The Federal Government will provide $30 million towards the Adelaide Oval redevelopment.
The money will help to pay for 375 underground car parks and a wetland walk on the oval side of the River Torrens.
The Prime Minister Julia Gillard made the announcement at the oval this morning.
She says the funding will ease concerns about traffic congestion in the city during sporting events.
"What we've announced today is going to meet the needs of the local community so they're going to be reassured there will not be cars across their driveways," she said.
Three hundred of the car parks will be built beneath the new eastern stand with the remaining 75 to go beneath the indoor cricket centre at the oval's southern end.
The Prime Minister was flanked by South Australian Cricket Association (SACA) president Ian McLachlan, Acting Premier John Rau and Member for Adelaide Kate Ellis.
Ms Ellis conceded the contribution was less than the State Government initially asked for.
"I think South Australians would expect their treasurers to be asking for perhaps more money than they're going to get in the end. We think that this is a fair contribution."
SACA president Ian McLachlan says the funding will cover most of the remaining costs of the project.
"This extra 30 million really rounds out most of the important things that need to be done. There are some other things that we could do, but they're not essential," he said.
The State Opposition's treasury spokesman, Iain Evans, says the purpose of the funding is to cover the cost of a budget blow-out.
"Before the election, the State Government were telling everyone in South Australia that they could build the oval for $450 million and not a cent more," he said.
"The total cost now is well over $600 million, and the $30 million today primarily goes to paying for car parking that was already part of the project anyway."
The chief executive of the Infrastructure Department, Rod Hook, says the main purpose of the money is to provide extra parking space in the parklands.
"The two underground car parks, whilst they will contribute to support parking for major footy or cricket games, they will be mainly used for functions down here at the oval in non-major event days. That's 375 cars that otherwise may be parked around the surface in the northern parklands. Those cars can go underground and out of sight for the normal non-major event day," he said.
"We were already intending to do the 300 car parks underneath the eastern stand because that's part of the contract documents. The fact that the Federal Government is paying for that gives us roughly 15 million to redirect into other aspects of the project.
"We hadn't made a commitment to do the car park underneath the indoor cricket centre. We knew that we had to make a decision by the end of January on whether we had the funds to commit to that or not.
"This announcement today means we'll immediately commit to that."
The decision ends uncertainty about the Federal Government's contribution to the redevelopment, which was one of several infrastructure projects put on hold after the Queensland floods.
The State Government will spend $535 million on the redevelopment.
Work has begun on the project and is expected to be completed in time for the start of the 2014 AFL season.
Tags: states-and-territories, federal-government, sport, cricket, australian-football-league, adelaide-5000, sa First posted December 28, 2011 08:25:12
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