By JOLENE OGLE
MEMBER for Noosa Glen Elmes has said the Noosa Civic expansion is a great idea if the applicants create a good mix of tenants.
“I’ve looked at the tenants that are likely to go in. There’s an Aldi store and Coles and others. I think it’s the wrong mix,” Mr Elmes said.
“There is an awful lot of money that leaves Noosa and goes to the south, either to Maroochydore or Brisbane, and people are spending money down there.
“Now, if there was a way of putting a new tenant mix together that stopped a lot of that money leaving town, then that’s not a bad thing because you’re going to create employment up this way and keep a lot of our money here and hopefully people from outside of Noosa will come in and shop.”
Mr Elmes said simply adding another supermarket wasn’t the answer and won’t bring in the much-needed cash to Noosa, rather a needs-based approach should be considered.
“One of the things that happened when the Civic was built, one of the great things was Big W because back in those days when people went looking for simple things such as school uniforms, they had to go all around the town and it cost them a fortune or they were going to Maroochydore to buy it,” he said.
“So a lot of that stuff is serviced through Big W now and that’s a good thing because Big W employs lots of Noosa people. So we have to look at what we’re losing and the areas we’re losing in and if you’re going to expand, how are we going to plug those gaps to stop that drain of cash? If we can do that, there’s an argument to expand the centre, but if you can’t do that, there is an argument not to.”
CCIQ Noosa are currently collating feedback from their members to learn how best to approach the community consultation with Noosa Council, but CCIQ Noosa president Sarah Fisher said the majority of the feedback so far had been negative.
The Noosa Council community consultation portal is open for public submissions until 30 July and anyone can make a submission via council’s Your Say portal – www.noosa.qld.gov.au.
