New Year’s Eve-like celebrations as Gold Coast border checkpoints come down

Border communities are facing fresh traffic disruption with news all northbound lanes on the M1 will be closed for several hours as checkpoints are removed.

A top cop says it will be “like New Year’s Eve” on Gold Coast border checkpoints when they are torn down early on Tuesday morning after 250 days.

Gold Coast police Chief Superintendent Mark Wheeler says his officers will be celebrating alongside border residents who have endured frustrating delays since the border closed on March 26.

But Supt Wheeler said there could be more short-term pain as infrastructure including hundreds of metres of concrete barrier is removed when the border reopens to all of NSW and Victoria from 1am Tuesday, with a section of the M1 to be closed for 10 hours from 8pm.

Hundreds of metres of barriers at Coolangatta – dubbed the Great Wall of Dixon St that Supt Wheeler joked was visible from space – will also come down.

ALL northbound lanes of the M1 at the border are to be shut from 8pm on Tuesday night as a massive operation gets underway to remove COVID-19 checkpoints.

A southbound lane will also be closed as authorities begin the massive task of removing 100m of concrete barriers.

The road will not reopen until 6am on Wednesday, causing a fresh traffic headache for beleaguered border communities.

Police, pictured at work at the border checkpoints at Coolangatta, are expected to be just as happy as border residents when the checkpoints come down on Tuesday morning. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Steve Holland.

“The big job ahead of us in on the M1, we have 100m of concrete barriers in place. That will be a fairly lengthy and a little bit of a hazardous operation,” Chief Supt Wheeler said.

“That’s why we are going to have police in place to divert the traffic and have it done safely.

“I’d ask people just for one more day to be patient, we are doing everything we can to get all of that infrastructure out and I think the wait will be worth it.”

Supt Wheeler hailed his officers as “our pretorian guards” who had helped keep COVID-19 out of Queensland.

“They’ve helped smash the curve, they’ve helped stop COVID-19,” he said.

Along the way, border cops had made significant major busts, catching alleged drug-runners trying to smuggle millions of dollars of cocaine and marijuana into Queensland.

More than one million people have been checked at Queensland border checkpoints since March, with 26,000 refused entry.

More than 4200 people have been ordered into hotel quarantine at the checkpoints.

Police will still maintain a presence at Gold Coast Airport to check flights from COVID hotspot Adelaide.

But people from NSW and Victoria in hotel quarantine will be free to go after passing a COVID test.

It comes as Queensland recorded no new cases of COVID-19 overnight.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said on Monday that 13 active cases remained in the state after two new cases were recorded on Sunday. Both were detected in hotel quarantine.