I thought it best to publish my musings, that have previously been published in the local newspaper the Morning Bulletin, for a greater readership and longevity.
Hope you enjoy the first, I will continue to add new content each week.
26th March, 2011
A Tri-City Vision
The slick high speed train quietly departs Rockhampton, within 15minutes it stops on route to Gladstone at the recently completed International Airport. The train quickly regains momentum in reaching its 255km top speed. The remaining passengers are predominantly workers. They use the 3 times a day half hour Rockhampton Gladstone service to commute to and from their place of employment. Its 2020, the politics and egos of intercity rivalry have been replaced by vision and logic. A tri-city co-operative approach between Rockhampton, Gladstone and the new city of Capricorn Coast is reaping the benefits of the massive developments of the last 9 years.
Logic determined that Gladstone’s infrastructure wasn’t able to cope with the influx of workers that were needed for its major industrial projects. The alternative of a fly in fly out workforce wasn’t going to leave the city better for the developments. This led to a co-operative submission with Rockhampton Regional Council to the State and Federal Governments to provide infrastructure funding that encouraged families of the migrating workers to live in Rockhampton while working in Gladstone. Finally the pressing demands on the South East corner’s infrastructure led to the State Government convincing the Federal Government of the logic of the submission. Significant funding was made available over the next 9 years for major infrastructure projects to adequately cater for a combined Rockhampton Gladstone region population of 350000.
During this time Rockhampton Regional Council finally realized Rockhampton City wasn’t going to be a tourist destination especially since the highway by-pass had been completed. Fortuitously the by-pass re-entered the original highway before the Yeppoon turn-off which led to more road travelers stopping over at Yeppoon. The consequence of this together with tourism marketing focused on the Capricorn Coast was that car and coach travelers were finding out the Rockhampton region did have a lot to offer. The resulting longer, repeated visits and Facebook recommendations were not only improving tourist related businesses, but the extra development it was creating broadened the coasts economic base.
This vision for 2020 is just some of my thoughts on what I believe is needed. Needed to leave the community’s of Rockhampton, Gladstone and Capricorn Coast better for the development explosion that is about to occur throughout Central Queensland. Not just the multi-national’s involved in the developments.
No doubt there is a lot of planning going on behind the scenes, but is there a vision for these communities. A vision we can all embrace!
Forums ask what people would like, but what vision do the people of Rockhampton and Gladstone regions have for the year 2020 and beyond? An international airport to service both Rockhampton and Gladstone. A high speed train service running between both centres. Freeing up the flood prone Rockhampton airport to be a world class motorama park. Where speedway could have a proper home beside a drag strip and the current passenger terminal housing the Peter Brock car collection/museum.
Instead of just having these thoughts expressed in the paper could a local media organization seek out visionary ideas from the community? Too often ideas like a water park at the former Yeppoon Hospital site are mentioned then shelved away. Our community leaders appear to be bogged down with day to day issues. So let’s make determining a vision that we all embrace a day to day issue. An on-going, non-political, community driven forum.
The CQ NRL Bid demonstrates that what once seemed impossible maybe is achievable.
I believe that if a media organization was to dedicate on-going resources to seeking then help define a vision, that it too could be achievable. After all a vision that the whole community supports, based on logic, based on need - that’s a vision that governments cannot ignore. Be good to see one of the media run with it.
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