After three years and two long summers, Nielsen Park returns as a people’s playground

“Once you close it to public access, you upset a lot of people. This is a special place, and access to it has been entrenched,” he said.

But it had been a very complex project, with bad weather and unexpected finds, including the discovery of asbestos which took a “long time to remove”, he said.

Nielsen Park was designated public land 120 years ago after a group called the Harbour Foreshores Vigilance Committee lobbied to stop it being sold.

The campaign was led by the commodore of the Sydney Sailing Club, William Notting, who argued the harbour foreshore should not belong solely to individual landowners.

Notting said then: “It is useless … to talk about Sydney possessing the most beautiful harbour in the world, unless steps be taken to prevent it becoming a private lake. At present, it is little better than a pond in a privately owned paddock.”

The land near the park and to the east at Parsley Bay narrowly escaped being sold, except for the last-minute intervention of the NSW government’s works minister Niels Nielsen, for whom the park was named.

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Khan said the works included improved accessibility and safety features, including a wheelchair-accessible pedestrian ramp at the eastern end of the beach, additional seating, new landscaping with extra trees in a grass area on the promenade, renovations to The Kiosk, the Halbert Pavilion, the Swimming and Life Saving Club and the dressing pavilion.

Writer Ailsa Piper was waiting in the shade for it to reopen. For her, the park had always been a place of solace and comfort when she had experienced grief and loss.

“I have a deep love for this place,” she said.

Its closure and delays had been frustrating, not just to people who lived nearby like her but to the many others who travelled to visit.

“This place belongs to the whole of Sydney. And I just hope that the word gets out quickly to all the people who’ve been coming here for 40 years for their Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.

“One of the beautiful things about being here on those days is that you just see these families who’ve been coming for decades.”

Piper said her heart nearly broke one day when a large family group arrived at the park for a celebration after travelling for hours only to find it was closed. They were turned away.