A successful community submission for the 21/22 budget has $20000 allocated to improve Unley Grove Pocket Park in Ascot Vale. Council has received the initial community ideas for the park and have undertaken initial works planning.

We would like to involve community in the planning and development of the park ideas. Council is seeking feedback over two stages.

Stage one sought to capture additional ideas and to clarify the priority of these ideas for the shared space. Feedback was open over November and December 2021.

Thank you to everyone who provided thoughts and ideas. We have attempted to consider all of your feedback in the plans. Using this information, we created the pocket park design from community feedback (available to download on the right). The plan incorporates community ideas and concerns including:

• Replacing the monoculture of Lomandra and Dietes with a variety of native shrubs and small trees to attract local wildlife;
• Retaining a similar ratio of lawn to garden bed;
• Allowing for the road to be used when large street parties are arranged, but encourage casual park users to remain within the lawn area;
• Allowing for good visibility for traffic and pedestrian safety;
• Moving the seat to a more suitable location for casual use and enjoyment of the green space;
• Consideration for vegetable beds and productive elements.

The feedback included concerns about the use of food plants within the design. To address this, we have omitted productive trees at this stage and included portable vegetable beds instead. The vegetable beds can be removed if there are ongoing issues. Alternatively, if the productive aspect is embraced and used by the community we can add a productive tree in coming years.

Stage two will give community an opportunity to give additional comment on this design. Please look at the Pocket Park Design and add your comments via the survey below. We will accommodate these comments where possible and begin construction soon.

We hope you enjoy seeing your community vision come to life.

Pocket park design with ideas from community feedback in stage one.
A PDF of this design is available to download from the right menu.