Toowoomba Regional Council urged to change mountain bike master plan over potential ‘environmental destruction’ to Redwood Park

The Toowoomba Regional Council has been urged to make big changes to its mountain biking master plan along the escarpment, including removing one designated park from it.

A community group is pushing the Toowoomba Regional Council to make changes to its mountain biking escarpment master plan. PICTURE: MATT TAYLOR.

A community group that helps to look after the region’s beautiful escarpment parks has urged the council to make major changes to the approved Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley Escarpment Mountain Bike Master Plan.

Friends of Escarpment Parks submitted a petition to the council this week asking for it to remove Redwood Park from the plan, which includes an additional 68km in trails across several sections.

The master plan was created to attract more sports tourism to the city, which would require offering a multitude of new trails of varying difficulty levels.

Plans for mountain biking trails in Redwood Park as part of the Toowoomba and Lockyer Valley Escarpment Mountain Bike Master Plan.

While he was not opposed to more mountain biking, FOEP president Rob Brodribb said the current plan would potentially cause “irreparable damage” to Redwood Park and several of its most sensitive fauna, flora and indigenous cultural sites.

“Basically, Redwood has got such important environmental, cultural and social aspects to it that we’re really concerned they are going to be irreparably damaged by this plan,” he said.

“We accept that there aren’t a lot of trails going through, but we’ve already seen the creep that has occurred.

“There are indigenous sites that are very important, there are so many things we’re concerned of to do with the mountain biking trail.

“We want Redwood to not be part of the future trail network.”

Under the plan, Redwood Park would have seven extra trails running through it.

Mr Brodribb pushed back against the idea that mountain biking was no more damaging than bushwalking, saying the plans clearly wanted a more extreme form of the activity.

“They put forward an argument that mountain bike users have no worse effect on the environment than walkers, but it’s a bit misleading,” he said.

“What we’re looking at are high-speed downhill tracks.

“They want them in Redwood because they want them at high speeds.”

Mr Brodribb said the group wanted the council to consider to instead add trails to a section of the escarpment that is owned by Defence Housing Australia.

“There are issues with that area, but we accept there’s got to be a compromise, so we’d like council to explore that,” he said.

“There will be some environmental damage, but it’s about balancing things.”

The Toowoomba Mountain Bike Club was approached for comment.

To check out the full master plan, head to the council’s website.