PLAYING POLITICS: Extra State assistance extraordinarily snubbed as DSC cites safety, drags heels in critical Cape Tribulation road repairs

72 DAYS

Michael Warren

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Merran Blockey says local residents are crying out for urgent State Government assistance, but are being hamstrung by Douglas Shire Council. Picture: Supplied

In an astounding revelation that has already reverberated right across the Daintree local residents are furious after learning Douglas Shire Council has allegedly not requested critical, extra resources to fast-track repair work to Cape Tribulation Road in the wake of Cyclone Jasper.

While it’s not a State controlled road Queensland’s Disaster Recovery Minister Nikki Boyd re-emphasized and re-iterated just 24 hours ago that staggeringly, she’s yet to receive a Council SOS to send more Roadtek manpower to fix the road, in particular the Noah Range landslide and areas around Alexandra Range.

“I’m encouraging Douglas Shire Council to take a sledgehammer to crack the nut of the road repair in Cape Trib,” Minister Boyd told media yesterday.

“We stand ready to support Douglas Shire Council but we need Council to make those requests… we have some TMR crews that are actually assisting in the Douglas Shire at the moment and some technical experts as well.

“We are more than happy to support additional requests for assistance to Douglas Shire Council to get that road repaired even sooner for that community, because it is a critical lifeline for them,

“What I’m saying is we (State Government) (are) happy to do more, if they want (extra) Roadtek crews to go in there and fix it, absolutely, we can do that, we can do that under the disaster assistance arrangements that we have.

“By all means I’m happy to continue to have those conversations with DSC, I’ve written to them multiple times. I spoke about it last week in Parliament. We absolutely want to see that lifeline re-opened to the community of Cape Tribulation, because they’re hurting.”

Despite the State’s public pledge and willingness to pump more resources and manpower into Cape Trib Road repair work Douglas Shire Mayor Michael Kerr instead said he’ll continue to follow the advice of local GeoTech engineers.

“I’m not going to into tit for tats with Minster Boyd, it’s disappointing she isn’t being advised properly by her own staff,” Mayor Michael Kerr said.

“We do have TMR involved in it, they’ve been involved in it for over six weeks’ now… we’ve got a civil engineering firm working on the job for us that specialises in this type of landslip work.

…. This is a precarious situation…this is a landslip that is continuously moving, it collapsed again the other night.

“We are governed by GeoTech engineers who give us this advice.” (on the need to limit the amount of workers currently attending to Noah Range).

Kerr said that once Noah Range becomes more secure only then will he likely request or consider State assistance to increase resources at Noah Range and along other parts of Cape Tribulation Road.

In the meantime, 72 days from Jasper Daintree locals are in a seriously precarious position. Some face the prospect of going broke if the road isn’t fixed as soon as possible, others are experiencing mental health issues while local children can’t get to school.

Daintree residents, because of the ongoing closures to Noah Range still do not have regular access to essential services, like gas, while locals are also experiencing heavy delays in receiving something as simple as their daily mail.

  • Newsport has reached out to Douglas Shire Council this morning and is awaiting their responses to our questions about the matter. When we receive Council's response, we will update this story.

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