An online petition has commenced in support of saving Sydney Olympic Park’s Stockroute Park amid plans to demolish and redevelop it as part of the Sydney Olympic Park Master Plan 2050.
Stockroute Park is steeped into the Greek Australian consciousness, having been created as an Olympic tribute ahead of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.
The park is home to an olive grove, cypress trees, marble architectural fragments as well as the Discobolus Monument (created by Robert Owen), with it coming off the financial support of numerous Greeks, institutions and community organisations.
It also links to similar tribute sites in Atlanta, USA and Athens, Greece, for their respective Games in 1996 and 2004.
The Master Plan 2050 proposes to demolish and redevelop the site to make way for new high-density apartments and shops with a height control of 41 metres (roughly 14 storeys).
Costas Dantos, one of many concerned Greek Australians, has set up an online petition to illustrate the number of individuals upset with the proposal.
“In December last year members of the Greek community very slowly started to become aware of the proposal,” Dantos told Neos Kosmos.
He found out about a written petition going around the Pan-Thessalian Federation of Sydney and NSW “Karaiskakis” (for which he is Secretary) and thought to put one online as a means of expanding its reach.
“The more I read into the project, the more I realised its importance and I felt sick putting it off,” Dantos said.
“The message is to sign it as there is still a chance we can save it or I would not be wasting everyone’s time,” he said, stressing that signing does not require any cost whatsoever with any donations going straight to change.org rather than the organisers or the cause itself.
He expressed his sincere hope that the petition gains traction given the Park’s significance to the Greek community so it can be spared from the current plans to demolish and redevelop the site.
“Hopefully it is just an oversight and planners and especially Greek members of NSW Parliament overturn this decision,” Dantos said.
He remarked that the petition is open to everyone, not just Greek Australians, as he hopes the cause raises the attention of all that wish to preserve the site deeply connected to the history of the Sydney Olympic Games.
“The olive trees and information wall are great, but let’s also do something more to it, let’s just hope they spare it from destruction!”
