Redland City Council says it was not asked to approve earthworks and the first stages of the Birkdale Community Precinct (BCP) site at this week’s general meeting, saying local media reporting to the contrary is incorrect.
“Reporting of that as published on couriermail.com.au at 6.40am on Wednesday 17 August 2022 is incorrect,” Council said in a statement.
It said Council had instead endorsed a community engagement summary report for the Draft BCP Master Plan and confirmed the preferred process for statutory planning of the site.
“The $34 million mentioned in the article is a $34.5million carry over of capital funds not spent last financial year and is across all of council capital works. As it is a carry over there is no additional cost to ratepayers,” the Council clarified.
“A total of $147,922 from the $34.5 million carried over will be used for restoration work at Willards Farm this financial year.
“In the 2022/2023 Council Budget, $12.7 million was already allocated to fund the next stage of Birkdale Community Precinct.
“The couriermail.com.au article also incorrectly reports that the Federal Government “gave the land to Council”. In fact, Council purchased the land from the Commonwealth in late 2019 for $4.1 million to bring it into public ownership.”
It said the Courier Mail article also incorrectly refers to the 45-page community engagement summary report as an “in-house” report.
“In fact, it was completed by a third party external engagement expert,” says Council.
“The article also gets the year of the engagement campaign wrong. It was this year (2022) not last year as reported. Council held an extensive five-week community engagement campaign from 30 April to 6 June 2022 to gather community feedback on the Draft BCP Master Plan.”
