By Margaret Maccoll
Cooroy Area Residents Association (CARA) are calling on Noosa Council to scale-back the proposed Hinterland Adventure Playground design and conduct a wider community consultation on the project.
Noosa Council is pushing ahead with the project though Mayor Clare Stewart said Covid-19 had delayed the assessment of tenders and there would be further discussion on it.
Noosa Council has allocated $1 million in the 2020-21 Budget which is included in its $27 million Capital Works budget to progress the playground, she said. The State Government has committed $2.8 million to the project.
CARA president Rod Ritchie said residents from the association would like the proposed $5.2m playground at Mill Place “scaled back”.
“Everybody thinks it’s a very overdeveloped project,” he said.
Mr Ritchie said a smaller scale playground would be more affordable to maintain and better suit the small town.
“For a small town to spend $5.2m on a playground seems frivolous at this stage,” he said.
“We want something good but think it’s totally over ambitious.”
He said community groups were given briefings on the project during planning but apart from information stands at the Noosa Show and the Community Hall the project was never really put to the community for consultation.
Cr Stewart said the new council would be briefed on the project within the next fortnight.
“Our staff are still assessing tenders for the project and we hope to have further talks in coming weeks about the project,” she said.
Former Mayor Tony Wellington described the playground as a “place-making” project for Cooroy with benefits to health and wellbeing as well as employing consultants, builders, artists and maintenance workers.
He said to not proceed with the project would mean giving back to the State Government a grant obtained for the playground.
In 2006 a Mill Place master plan was developed which included a smaller scale playground but design staff had collaborated with playground to come up with the design concepts.
The playground plan retains the natural creek and mature trees along its border and retains an existing man-made drain as a point of interest, while the central feature of the playground will be “a man-made water-play area.
There was $100,000 allocated to “art discovery elements” and wheelchair accessible elements will include view platforms, sensory gardens, accessible pathways and facilities, water play access and rock stacking activities.
