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. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
- Read the story: More fines issued in blitz on illegal camping and Crackdown on illegal camping resumes and Locals fume as van dwellers overrun town’s beach car parks
Pam Eldridge, Alexandra Headland: Please stop using the emotive words ‘illegal campers’. People sleeping overnight, or preparing food in their vehicles, are travellers on a journey who should be welcomed. It’s heartwarming to see them and I often stop to talk and we are all enriched.
The problem arises when travellers overstay their welcome by staying on during daylight hours. This is not okay. The solution: apply parking limits of two to three hours during the day so travellers move on to allow more people to park their cars and enjoy the beach and nature. The traveller, like everyone else, either moves on during the day or risks a fine.
Amanda Hicks, Palmview: I own a home and I have a campervan. I believe campervans, not tents, should be allowed a one-night stay.
This is income to tourist places. In the UK, they have open arms for people camping a night and bringing in money. I don’t agree with permanent or long-term camping. This is different. But overnight, why not? People travel from afar and need to pull over for a rest. It’s more dangerous to drive. Van life is growing. We are Australian, act like an Australian. Wake up council and provide a service for all.
Joey, Boreen Point: Tow their vehicles out to the highway and issue them with a caution. If they come back and are seen again take their camper or whatever they are using and have it crushed.
Michael Hancock: It’s not only free campers that are the issue in the Noosa Shire. The inane policies of Tourism Noosa and their council-sponsored funding grants are turning our special place into another Venice and Barcelona, where the local bodies are taxing tourists a fee to discourage visits.
The streets and roundabouts are clogged, you can’t get a public car park anyway, let alone near the beaches or riverside. When I get home to the Noosa North Shore, where I live, I breathe a sigh of relief.
Richard, Verrierdale: I used to watch them walk out of the beach bush with toilet roll in hand.
- Read the story: New details for The Wave as transport advocates call for clarity
Pauline Clayton, Parrearra: Labor premier Peter Beattie in 2002 made the campaign promise for a heavy rail corridor from Landsborough to Maroochydore but committed no funds.
This promise was repeated, in 2007, by following premier Anna Bligh. Again no funds in the budget. They both also promised a regional hospital. Again, no funds.
It took the LNP government of Campbell Newman to build the hospital and the LNP government of David Crisafulli to build the vital rail line. Yet Labor MPs had the gall to accuse Kawana MP and deputy premier Jarrod Bleijie of pork-barrelling his electorate.
Ironically, Sunshine Coast is finally getting what former Labor premiers promised 23 years ago.
- Read the story: Traffic lights on way for busy intersection ‘black spot’
Michael Yeates, Golden Beach: The report of lights being proposed at this intersection requires questions of the role of these streets as volumes increase in the traffic network, and not just vehicular traffic.
While Cooroy Street provides access to and from Currimundi and the shopping centre and Nicklin Way, it is hardly a main road, given the short distance between the roundabout, the special school and Beerburrum Street. Why is it 60km/h and not 50km/h?
A similar question relates to the area including the roundabout, the state school, shopping centre, hotel etc through to the intersection of Buderim Street and Currimundi Road. Why is this area 60km/h and not 50km/h?
As for the intersection of Beerburrum and Cooroy streets, why is the speed limit on Beerburrum Street 60km/h for about 100m from the 40km/h speed zone at Dicky Beach, when it is necessary to slow to 40km/h or less in Cooroy Street prior to safely turning left or right into Beerburrum Street? Why not just extend the 40km/h west from Dicky Beach shopping village to include this intersection?
The local councillor supports the aims to make this precinct safer and more convenient for locals. Why not change some speed limit signs, perhaps add some more white lines and save the cost at least in the interim until any changes in traffic due to the CTCU are established, not just predictions?
Initially, preferred crossing locations at this intersection and on Cooroy Street should also be created prior to more substantial facilities being provided as part of the Caloundra to Currimundi Active Transport project.
Mary Durie, Black Mountain: I used backpacker accommodation in my youth and as a mother worldwide many times travelling with my teenage sons. They offer brilliant affordable accommodation for all ages and families. Many are located in interesting converted buildings in or near town centres to allow the patrons to easily access the local amenities on foot.
‘Backpackers’ are not all what people think they are. Most are intelligent, interesting and well-behaved good citizens on a gap year from university or simply taking a once-in-a lifetime opportunity to see the world. I, as a mother of two sons, travelled with them individually as 17-year-olds from the UK to Australia in the early 1990s. We stayed in mainly YHA hostels, one of the more upmarket ones. They were clean and very reasonably priced, offering food and warmth in their cafes and lounge areas onsite: many rooms with ensuites. They offered temporary paid jobs within to those interested to spend a little longer in the area. The camaraderie was wonderful, intelligent and a delight to meet like-minded travellers from all over the world.
Noosa promotes tourism. They cannot discriminate. If Noosa wants to attract young world travellers to see this wonderful region in the world, then Noosa Council should give this proposed development serious approval consideration for the young to be able to access, stay and see this region. Let’s be honest, they won’t have any other opportunity at current rental prices. I hope this proposed venture will become a YHA hostel. Check out their website.
