The Empire Hotel owners revamp with Townsville City Council help
The owners of The Empire Hotel have been giving the venue a complete makeover, with the results so far truly impressive.
Townsville
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BUSINESSES and developers are being encouraged to help breathe life back into the city centre and its fringes.
The Townsville City Council grant helps improve the attractiveness, vibrancy and safety of the city.
One developer to capitalise on the Modernising Buildings and Activating Spaces grant, Brodie Jankovic, is sinking his teeth into the revitalisation of the Empire Hotel.
His aim is to bring the old hotel, which sat vacant for close to 20 years, back to its former glory.
Mr Jankovic said he wanted to ensure the heritage charm could be retained while creating a modern feed.
“We want to pay tribute to the heritage of this amazing building. We got sick and tired of driving past the place rotting away, so thought we’d go all in and give it the respect it deserves,” Mr Jankovic said.
“We have received so much positive feedback from people while doing the work, so it’s terrific to have the support of the council with this grant to ensure we can give the grand old dame the respect she deserves in restoration.
“Council has been extremely supportive of us taking on the huge task of renovating the
Empire and we’ve been working alongside their heritage officers to abide by any heritage laws and make sure the building maintains its heritage charm.
“We’ve been able to support local jobs throughout the restoration and are very excited for what the future holds – watch this space.”
Mayor Jenny Hill said it was good to have energetic businesspeople who shared the vision of Townsville’s growth.
“While any business must stand on their own two feet, providing an incentive such as this grant which covers up to 50 per cent of the eligible repair works, to a maximum of $30,000 per project can make all the difference in activating our city centre and its fringe,” Cr Hill said.
“We’ve seen great uptake on the Modernising Buildings and Activating Spaces grant with six grants awarded last financial year, and three so far this year.”
Community and Cultural Development Committee chair and local divisional councillor, Ann-Maree Greaney, said it was “wonderful” to see the hotel restored.
“Built in 1901, the Empire is part of Townsville’s heritage trail, meaning the building is heritage listed and renovations must comply with a number of heritage requirements,” she said.
“These grants aren’t just a cash hand-out, they’re a hand up, with our council officers working with building owners to ensure the best outcome, including retaining heritage elements, as seen at the old Empire.”
Cost of childcare increase in Townsville
LABOR has vowed to make childcare more affordable after new data revealed Townsville families have been hit with increases double the national average.
Department of Education figures provided by the Opposition show child care fees jumped 5 per cent in Townsville in the period from March 2020 to March 2021, more than double the national average of 2.4 per cent.
Goodstart Early Learning centre director Tracey Bell said after 25 years in the industry, she was seeing young children slip through the gaps because of the cost of childcare.
“What we’re doing essentially is locking those children out,” Ms Bell said. We’re creating a culture that it’s only the elite who can come to childcare.”
Ms Bell said the first five years were vital for children’s brain development.
“We’ve got a lot of families who are doing it tough, children who are suffering trauma, or the effects of trauma due to domestic violence, a lot of children in foster care,” she said.
“We need to get these families in so we can repair and rebuild.”
Federal Labor put forward its plan to decrease the cost of childcare last year, with the policy expected to make childcare 97 per cent cheaper for families in the system, regardless of how many children a family has in care.
The plan would also scrap the $10,560 child care subsidy cap.
Labor’s Herbert candidate John Ring said the current system stops people returning to the workforce because it is cheaper to stay home.
“If people want to put an extra child in care or have extra days and care, it actually penalises them, and makes care more expensive,” Mr Ring said.
“It will actually provide less expensive childcare for families with a combined income of under $530,000 so that it won’t be so people won’t have to make a choice of either working or caring for their kids. They’ll actually be able to put their kids in care and still go back to work.”
Senator Nita Green said childcare had gone up nationally 39 per cent since the LNP was elected.
“When you are trying to balance your household budget, that is a big cost,” she said.
“And we’ve seen costs rise when it comes to insurance. We’ve seen petrol prices through the roof.
