Solving issue no walk in the beachside park
Residents call for council action on public land plagued by problems
CLAIMS of council neglect, illegal tree clearing, four-wheel hoons and a drunken tent town are churning as one of the city’s prettiest spots gets caught in a beachside beef.
Cairns Regional Council is investigating complaints about illegal clearing near the Deauville Lido apartment complex – but what seems like a cut-anddried case is anything but.
Residents of the residential resort say they have nothing to do with the few trees that appear to have been removed.
They claim the council has repeatedly ignored their calls for itinerants living, hollering and lighting wood fires in nearby scrub to be moved on.
In fact, the foreshore clearing is a designated council park that has fallen into disrepair.
The Cairns Post has seen photos of the Goodwood Park area from 2014 that show lush, irrigated lawns that were once popular for weddings.
The unit residents paid for the water to keep the grass green but they claim the council continually destroyed the sprinklers with mowers.
The area has now become a favourite haunt for nocturnal quad bike riders who hoon about with wild abandon in the wee hours of the morning.
Add that noise to the vulgar cacophony coming from the nearby tent-dwellers, and residents are driven to distraction.
Those residents include Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch, who lives in a Deauville Lido apartment with wife Yolonde.
“A cyclone knocked everything down and the council never cleaned it up,” he said.
“Maybe we should be refusing to pay our rates.
“The same council officers claiming to investigate this are the ones that have done nothing about itinerants camped
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Watch the video from Yorkeys Knob online www.cairnspost.com.au out burning the vegetation.”
Patio World owner John Benck is another resident of the apartment block.
He said any suggestion trees were being removed by his neighbours, most of whom were elderly, was preposterous.
He recalled a terrifying moment six years ago when two massive branches fell off a melaleuca tree and landed within inches of two small children.
“I personally got on to the council and asked them to do something and they were not co-operative,” he said.
“I told them the next call would be from lawyers suing them for millions of dollars, because these little kids could have been killed.
“The council came immediately after that and pruned all the trees, but since then, they haven’t been back.”
Division 8 Councillor Jessie Richardson did not believe there had been illegal clearing and conceded the park had been neglected.
She said a foreshore masterplan would kick in soon with maintenance to start again early in the new year.
“We have to get approvals from the state,” she said.
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