Moreton Bay continues to plead with the Government over investment
It has 94 suburbs takes nearly an hour to traverse and is expecting 240 new residents a week for the next 25 years. Now Australia's third largest local government area is pleading for infrastructure investment to cope with the population explosion.
Category
đź“ş
TVTranscript
00:00 As the population grows, the commute slows in Moreton Bay.
00:06 Its population is already greater than Canberra, with 470,000 residents.
00:12 That's expected to explode to nearly 800,000 within 25 years.
00:18 The region is bisected by the Bruce Highway.
00:21 The Bruce Highway is a car park seven days out of seven now,
00:24 whether it's in the morning or afternoons,
00:26 people flowing into Brisbane for work or coming home or on weekends going to the coast.
00:31 Another looming concern is east-west access,
00:34 with New Caboolture West expected to shoulder much of the boom.
00:39 It takes Redcliffe resident Linda McCallum nearly an hour on the road
00:43 to visit her friend in Wairmurran on Moreton Bay's north-western edge.
00:48 That is off-peak times.
00:50 The longest part of that drive is getting off the peninsula.
00:58 These east-west connections are very, very critical for that supply of traffic
01:02 to get out to the Bruce Highway to travel north and south.
01:06 At the moment they're two-lane roads.
01:08 Suspicious it wasn't getting its fair share of infrastructure funding,
01:12 the council commissioned its own study.
01:15 We've got more growth here than what they planned for,
01:17 so therefore the spend and the investment in our region hasn't been up to par with that growth.
01:21 Public transport and water and sewerage connections
01:24 for new housing estates are top of the wish list.
01:27 As Moreton Bay braces for growth,
01:29 community groups say the region's already facing an immediate housing crisis.
01:34 The cost of housing in the once affordable outer suburban region has skyrocketed
01:39 and it's left hundreds without a place to live.
01:42 Increasingly we're finding that there's people who just can't afford the rent
01:46 and they're just being fronted on the streets.
01:49 The council estimates Moreton Bay will need 92 new houses a week
01:53 to cope with the anticipated growth.
01:56 But with much of the land earmarked for development outside the water and sewerage grids,
02:01 that too needs investment.
02:03 The state government says it has invested nearly $15 million
02:07 in early infrastructure for new housing developments
02:10 and it's spending $1.5 billion on road infrastructure in Moreton Bay.
02:15 It's too late, the growth is happening right now
02:17 and it's critical we have that investment happening tomorrow and the next day
02:21 and not many decades down the future.
02:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]