Councillor voices concern that youth detention centre will stymie growth in proposed residential area
Plans to build a 40-bed youth detention facility in a Cairns growth corridor – set to house 50,000 new residents by 2054 – has raised the eyebrows of a city councillor, calling for greater consultation from the state government.
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Plans to build a 40-bed youth detention facility in a Cairns growth corridor – set to house 50,000 new residents by 2054 – has raised the eyebrows of a city councillor, calling for greater consultation from the state government.
The Queensland government, who announced they would build the centre last year, have refused to disclose the site’s prospective locations, despite drawing heavy criticism from residents.
But following revelations that a Mount Peter family was recently approached regarding the purchase of their 74ha cane farm, Division One councillor Brett Moller said he’s worried that proposed sites may be better suited to residential development.
“Clearly our community and council will look to be consulted in this decision making process by the state government,” Mr Moller said.
“My biggest concern is to ensure there is no impact on our Mt Peter master planning and that (the sale of) another greenfield site impacting the viability of our sugar industry doesn’t occur.”
The establishment of the centre is part of an aggressive push to dramatically increase Queensland capacity to remand or hold youths in detention across the state.
By 2026, the government aims to have almost doubled the number of youth detention beds since coming to office in 2015 with an 80-bed centre also being built in Woodford, north of Brisbane.
“We want serious repeat offenders and young people who commit major crimes to be reprimanded, and that includes detention,” Premier Steven Miles said recently.
The project has raised other issues around funding for council works required to accommodate a youth detention centre in Cairns, Mr Moller said.
“As any site is likely to be outside our council’s Local Government Priority Infrastructure Area, who will pay the several hundreds of millions of dollars in trunk infrastructure costs that will be needed to service this facility?” Mr Moller said.
“The state government is aware of our communities’ concerns about any location of a youth juvenile detention amongst the Mount Peter Masterplanned Area identified for our future residential, business and communities growth into the future.
“A number of petitions in respect to such have been lodged with the state government.”
The Cairns facility is slated to be operational by 2027.
Mount Peter is considered the top regional urban growth area in Far North Queensland with around 50,000 residents expected to call the area home within the next 30 years.
The figure accounts for around half of the predicted population growth in Far North Queensland.
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