JIM FAGAN
Designs for a rebuilt boardwalk around Noosa National Park and tar sealing work on Dr Page’s Rd at Cootharaba to complete a scenic route around the shire are being prepared by Noosa Council civil engineers.
Both projects are estimated at a total cost of $8 million and Mayor Noel Playford wants them “shovel ready” in anticipation of substantial funding from Canberra. “If we can say we are ready to go and that we can call tenders, we are much more likely to get the tick. I firmly believe the Federal Government is going to come out soon with a program for spending millions of dollars on infrastructure and we want to have something ready.” And even if the funding from the Federal Government isn’t forthcoming, the council is going to do the work anyway. As Mr Playford told Noosa Today on Tuesday, “not because it is nice to have, but because it is essential.” Repair work on the boardwalk from Hastings Street to Little Cove was done a few years ago and according to the Mayor, the rest of the ocean walk is in a “pretty disgraceful state. It will fall apart pretty soon and we have to rip out what’s there and put a new one in. It’s past its used by date. It was put there in 1984, so it’s 30 years old now, and desperately needs replacement. “The work won’t be done by council labour. It will need specialist workmen.” Mr Playford said he thought the cost would be $3 million plus. “Part of the work will be in conjunction with work on the road around there as it is continually slipping because it’s just on sand. The foundations of the board walk will also be designed to stabilise the road. “The road around the National Park in my lifetime has slipped completely twice and has been been rebuilt at great cost. Part of the cost will be putting in really deep piles to stabilise everything.” He said the other significant job was tar sealing about four kilometres of dirt road on Dr Page’s Road through to Kinmond Creek Road at Cootharaba. “It is an important connecting road and the work will provide a sealed loop right around the rural area, right around the shire. “Some hire cars you can’t take on dirt roads. They can’t do a loop. They can’t go to Boreen Point, Kin Kin, Cooran, Pomona, Cooroy and back here to Noosa because of 4km of dirt road which is $5 million’s worth. “We’re going to these projects anyway, not immediately but over time. If the Federal Government suddenly says, however, ‘we will give you 75 per cent, we will very quickly find the other couple of million especially at the low rates of today.”
