CLASSES IN THE CLOUDS

EXCLUSIVE Cable car’s free trips for kids pledge

EVERY Tasmanian school student would be given a free ride on the proposed cable car to the summit of kunanyi/Mt Wellington if it is built.

Mount Wellington Cableway Company founder Adrian Bold said a free ride for a class from every school every year was built into his business plan for the project — “part of our social give-back”.

He said the idea came from the cableway that runs up Table Mountain in South Africa.

“Over their school life, every kid would have the opportunity to go up twice — once in primary, once in high school — to learn about the alpine environment,” Mr Bold says in a special tasweekend feature today.

Having secured political support — including special legislation to allow it to test-drill at three sites on the mountain — the Mount Wellington Cableway Company is now hoping to win over the public.

The company is expected to lodge a development application later in the year, and its chair Jude Franks tells tasweekend she is now “99.9 per cent confident” the project — first mooted in 1905 — will now be built.

Even those opposed to the development are conceding it is no longer an unrealistic pipedream.

Mr Bold refused to disclose how much tickets would cost, or if locals would receive a discount or even free entry — like at Mona. But he dismissed suggestions the cost to ride on the cable car would be similar to the Cairns Sky Rail, which costs $79 for adults and $39.50 for children or $192.50 per family.

The last time community support for the project was tested was a Reachtel poll for the Mercury last July. It revealed that in Hobart, 47.6 per cent of respondents backed it, 40.3 per cent opposed it, and 2.1 per cent were undecided.

Mona owner David Walsh told tasweekend “broad local support” was necessary to build something as visible as a cable car.

“I don’t know much about cable cars, but the last Mona only became the next Mona when the community decided they wanted it,” Mr Walsh said.

He said the free entry for locals at Mona was originally philosophically driven, but turned out to be a wise business move.

“It seems to have been, inadvertently, a good strategy,” Mr Walsh said. “Locals bring their visitors. And the visitors bring their money.”

South Hobart residents have organised a Mountain Mayday community event in Cascade Gardens on May 6. Speakers will include former Greens leader Bob Brown, independent MP Andrew Wilkie and author Richard Flanagan.

Mr Flanagan told tasweekend: “The cable car cuts against the whole meaning of the mountain to countless generations of Tasmanians, beginning with the Palawa people.”

He also said he was worried the project would end up being a white elephant, with running costs too high for the private operators — and taxpayers would then need to bail it out.

“If they are so confident of it commercially, why can’t they release details costings?”