Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency.
- Read the story: Repairs to start on iconic and bustling bridge
More repairs to the Bli Bli bridge: how long since the last effort? Three or four years? And still there’s no mention of increased lanes despite all the jargon attempting to justify the expenditure.
Bli Bli is a traffic mess and will likely become more so with more nearby developments, the opening of the pub and general apparent lack of any broader plan.
One would have hoped that the state and local bodies supposedly responsible for Bli Bli would have met and looked for a cohesive solution before now. Sadly, it seems unlikely.
Why waste the money on the bridge – again?
Brian Bolton, Twin Waters
- Read the story: Protest planned over national park eco-cabin proposal
I have had the pleasure of walking the Cooloola Great Walk with my daughter. It is a tough five-day walk but very rewarding as this is one of the last remaining areas in South-East Queensland that is beautiful and wild.
The concept of building cabins along the trail is abhorrent. The trail is well equipped with overnight camp sites that include fresh water and long-drop toilets. Don’t ruin it in the name of tourism.
Lew Wheller, Buderim
Regarding the proposal to install cabins in the national park at Double Island Point: what madness. Do the authorities not understand the meaning of “national park”? Why do we have surrender every pristine area to greed?
Every rich person who wants to experience the beauty of a natural, unspoiled environment is free to do so now: find the trail and walk through it. Why would you want to spoil the very things you pretend to like? Leave it alone and book a holiday at the Gold Coast and get a place with full amenities.
There must be a place where we can take our grandchildren and explain to them what the world was like before greed got control of it.
Salvador Mata Luque, Buderim
- Read the story: Coast earmarked as potential site of new desalinisation plant
Why on earth is the state government proposing a new desal plant?
I lived at Tugun on the Gold Coast when the desal plant was built around 2008. There was lots of protest from experts and the public but the state government went ahead anyway.
It was built during an extended drought period but this is just cyclical and we should harvest existing rain better as it now just runs into the ocean. We also need more and better dams.
The Tugun plant cost about $2 billion to build and costs $40 million a year just to maintain plant equipment. Queensland dams since have been at full capacity. The carbon emissions to generate electricity for it would be huge. The process, if running, requires excess heavy salt to be produced, which has to be returned back into the ocean, killing marine life off Kirra and Tugun.
This would be same at Kawana or wherever the new plant is built.
If the state government wants to do something for increased population, look to traffic, transport and hospitals as priorities.
Tony Marshall, Buddina
It’s very easy for Premier Palaszczuk to promise another saltwater desalination plant for SEQ, but I can’t help but wonder if she’s thought about where the energy is going to come from. These facilities are highly energy dependent, which might prove a challenge once our coal-burning power stations are shut down.
Paul Prociv, Mount Mellum
As usual, the LNP is trying to politicise the news about a proposed desalination plant west of Caloundra, by inferring that the release of the news is a last-minute thought bubble and not a considered possibility.
The Sunshine Coast News released this story some time ago, but the LNP spokespersons are carrying on as though it is new news.
Regardless of the worth and necessity of the project, as with any positive news from the government, the LNP have rushed in to belittle the importance of it, and then proceeded to try to swing public opinion against it, so they can claim they are looking after the ‘little people’, when the opposite is true.
In doing so they have, in the past, caused the Traveston Dam to be aborted, which is a shame because if that dam had been built, we would not now be considering a desalination plant and billions of dollars would not need to be spent on this much more expensive solution.
Alan Ward, Buderim
So, the Queensland Labor government wants us to pay $8 billion for a second desalination plant when the one we’ve got isn’t producing anywhere near its capacity output.
The Gold Coast plant’s costs per litre compared to collected (dam) water are ridiculously high, and if you attempt to get recent costs what you’ll receive is heavily redacted, out-of-date incomplete ‘reports’.
The so-called drought-proofing of the Beattie/Bligh years should be warning enough to stop this nonsense, but the current government will happily plunder your pockets for more of the same.
Even the ‘responsible’ minister doesn’t agree with the scheme, but woe betide anyone who even thinks ‘recycling’.
Odd that in a recent poll a clear majority were in favour of recycling water. But that’s Queensland Labor for you – don’t let the wishes of the democratic majority ever stop you.
Des George, Coolum Beach
- Read the story: Push for progress on proposed supermarket
Whose interests are the Sunshine Coast Council protecting with this (deemed) rejection of an application to build a Eumundi shopping centre?
The people of Eumundi have a right to a modern shopping centre within walking distance of home. This fight is similar to the unsuccessful resistance in Maleny and Buderim in the past.
Alan Ward, Buderim
- Read the story: Expert weighs in on region’s transport future
You would think Main Roads would get their act together given the congestion and constant crawl on the Sunshine Motorway section between Kawana Way and Mooloolaba due to traffic incidents.
How about two electronic billboards, one at the northern approach to the motorway exit, off the Bruce Highway, and another on the southern side?
That way real-time updates can be posted on motorway congestion and motorists can consider an alternative route instead of being banged up in traffic hell.
And while they are at it, for heaven’s sake on the Sunshine Motorway Mooloolaba/Mountain Creek exit, put up an information sign advising motorists that this is also the exit for Kawana Way and the hospital. Is that too much to ask? This is 2023, not 1963.
Graeme Hyland, Mount Coolum
Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor at Sunshine Coast News via news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au. You must include your name and suburb for accountability, credibility and transparency.
