Noise from luxury villa development won’t be further regulated: Council

Tourism accommodation operators and their guests will have to put up with building works noise starting as early as 6.30am from a new villa development near Flagstaff Hill – for as long as it takes to complete the project. 

Douglas Shire Council is standing firm on its approval of the Gurner luxury villa complex in Murphy Street, saying that unless building works are outside of the hours between 6.30am to 6.30pm Monday through to Saturday, no action needs to be taken.

“I encourage people to report any building works that take place outside of these hours to Council,” Mayor Lisa Scomazzon told Newsport.

As we reported earlier this week, tourism operators near the site in Macrossan Street were calling on Council to better regulate the level of building works noise behind their accommodation properties in Macrossan Street.

A group of them wrote to us expressing concerns that they and their guests had been disrupted on several occasions by loud jackhammering and other noise coming from the development site, and questioned the timing of the work in peak visitor season. 

“I think the biggest question most folks want answering is why the council would approve the works to coincide with the peak holiday time when the town is high occupancy especially at the beachfront,” they said.

But Council has made it clear it won’t be taking any regulatory action over the noise.

“Great care is taken when considering every development put before Council but there are no plans to put limitations on what time of the year construction can take place,” the Mayor said.