Northern suburbs labelled a ‘junkyard’ as dumped cars line roads
A local is campaigning to get rid of dumped cars in the northern suburbs, claiming one vehicle has been sitting on the streets for “close to three years”.
A rise in dumped vehicles across Adelaide’s northern suburbs is polluting the area and forcing residents to park up to 500 metres away from their homes, a Mawson Lakes resident told InDaily.
Andrew Leung has been lobbying Salisbury Council and SA Police since he started noticing “dumped vehicles” were increasing in numbers during 2024.
“Back in December 2024 I actually found that there were 12 unregistered vehicles, which I ended up labelling as dumped vehicles,” Leung said.
He found a further 12 dumped vehicles in Mawson Lakes over December 2024 to January 2025 and 11 over the same period in 2025 to 2026.
“The longest offender has been sitting for close to three years now.”
“A lot of them have cobwebs, deflated tires. There was one van that I reported to the City of Salisbury where the front tyre was actually falling off the vehicle,” he said.
“These vehicles aren’t in a roadworthy condition”.
While SAPOL is responsible for unregistered vehicles, the council is responsible for enforcing parking restrictions and other parking matters. However, Leung claimed that little to no action has been taken by either party and although some cars were briefly registered, many of their registrations had since lapsed.
In a response to InDaily, the City of Salisbury said that while the council was “aware of a resident’s concerns around cars in Mawson Lakes”, “there is no issue with dumped cars in the council area”.
They added that “concerns around parked cars or alleged abandoned vehicles are addressed using a range of enforcement and educational tools to improve parking behaviours in the area and across our city”.
However, according to Leung, many of the vehicles were unroadworthy and their presence significantly impacted the area and the residents’ way of life.
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“There’s also a significant social damage in terms of causing restricted on-street parking for local residents… some people have to park up to 500 meters away from their own home, because these dumped vehicles take up a lot of the on-street parking”.
“These vehicles are just waiting, there’s oil leaking onto the roads, into waterways, damaging the flora and fauna,” Leung said.
“It’s having a social and reputational impact to not only Mawson Lakes, but the wider Adelaide. It’s becoming a junkyard”.
A SAPOL spokesperson said police were not aware of the issue, and the issue “sits squarely as a council matter to enforce with removal of said motor vehicles that are abandoned”.
