D-day looms for boaties in push for new ramp

Public meeting shapes as the last chance in a long-running battle

NOT GIVING UP: Clive King and other recreational boaties push on with their campaign to get a new all-tide, blue-water access boat ramp on the Capricorn Coast. Picture: Chris Ison ROK181214cboatramp3

BOATIES of Central Queensland - the time to turn up and speak up, or shut up, has almost arrived.

A public meeting at Emu Park on Monday night could determine once and for all whether the tide has gone out on a long-running campaign for a new all-tide, blue-water access boat ramp on the Capricorn Coast.

Boating enthusiasts, community members and politicians will converge on the Emu Park Cultural Centre in Hill Street and perhaps the biggest question that everyone wants to see answered is "what's new?”

For more than a decade there have been calls for another all-tide, blue-water access ramp on the coast to take the pressure off the facilities at Yeppoon's Rosslyn Bay.

So it's far from a new issue and these types of public forums have been held many times before.

The latest renewal comes on the back of a fishing community backlash to the removal of two floating pontoons at Rosslyn Bay - a matter which has since been resolved.

What happens on Monday night, and more importantly what comes of it, if anything, is the million dollar question.

Keppel MP Brittany Lauga has indicated she will attend the meeting and is supportive of it, but she is not convinced that public sentiment has changed since the Department of Transport and Main Roads undertook community consultation in 2016 regarding a proposed all-tide boat ramp at Emu Park's Fisherman's Beach.

Mrs Lauga has previously said that consultation found the majority of the town's residents, and the wider Livingstone Shire, did not support such a facility at that location.

However boat ramp campainers, including Clive King, have question marks over the reach of that consultation and also the number of participants involved.

In recent times, Mr King and fellow Cap Coast boating enthusiast Michael Griffin have been the public mouthpieces keeping the push for another ramp going.

They, along with some others, have held talks with the Member for Keppel to get to this point of having another public forum on the issue.

Just how many others are standing in their corner when the tide comes in, figuratively, on Monday night, could be crucial.

The meeting is scheduled to start at 7pm at the Emu Park Cultural Centre (9 Hill Street).

READ MORE: Resident unhappy with Department of Main Roads over ramp

READ: More than 1000 submissions received over proposed boat ramp

Originally published as D-day looms for boaties in push for new ramp