The award-winning Small Creek project to transform a concrete channel into a flourishing waterway habitat has hit its latest milestone.
The final design for stage 3, which is made up of a 350 metre stretch of the concrete channel from Briggs Road to Poplar Street Park, has been completed.
More than 800 metres of drain was turned into flourishing waterway habitat in stages 1 and 2.
About 3600 cubic metres of soil, enough to fill 1.5 Olympic swimming pools, will be removed from the site as part of stage 3 works to create ‘ponds’ where birds, fish and other aquatic species can thrive in a healthy creek ecosystem.
There will also be native plants and trees installed as part of the works, such as lomandra, rusty gum and narrow-leaf ironbark, and flowering species such as grevillea and callistemon.
Infrastructure and Environment General Manager Charlie Dill said the stage 3 design was developed with the input of neighbours, Raceview residents and the wider community through online and face-to-face engagement in 2019.
“We have ensured that key concerns such as flooding, safety and maintenance have all been addressed in detail, and meet community expectations for the future of Small Creek,” he said.
The design for stage 3 of the Small Creek project has been completed.
“The stage 3 design takes the best elements from stages 1 and 2 that the community told us they loved and wanted to see more of, such as meandering footpath connections and native plant species.
“There will also be some new elements in stage 3, such as a viewing platform at Poplar Street Park, and small rock ‘riffles’ under Briggs Road to allow fish to pass over the concrete aprons.”
Small Creek naturalisation project is funded by developer contributions under council’s stormwater quality offsets scheme.
Stages one and two of Small Creek have been very successful.
Money collected under the scheme can only be spent on water quality improvement projects, a primary component of the Small Creek project.
The stage 3 design and further details have been released on Shapeyouripswich.com.au/small-creek.
A community information session will also be held on Sunday 15 March 2020, from 10am to 12.30pm to answer community questions about the design.
Construction is scheduled to happen in the 2020-2021 financial year.
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Great work by the council.
BUT what you don’t say is that the “developer contributions” are token amounts to justify the developer’s destruction of existing natural systems such as waterways.
The developer ‘buys” the council’s approval to destroy the natural system with excessive stormwater/ silt loads and cut down riparian vegetation with little or no regard to their amenity or value.
Would’nt it be better if the council regulation required that the vegetation and waterway be left to what nature successfully designed it to do???? .
Does’nt seem that difficult does it?
EXCEPT that the developer does’nt get to make as much profit some of which which they use to buy influence with their friends in govt.
The community does’nt get the cost of stormwater flooding/erosion downstream of the development and the community keeps the amenity of the habitat trees ,wildlife.
So Council don’t allow developers to use offsets to destroy our amenity and transfer the cost of stormwater damage to the community downstream.