By Margaret Maccoll
Only a casting vote from Noosa depity mayor Frank Wilkie decided the temporary Park Road walkway will become permanent.
With voting three in favour and three against it, Cr Wilkie used his casting vote to protect the future of the walkway..
There was robust debate amongst the councillors over the future of the pathway that was constructed to provide pedestrian access to the Noosa National Park only during construction of the Park Road Boardwalk between April and November 2018.
Council heard that the cost of upgrading the temporary path to meet footpath standards would be about $100,000 and the cost of removal about $130,000.
A council officer told the meeting while the path was only meant to be temporary council had received three submissions from residents to retain the path and one submission to remove it.
The officer said the pathway could again provide pedestrian access if repairs were required on the boardwalk, residents would be disappointed if it was demolished and it would have been remiss of him not to bring residents’ requests to council attention.
“It was only planned as temporary. Is it perfect, no. It’s an opportunity to retain it. It’s a higher cost not to keep it,“ he said.
However Cr Tom Wegener said the pathway would only provide alternative pedestrian access for a short area of the boardwalk if repairs were required and would otherwise service only four properties (including 11 strata title properties). He said it also posed a safety issue for pedestrians who would need to cross the road near the entrance at the national park to access it.
“$100,000 is a lot of money. The public would want it to be used for the public, not for these four properties,“ he said. Cr Wegener said he supported an alternate option to block the path to permanent use but retain the structure for future temporary use, if required.
Cr Karen Finkel described council’s action on the footpath as “ad hoc“, saying the footpath’s removal would have been costed in the original boardwalk project, which the officer admitted it had been. She said plans for a permanent footpath on the site should follow the process required of any other project in the shire.
Cr Frank Wilkie said it made good sense to leave the footpath that had been used by “hundreds of people“.
Mayor Clare Stewart said she had recently walked the footpath, had found no one else on it and that it did not provide disability access.
Cr Brian Stockwell described the footpath as a “valuable asset“. We can retain it, upgrade it for less than the cost to take it down, he said.
A final decision on the footpath was to be made at Council’s Ordinary Meeting on Thursday evening.
