By JONATHON HOWARD
NOOSA councillors have made a unanimous vote to write to the Australian Heritage Council in support of National Heritage listing for the Cooloola region.
Preserving Cooloola’s natural beauty is something all councillors agreed was a good move during recent council meetings, including Councillor Tony Wellington and Mayor Noel Playford.
However, both Cr Wellington and Mayor Playford were initially opposed to the motion moved by Councillor Bob Abbot which excluded an area around the airstrips at Teewah from the heritage listing proposal.
Cr Abbot said he wanted to ensure that any future construction of a shed on the Noosa North Shore Landing Ground was able to go ahead without being impacted by the National Heritage listing. In speaking against the motion, Cr Wellington said he didn’t believe the listing would have any impact on such a development as a shed was consistent with existing use.
To provide further clarity around the issue, Cr Tony Wellington provided Noosa Today readers with the following statement.
“In the case of the National Heritage listing for Cooloola, both the mayor and I voted against a motion moved at the general committee meeting,” Cr Wellington said.
“This was not because either of us opposed council’s support for the National Heritage listing.
“On the contrary, we are both fierce advocates for this historical and long-awaited recognition for Cooloola.
“The motion before us sought to excise certain parts of Noosa North Shore from the listing recommendation.
“It was some of these exclusions that led myself, and presumably also Mayor Playford, to vote against the motion.
“In essence I wanted to see more land included in the Heritage listing than the motion allowed for.
“However a majority of my fellow councillors were happy with the identified exclusions and so the motion was carried.
“This successful motion from the general committee meeting was thus the motion that went to the ordinary meeting to be ratified.”
Mr Wellington said the dispute over the excluded areas had been resolved by majority vote at the general committee meeting and there was no point in revisiting that debate.
“Thus at the ordinary meeting there was unanimous support from all councillors to have Noosa Council write to the Australian Heritage Council in support of National Heritage listing for the Cooloola region,” he said.
