No easy route for Skyride

SKYRIDE backers have several hurdles to clear in convincing Tourism Minister Kate Jones and the State Government of the benefits of what should be a major infrastructure boost for Gold Coast tourism.

The gut feeling of most Gold Coasters would be to give the $100 million project the green light, since the city needs to deliver jaw-dropping new attractions to impress domestic visitors and the coming wave of tourists out of China.

Build it and they will come. But of course it is not as simple as that. A business case needs more than just gut feeling.

Skyride chairman Terry Jackman and his board are working on that – and should feel heartened by Ms Jones’ willingness to have a close look at the proposal.

Then there are environmental considerations. We have no doubt a band of naysayers is ready to resist the Skyride development, which involves a 9km route from a privately owned site on Springbrook Rd and includes four stops along the way to a mountaintop station at Springbrook.

But the Cairns Skyrail cableway is an example of how such a project can have minimal impact. Its 32 towers were built in 10x10m clearings with materials ferried there by heavy-lift helicopters.

Conservations were up in arms when work began in 1994, but since the Cairns cableway opened in 1995 it has won a host of awards recognising its green credentials.

It may be though that the Gold Coast project has a bigger hurdle in one of the people who has championed the concept since the late 1990s – Mermaid Beach MP Ray Stevens.

Mr Stevens’ association was always going to be difficult, since he is an elected member of parliament and was part of the Newman government that voted in favour of laws to cut red tape and costs to commercial enterprises in national parks.

His controversial “chicken dance’’ response to a question from a reporter about his links to the proposed development while also an MP, videoed in the lead-up to the state election, continues to be an image headache for Skyride and its backers.

Mr Stevens has stepped down as a director, but until he divests shares held by his company, Ruray, that incident and questions about potentially competing interests as an investor and an MP will not go away.