The locals surrounding the proposed development should stop and think about this before complaining and to give others an opportunity to enjoy what they enjoy. If the hostel is run in a professional manner in keeping with the local area, with an onsite manager and staff to run it and maintained in a manner appropriate to the area, there will be minimal issues. You will find some intelligent and interesting people in your street.
- Read the story: Council releases new draft planning scheme
Linda Daleboudt, Glenview: I am disappointed to read that the proposed Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme does not include any provisions for wildlife corridor infrastructure where our green spaces are cut through by roads.
The Sunshine Coast Council does not keep record of the number of wildlife killed by cars within our region, but we do know, based on the high number of call-outs by local wildlife rescue organisations, that roads and car strikes are a serious problem.
There is a solution though. The council must start to make a concerted effort, together with the Department of Transport and Main Roads where needed, to install more culverts, safe fish passage structures, vegetated land bridges, canopy bridges, glider poles, canopy connectivity, at-grade crossings, fencing, escape mechanisms, enhanced signage and animal detection systems, where our strategic ecological corridors are cut through by roads.
The local community group Save. Protect. Connect. (formerly Save Ferny Forest) fought hard to save Ferny Forest – now called Mooloolah River National Park – from logging in 2022 by our state government. It consists of 130 hectares of core koala habitat and is part of the ecological corridor that connects Mooloolah River National Park, Ewen Maddock Dam and Dularcha National Park. Yet not one koala is currently to be found in Ferny Forest because any animal that dares crossing the very busy Steve Irwin Road in search of food, a mate or shelter will inevitably end up as roadkill.
We need the council to step up its game and stop omitting the installation of wildlife corridor infrastructure from its plans to rehabilitate and restore strategic ecological corridors to enable animal movement, gene flow and resilience to climate and hazards.
- Read the story: ‘Debated’ childcare centre wins court battle
Phil Mollard, Melbourne: What this demonstrates is the massive assault on the building and development industry, which is costing Australia hundreds of billions each year.
It’s an absolute travesty that boffins all over the nation can create these massive and costly delays without any personal consequences.
As an expert in childcare development, the project in question is a well-designed centre in a location that make sense not only for the developer but also for a childcare operator and the community.
This project took an extra year to achieve an approval at significant extra cost, with added consultants and interest holdings. It delayed jobs and will mean that parents will need to pay more per child to cover the extra costs of the project. This goes on a thousand times a day around Australia. It is a senseless waste of money costing thousands of jobs and, rather than having surpluses, our government and state governments are now ruling over a combined $1.2 trillion debt for our young Australians to repay.
If Albanese stayed at home for a week and did a day’s work thinking about Australia and what is important economically for Australians to bring down the cost of living and focused on this massive economic assault on our nation created by the government, we would have a surplus not a massive liability. This government spends all its time figuring out how to extract more taxes from the people of Australia, rather than motivating them to stimulate productivity that create higher paying jobs. What we see here is a reflection of a poor misguided ideology, which only hurts the people.
- Read the story: Police intent on bringing e-riders in line
Name supplied, Sippy Downs: I walk regularly. I’m in my 80s and I believe it’s only a matter of time before I get hit by these inconsiderate individuals on e-bikes and scooters.
Why doesn’t the council issue fines for speeding on footpaths, as some of these in question have no regard for anyone. The speed limit on footpaths is 12km/h. What a joke. They ride in the night with no light and no bell, they come up behind you with no warning and there are no speed limit signs at all on footpaths. If they were installed it might go a long way to solving the problem. It’s not only e-bikes and scooters, it’s also racing bikes who treat footpaths like a racetrack. Police also turn a blind eye. The sooner they apply registration for e-bikes the better.
- Corner store revival
Garry Reynolds, Peregian Springs: As a Baby Boomer kid going to the corner store to get fresh bread for Mum, I delighted in spending pocket money on freckles, bullets and musk sticks from big glass jars.
I mourned the gradual disappearance of the corner store where a treat from the grocer was being given a paper bag of broken biscuits from an Arnotts’ tin.
The corner shop opened our world when the grocer put a black and white TV in the front window for families to saunter up early in the evening to watch the news and I Love Lucy. After the Russians put a dog called Laika into space, we marked the occasion by buying a choc ice called a Sputnik. The corner store created its own little world as a community hub, with customers becoming like the extended family of the shopkeepers’, who lived on the premises. As a pimply teenager, romance could have blossomed but I was too shy to ask a daughter behind the counter for a date. The introduction of Sunday trading for large grocery chains, plus the growth of convenience stores and service station shops, offered cheaper prices.
However, the humble corner store is experiencing a revival. A new generation of shopkeepers is providing a friendly local shopping experience, stocking local produce while supporting neighbourhood schools and charities. Aided by social media marketing, these stores are sharing their unique personal stories as community hubs. Several are being reimagined as milk bars in all their retro glory. Customers can relive their childhood experiences with pinball machines, Australian-style hamburgers, old-fashioned thick chips, Chico rolls, and milkshakes.
The common revival formula is based on convenience, coffee, and community as the new corner shop becomes a social hub in a sea of townhouses and apartments where many residents hardly know their neighbours.
Hopefully, this marks the revival of community care and respect for one another to ensure our neighbours, especially the frail and lonely, don’t fall through the cracks of an increasingly fractured world and families.
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. Preference will be give to letters of 100 words or less.
