Mossman residents fear a bleak future as mill hangs in the balance

Mossman residents fear the rural town will not survive the sugar mill closing with businesses already reporting a significant decline in trade.

Locals fear Mossman can’t survive without its sugar mill. Picture: Far Northern Milling

Mossman residents fear the rural town will not survive the sugar mill closing with businesses already reporting a significant decline in trade.

The mill went into liquidation in March but many of the townspeople had hoped the Queensland government would step into save it.

The government announced $12m to support the community earlier this year but it’s unclear how that money will be used or if it will be enough.

It comes as the $15m harvest from this year’s crop looks all but certain to be lost with little opportunity to transport it to another mill.

Beechwoods Cafe owner Sharon Beechy said the thought of the future made her “want to cry”.

“I don’t even want to think about it,” she said.

“You would think and you would hope that the government would try and help us as a regional town to keep things going.”

Cafe owner Sharon Beechy said the thought of Mossman's mill closing permanently made her want to cry. Picture: Angus McIntyre

Ms Beechy said she was experiencing a sharp decline in tradies coming into her cafe since March.

Four of the first six shopfronts on Front Street, the main thoroughfare through town, are either vacant or closed businesses.

“I’m leaving, I’m going back to Adelaide,” Mossman resident Lauren Dean said.

“When I got here, five years ago, the town was just pumping but there’s not enough here for me now.

“I think it’s time to go but I think it’s really sad because it is a nice town.”

Many still view the cane fields surrounding Mossman as the lifeblood of the town. Picture: Angus McIntyre

Despite its prime location near the world-famous Mossman Gorge, locals says there’s not enough to keep tourists in town.

“You see them go in (to the gorge), you see them go out, and then they will drive through Mossman up to the Daintree,” Kerrie-Anne Hotstone, a mine worker who lives in Mossman, said.

“There’s nothing to offer in the town … there’s no attractions here.”

Turning the old mill into a tourist attraction was one possibility, but Ms Beechy said she thought it would have little long-term benefit unless the mill was operating too.

“I can’t see why they couldn’t turn it into a tourist attraction as well,” she said.

“(But) you still need it working in some capacity for the canegrowers and to keep the beautiful cane fields around town.”

Bill Phillips Turner (L) and John Roberts (R) had differing levels of optimism over the future of the town. Picture: Angus McIntyre

Mossman accountant and lawyer John Morris said another overlooked aspect of the mill closure was the lack of remaining opportunities for young people in the town.

He said the “social fabric” of Mossman was at stake, with people in their 20s and 30s increasingly forced to look for jobs elsewhere.

“A young fella I had who did his electrical apprenticeship at the mill, he’s running the electrical power station at Mount Isa now, and has done very well for himself,” Mr Morris said.

“What the closure of the mill means is that young people will have to move away earlier than they otherwise would.

“From a social fabric (perspective), it’s not great.”

Bill Phillips-Turner, a former chairman of the mill, said the local sugar industry had survived many challenges in its long history.

“We’re very resilient,” he said.

“I’m positive there is a future, I just don’t know what the answer is yet.”

Mossman is in the Douglas Shire. At the 2021 census it had a population of 1935 people.

The community had been crushing cane since 1894 before its closure in March.

Originally published as Mossman residents fear a bleak future as mill hangs in the balance