Leaders need vision

POSITIVE people being community champions, Councillor Les Walker, is one thing, seeing our community leaders deliver more meaningful strategic planning is another.

Townsville City Council wasted $ 86 million in putting a road back through the mall and flattening our CBD as a destination.

Many actions implemented by local government and flippant suggestions, including making Townsville the Queenstown of Queensland or installing man- made surfing infrastructure as a tourism drawcard, need to be done in greater unity with a strategic forward- planned blueprint.

Unfortunately, to regain momentum in our CBD we would have to spend more, minimum likely around $ 6 million to redirect a more functional CBD, presenting as unique and again an enviable destination. It would involve improving our CBD as a destination, the allure, tropical plants and shading and look to incorporating road closures reestablishing the mall, leaving the tar in place to minimise spend.

Look to architecturally designed shade sails high up over the mall, to more naturally reduce the at- times glaring temperatures once at ground level.

Council could revert to parts of what did work and construct a building or two in the middle of the mall designed for lease. Hoges on the mall was a trendy and well serviced place to meet and business structure like that helped make the mall a destination.

Strategic spending could include low budget cantilevered single shade construction linking Anzac Park and the entrance to the Museum of Tropical Queensland and our aquarium.

As a facility our aquarium is better than the newly finished Cairns Aquarium, in part this is to do with benefits of association with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, however the entrance to the facade of our aquarium leaves much to be desired in appealing to visitors and local residents alike. If there was to be money spent on better linking our Strand to our aquarium and museum, it would serve to enhance the aesthetic appeal of our city and oral marketing of our city when visitors return home.

I, and many others, are passionate about Townsville, what it has to offer and how grand a destination Townsville can be for leisure tourism but this is unlikely with standing rhetoric and questionable deliverance of the administration for our city. STEVEN ISLES, Bushland Beach.