Belair National Park - former golf course site and other projects

For­mer golf course site improve­ments and maintenance

• Removal of old assets will con­tin­ue. Any exist­ing struc­tures from the for­mer golf course deemed unsafe will be removed from the area.

• The carpark and entry road will con­tin­ue to be upgrad­ed to improve the visu­al pre­sen­tation, vis­i­tor safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal val­ue of the area, as well as reduc­ing van­dal­ism and anti-social behav­iour. Unsafe park­ing and ille­gal 4WD access will be man­aged par­tic­u­lar­ly along the entry road.
• The Friends of Belair may con­tin­ue reveg­e­ta­tion plant­i­ngs around bush­land areas of the fair­ways, under the guid­ance of park rangers. Plant­i­ngs will be man­aged to ensure they enhance exist­ing habi­tat areas and not impact slash­ing oper­a­tions or fire risk. 

• Improve the exist­ing Birdie Loop trail – with a pri­or­i­ty on man­ag­ing drainage and wet areas.
• To address the dust nui­sance issue with­in the car park, an unsealed sur­face has been laid as a tem­po­rary measure.

Adven­ture Play­ground upgrade

• Some sec­tions of the adven­ture play­ground will be upgrad­ed. The exist­ing met­al-framed play­ground will be demol­ished to make way for new play equip­ment which will improve the vis­i­tor expe­ri­ence, decrease safe­ty risks and min­imise ongo­ing maintenance.
• DEW are cur­rent­ly in the design phase with con­struc­tion planned to com­mence from August 2025. 

• The Adven­ture Playground’s play tun­nels and fort sec­tions will remain unchanged dur­ing these works. The tun­nels, fort and nature play sec­tions of the play­ground have been iden­ti­fied for poten­tial future upgrades and are sub­ject to avail­able funding.

Play­ford Lake development 

• Stage 1 was com­plet­ed in August 2024. This includ­ed earth­works to refurbish/​realign the exist­ing walk­ing trail pro­vid­ing a DDA com­pli­ant, Class 1 stan­dard trail and the con­struc­tion of stairs, board­walks, bridges and view­ing platforms.

• Stage 2 is in the plan­ning stage with deliv­ery of the works sched­uled for the sec­ond half of 2025. This includes an upgrade to carpark­ing and toi­let facilities.

His­to­ry of the changes to the for­mer golf course site

The for­mer Belair Golf Course and Coun­try Club Func­tion Cen­tre were sit­u­at­ed in the Belair Nation­al Park near the main park entrance on Upper Sturt Road, Belair. Estab­lished in 1935, the site occu­pies approx­i­mate­ly 50 hectares in the south-west cor­ner of the park.

Man­age­ment of the site trans­ferred to the pri­vate sec­tor in 1982 and was man­aged under lease until 2017. The Belair Car­a­van Park has also been oper­at­ing adja­cent to this site for many years. 

When the lease end­ed in 2017, a mas­ter plan­ning process was under­tak­en to seek expres­sions of inter­est for the site and hear com­mu­ni­ty views about the area. In response to com­mu­ni­ty feed­back, the Belair Nation­al Park Man­age­ment Plan Amend­ment 2021 was adopt­ed to help tran­si­tion the land to future uses that sup­port con­ser­va­tion and recre­ation. In 2021 the Golf Course/​Caravan Park Zone was replaced with a new Con­ser­va­tion 3 Zone, facil­i­tat­ing alter­na­tive land uses for the precinct. 

DEW con­tin­ues plan­ning works to inte­grate the for­mer golf course into the wider reserve to ensure all new pro­pos­als com­ply with the man­age­ment plan and enhance the vis­itor experience.

Site work com­plet­ed to date

• Removal of the Coun­try Club Func­tion Centre
• Repairs to the entry road lights
• Repairs to the entry road
• Upgrades to improve the​Birdie Loop trail
• New sig­nage installed at vis­i­tor entry points
• Con­crete pads and Disc Golf Bas­kets installed
• Instal­la­tion of fenc­ing and gates in car park­ing area (help­ing Rangers man­age ille­gal activ­i­ty on the site out of hours)
• New line mark­ing in the car park area

Third par­ty pro­pos­als for the site

Two pro­pos­als were suc­cess­ful fol­low­ing the EOI process.

• SA Disc Golf Asso­ci­a­tion (SADGA):

SADGA have installed an 18-hole disc golf course on the for­mer golf course fair­ways. Vis­i­tors are able to play casu­al­ly on this course, with some organ­ised events to take place on approved dates. The course is planned to ensure that disc golf activ­i­ties will not inter­fere with oth­er types of recre­ation at the site. 

• Escape­goat Adventures:

Well-known moun­tain bike tour oper­a­tor, Escape­goat, has tak­en up res­i­dence in the for­mer Pro shop, offer­ing bike hire, great cof­fee and snacks for visitors. 

Oth­er third par­ty changes happening

1. Belair Nation­al Park Hol­i­day Park have under­tak­en upgrades to their site includ­ing refur­bish­ment of cab­ins, beau­ti­ful wall art and upgrad­ed entry infra­struc­ture. They also recent­ly added to their leased area, incor­po­rat­ing part of one of the for­mer fair­ways the south of their orig­i­nal bound­ary. Fenc­ing of this new leased area is now complete.
2. A com­mu­ni­ty work­ing group have been suc­cess­ful in start­ing up a pop­u­lar Parkrun event on the site of the for­mer golf course.
3. Escape­goat Adven­tures have com­menced con­struc­tion of a new pump track on the site of the for­mer Coun­try Club. Once com­plet­ed, the pump track will be open for pub­lic use. Escapegoat’s Goat Shed, along with the for­mer Golf Course will remain open to vis­i­tors dur­ing construction.