing sand volleyball courts with a multi-use hardcourt and gravel surface;
  • installing new shade trees and landscaping;
  • installing a new accessible toilet block with six cubicles.

The Lord Mayor, Adrian Schrinner, said that upgrade was completed at a cost of $2.9 million.

“West End is a vibrant community and Davies Park has helped foster this community spirit as a hub for both Saturday morning markets and sport and leisure,” Cr Schrinner said.

“Upgrades across all six hectares of the park are making sure it’s an even better place for resident and visitors, with more greenspace for the community, better landscaping and new facilities.

You may have noticed that a number of trees have been removed from around the park and that the mounds around the oval have been leveled so that the oval is now visible from Montague Road.

The design changes mean that the Saturday Davies Park Markets will no longer be able to occupy the roadway area closer to Montague Road. 

Cr Schrinner said that Council has planted new shade trees and has provided a new multi-use games area and new multi-use hardcourt. There’s also five new park benches.

Cr Schrinner said Council partnered with Souths League Club to design the upgrade to modify their lease boundary and make more than  4000m2 of new space available to the public, including a village green space on the Montague Road frontage of the park.

“Upgrade projects like this one also provide a positive boost for the local economy and generate jobs for workers, contractors and suppliers, which is vital during the coronavirus pandemic,” the Lord Mayor said.

Council advised The Westender that it is currently working with the Jane Street Community Garden to determine future improvements.

Update, 11 April 2020:

Jonathan Sri, Councillor for the Gabba told the Westender:

“While I don’t 100% agree with all the design decisions council ended up making, I’m really glad we were able to score some decent improvements for Davies Park and I’m looking forward to seeing heaps of people outside enjoying it in the future.

“I still think we need a bigger dedicated skate park somewhere in Kurilpa, as well as new playgrounds, larger dog off-leash areas and more sports fields, so I’ll continue to pressure council and the state government to buy up industrial sites along the northern end of Montague Road to actually create new parkland.

“The only reason council invested in this project was that my office kicked up such a stink about lack of investment in green spaces for West End.” “One of the main reasons this project got off the ground is that we agreed to allocate a couple hundred thousand dollars from my local park upgrades budget, which went towards the small skate plaza beside Montague Rd.

“There’s probably a good strategic lesson behind this project. By offering to contribute a bit of funding from the Gabba Ward ‘Suburban Enhancement Fund’ I was able to leverage that into a much larger capital investment from the LNP council’s annual budget. This is the same approach we took to get more upgrades to Buranda Common in Woolloongabba.”

See earlier stories here: