Royal Park Master Plan Update

We held a General Members Meeting on 22 March:

Royal Park Master Plan – for Better or for Worse?

This informal talk was presented by: Ron Jones Landscape Architect JONES & WHITEHEAD Pty Ltd Ron, along with Brian Stafford, was one of the authors of the winning entry in the 1984 Royal Park Master Plan Design Competition. Brian and Ron, supported by a team of sub-consultants, authored the 1985 Landscape Development Plan. After Brian’s involvement in the park stopped, and Ron was a member of the City of Melbourne’s urban design team, where he helped to resolve the redesign of the Zoo car parking and main entry area. When the Council’s public consultation process showed strong support for continuing the directions of the 1984 design, Ron worked closely with members of Council’s Parks and Recreation team and consultants from Chris Dance Land Design to prepare the updated 1997 Master Plan. Ron provides some perspective on the original Master Plans and what is missing in the proposed update.

The video of Ron’s talk is here. (38mins)

The submission by RPPG can be found here.

The draft RP Master Plan public submissions closed on 23 February 25.  We now await the response of Council to all the submissions received.

Bird Watching anyone?

One of our keen bird watching members has set up an iNaturalist  “Project” called Royal Park, Parkville which collates all the entries already logged in iNaturalist and any future entries that occur within the perimeters shown on the map (see link). 

Check it out… https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/royal-park-parkville. If you click on “view all” next to Recent Observations, you can scroll through all the photos people have uploaded. The ones listed as “research grade” have been verified as the correct identification.

There are some “learning the system” links which are :  Getting Started · iNaturalist   and  Video Tutorials · iNaturalist  which differ depending on whether you use phone or PC.   However there are many more functions available using a browser via the Web rather than the App.    

We hope that we can get more people to add entries over time, especially moths & bats.

Building a database of the birds, bats, insects and animals in the Park will enhance our ability to protect the Park from future threats.