By Carolyn Tucker
08.09.2006

WELCOME to Noosangatta, an endless urban sprawl stretching from Noosa to the border- that’s the future for south-east Queensland if unfettered growth is allowed to continue

The term was coined by the head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Professor Ian Lowe, of Coolum, who believes we should stop talking about the benefits of growth and start acknowledging the downside.

“I’d rather we had a serious discussion about the tradeoff between growth and quality of life instead of accepting this increased population as the inevitable result of forces beyond our control,” Prof Lowe said.

He said the community had made it clear that it would prefer to see some limits on population growth and he would like to see Maroochy and Caloundra follow Noosa’s lead on the issue.

Prof Lowe said essential services were squeezed as growth gallopped along unchecked, and the provision of adequate water and efficient public transport for south-east Queensland would become increasingly difficult.

“It’s difficult to see how you could have a public transport system to serve a community when it’s spread out over such a large surface area,” he said.

Tokyo with 12 million people and London with eight million people are about the same size geographically as greater Brisbane, which has a population of 1.5 million.

There’s only about 10% or 15% of the number of potential customers for public transport, so we have more people driving and we build more roads which in turn leads to more people driving.

The other factor in this equation is peak oil, and whether you believe it’s already happened or it’s still 10 years away, it is still within the lifetime of transport infrastructure planning which is currently based on the continued abundance of cheap oil.

Premier Peter Beattie said the SEQ Regional Plan had been designed to contain urban sprawl by locking up 80% of the region from future development.

He said great care had been taken to ensure there was a balance between open space and development, despite pressure to release more land for housing.

“We’re certainly not the pin-up boys for the development industry,” Mr Beattie said.

“I have great respect for Ian Lowe and I’m sure I will discuss this with him at some stage, but we have been very careful to get that balance right.”

However, Prof Lowe said the SEQ Plan was predicated on the false premise that the region’s level of growth was inevitable.

“It starts from the despairing view that the population in south-east Queensland will continue to increase by 1000 a week for the next 20 years and it’s about minimising the harm,”he said.

“I suppose it’s better than the previous situation.

But it still creates massive urban sprawl.