PARKLANDS IS CITY’S GEM

THE Southport Broadwater Parklands came of age yesterday.

For most Gold Coasters, our first memory of the Parklands was silence as thousands watched a big screen.

This was before the announcement that the Glitter Strip had been chosen ahead of the Sri Lankan city of Hambantota to host the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Residents cheered, they danced, they hugged and waved flags as confetti cannons were fired and balloons released above the Broadwater.

Yesterday the thousands came out again, to back the Gold Coast Show which until their support was on death row.

On the council’s website the Parklands is promoted as having “the potential to become an icon for our city and for Australia, as one of the nation’s great foreshore parks”.

With the huge events lawn, the pier stretching out to the Broadwater, individual seats facing out with shade from Pandanus and that view of the Surfers Paradise skyline — well, residents already know they have been gifted a great foreshore park.

As a special report on Southport today reveals, the Parklands face the shadow of development with the planned global tourism hub likely to be in the CBD.

This is a line-in-the-sand moment for the Gold Coast .

Not one section of the Parklands, which stretch from the Sundale Bridge to north past the aquatic centre, must be lost to this new development.

The green recreational space on the western shore of our Broadwater is too valuable to be lost.

Stage 3 of the parklands development, north of the aquatic centre, is being promoted as “a significant Commonwealth Games legacy project”.

The State Government intends to go to the market at year’s end and is encouraging innovative designs for a tourism project which will continue the Coast’s growth as a world-class city.

As the Bulletin investigation reveals, some of the sites are private, some on Crown land and others invite a possible private-public partnership.

This newspaper has been a champion of development which deliver jobs.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones yesterday told the Bulletin: “We’re yet to go to market on the Coast. It’s great to see Gold Coasters getting excited about new tourism infrastructure. We know that the investment by Star at Queen’s Wharf in Brisbane will create more than 10,000 jobs over the next 10 years.”

However, whatever the outcome, whatever the location, the Government must not give away Crown land.

If a land swap deal occurs, a lease arrangement, then Gold Coast taxpayers need to be fully compensated.

A significant community asset should be funded by the successful proponent.

One opportunity here will be for a boutique stadium with the back drop of the Broadwater and Surfers Paradise, at one of the nation’s best parklands.

The Gold Coast deserves to have the conversation about a tourism hub. Done right there is enormous benefit, but it cannot come at a cost to assets already protected and priceless to the community.