Dorset Street Reserve is safe, despite housing development, council promises

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On a back block in Murray Bridge’s west, a gravel path snakes through an oddly shaped stand of mallee trees and native vegetation.

As far as anyone knows, that vegetation at Dorset Street Reserve has been there since before European settlement.

It has rare value and protected status.

So how was a major housing development approved for the northern half of the block, coming right up to the treeline?

Several readers posed the question to Murray Bridge News in recent months, so we went looking for answers.

Here’s what we found.

‘This remnant is an extremely valuable asset’

The area now known as Dorset Street Reserve was described in a 2000 study as the best remnant of sandy mallee shrubland north of Ferries McDonald Conservation Park: an “extremely valuable asset”.

At the time, the area had community land status, protecting it from any kind of development without public consultation.

The council quietly revoked that status in 2005; no comments were received from local residents during a consultation period.

But when an agreement was struck to sell the land to a retirement village developer, it sparked outrage.

A councillor at the time, June Phillips, launched a public campaign to save the reserve – one which ended up in court.

Prominent botanist Darrell Kraehenbuehl AM was among the supporters who got on board.

Dorset Street was an important “stepping stone” for native animals in the region, Greening Australia surveyors said; destroying it would “change forever” the local population of native birds, Birds SA’s Rod Attwood said.

Councillors wound up voting in 2012 to declare the reserve historic, with the intention to turn it into a botanic park.

In 2013, on agreement with the then-Department for Environment, Water and Natural Resources, it was even used to offset the removal of native vegetation at Monarto South for a road project.

A fact not widely publicised at the time, however, was that Dorset Street Reserve did not include the whole block between Dorset, Jose and Cromwell Streets and Ashbrook Road.

The council had subdivided it along the treeline on May 3, 2010.

Google Maps might suggest that the whole block is a nature reserve, but it never was.

“The Native Vegetation Council (had) a particular interest in protecting the native vegetation in the southern parcel of land,” present-day infrastructure and environment and general manager Vi-Alternetti said.

“Council was in support of this feedback to protect the native vegetation, which resulted in a realignment of the boundary to allow council to retain the southern parcel – containing the native vegetation – as community land.

“This native vegetation on the southern parcel of land continues to be formally protected under a heritage agreement with the (state Climate, Environment and Water) Minister.”

Ashbrook Grove development is being built next door

Meanwhile, the council sold the northern half of the block to a developer for $479,600 in 2011.

But the retirement village development fell through.

Only in the past year has Metro Homes SA started work on a 51-lot residential development, Ashbrook Grove, at the site.

Lots have not yet made it onto the market, but the developer’s website describes the estate as offering “the perfect blend of affordability and quality living”.

Murray Bridge News is seeking comment from Metro Homes about how the development will interface with the reserve next door.

• More information: ashbrookgrove.com.au/coming-soon.
• Read more: Walk of the month: Murray Park and Dorset Street Reserve, Murray Bridge