“This is a government that has seen costs across the country in household budgets go up. And that is why childcare is so important. It’s not a women’s issue. This is not about childcare and women being able to go back to work. This is an economic issue, and it’s why it’s so important that we get this right.”
Herbert MP Phillip Thompson said he would be happy to discuss childcare policy with Labor because he knew, as a father, it was expensive.
“I think everything could be more affordable, I think milk could probably be more affordable,” Mr Thompson said.
He said amid the pandemic, the federal government had rolled out subsidies to help with the cost of childcare.
Covid-19 stalls key water report
A LONG-awaited report into the Bradfield Scheme is still yet to be released, and the LNP claims the government has broken an election promise.
In September last year, Labor promised an independent expert panel would assess the viability of the decades-old water scheme as part of the government’s economic recovery plan.
The report was expected to be released in about September, but it is still being finalised.
This would have been the first government assessment in the scheme in more than 15 years, with Labor looking to determine if the project was viable.
Engineer John Bradfield first proposed the scheme in the 1930s, with plans to use floodwaters, and a portion of the normal flow, of the Tully, Herbert, Burdekin, Clarke and Flinders rivers to create flow from North Queensland to the border.
Now, 14 months after the initial announcement, the LNP is demanding answers.
Water and Construction of Dams Opposition spokesman Deb Frecklington said this failure was “proof” the government did not take water security seriously.
“In September 2020 the state government said this report would be done within a year,” Ms Frecklington said.
“Where is it?
“Labor has missed their own target.
“Water restrictions are on our doorstop and the state government’s lack of long term planning is coming back to the haunt them.”
Ms Frecklington, who was leader of the LNP at the time of the 2020 election, also took a plan to renew the Bradfield Scheme to the election.
Water Minister Glenn Butcher said the panel was finalising the report to deliver to government.
“Due to the impact of Covid-19 travel restrictions direct engagement by the Bradfield Panel was hampered and the deadline for the finalisation of the report was extended,” Mr Butcher said.
“The Palaszczuk government has invested $2 billion in water infrastructure projects since 2015, supporting around 2300 jobs.
“Compare that to the previous LNP government’s record where they went to the 2012 election promising 100 dams and didn’t deliver a single one. In fact they canned the Connors (River) Dam while in government.”
Katter’s Australian Party leader Robbie Katter said both major parties were guilty of treating Queenslanders with contempt when it came to water projects.
Mr Katter’s party has been pushing for the Bradfield Scheme to be implemented for some time.
“Both parties decided prior to the state election that they needed to throw a bone to the regions and so they picked the Bradfield Scheme – 12 months on, they are still playing games,” he said.
“Whilst the state LNP is lamenting Labor’s tardiness on yet another report, we have the federal LNP running the risk of destroying all hope that the Bradfield Scheme will ever be delivered on the basis of misguided engineering.”
Mr Katter said the federal government’s business case for Hells Gates Dam, which forms part of the scheme, was proceeding with a major engineering flaw.
“As Hells Gates would serve as the ‘control dam’ to the irrigation schemes to the west of Charters Towers, the dam wall height must be at least 390 metres. The current TEL (Townsville Enterprise) design doesn’t meet this requirement,” Mr Katter said.
“The KAP is now working with key federal government members to get this changed as a matter of urgency.
“If they are really serious about the Bradfield Scheme, the state LNP should be more concerned about this scheme-destroying design flaw than whatever silly games Labor is playing with writing yet another report.
“The Bradfield Scheme has been more than a century in the making, and the only thing that has been holding it back is the politics of the major parties who like talking things but are far less effective at delivering.”
Townsville Enterprise CEO Claudia Brumme-Smith told the Bulletin last month it was working to get a dam development off the ground that was feasible, financially viable and to a scale that ticked boxes for all stakeholders.
“We are facing the most stringent environmental laws than ever seen before, which is why the first dam to be built in 60 years needs to be a scalable and economically viable project,” she said.
Originally published as The Empire Hotel owners revamp with Townsville City Council help
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