Monday 30 March 2009

Honorable Member for Wallabies

The Local Member for Wallabies, Councillor Robert Pyne, has circulated his latest newsletter.

Robert highlights Queensland’s largest town planning exercise, for the Mount Peter Draft Urban Framework Plan.

"This is one of the most picturesque pockets of Australia, located 15 km south of Cairns between Edmonton and Gordonvale, and is expected to be home to 50,000 new residents of the Cairns region by 2025," Councillor Pyne says.

The planning for Mount Peter was established at a Council-led investigation, which resulted in a draft land-use plan covering the entire master planning area.

"This set out broad community, environmental, economic and infrastructure needs to guide the area’s future development, Robert says. "The Plan considers proposed roads, mass transit, pedestrian and cycle networks, urban centres, employment precincts and community facilities.

Councillor Pyne also reports that Council will develop a strategy to manage the overcrowding of wallabies in White Rock and surrounding suburbs.

"Over the past 30 years residential development has increased and as a result native habitat in the area has diminished," he says. "The first step will be to conduct a study to better understand the situation and the conservation measures that may be applied to the strategy.

Pyne said that the strategy would result in better protection of the remaining habitat in the area and provide a framework to guide planned urban development in the areas that have wallabies
or areas adjacent to key wallaby habitats.

Pyne hopes that the Southern Fringe Wildlife Management Strategy will deliver improved planning mechanisms and protection of key habitats for fauna species in the Cairns southern suburbs on the western side of the highway around of Woree and White Rock.

"The Strategy will identify current habitat and biology and use of land in the area, consider
the remaining habitat and the need for habitat, and corridors and linkages to maintain viable populations," Robert Pyne says. "It will also identify the threats to key species, key habitat and management requirements."

1 comment:

Julie-Ann, Whiterock said...

Councillor Pyne is the best thing to happen to the Southern suburbs of Cairns since his dad was running this town.