While major projects wrought the most dramatic changes to Adelaide's built character during the Bannon decade, smaller residential and commercial developments occasionally attracted considerable public protests that sometimes brought about changes to heritage policy. The first major protest of the period was the lengthy campaign to save the Aurora Hotel in November – December 1983, which raised public consciousness of the built heritage and resulted in the formation of the AHA lobby group. Other controversial small projects of the period were:

• multiple dwellings to replace the heritage-listed Kingsmead and Belmont House in North Adelaide in 1983

• office developments at the St Paul's Church and Somerset Hotel sites, Pulteney and Flinders Sts, in 1989

• office development at the House of Chow site, Wakefield and Hutt Sts, in 1991

• redevelopment of Gawler Chambers in North Terrace as a 10-storey hotel in 1991.

Some of these buildings were saved from demolition and I consider them here because of the issues they generated and because they prompted changes in government policies. The Adelaide community showed through direct action that the loss of these buildings mattered deeply, and as a result the concept of heritage was broadened from past buildings of architectural quality and/or historical significance to buildings that were local landmarks or parts of streetscapes that were the backdrop to community life.