Toowoomba Regional Council votes to fast-track two options to rehabilitate Bridge Street quarry

Millions will be spent on rehabilitating the site of the planned Quarry Gardens, with two options to be fast-tracked to a detailed design phase next year.

The Bridge Street quarry site.

The long-awaited Quarry Gardens project has taken another small step towards fruition, after the Toowoomba Regional Council agreed to move forward with two plans to rehabilitate the site on Bridge Street.

Councillors voted at Tuesday’s committee meeting to take two of the original six strategies to the detailed design phase.

The two options were highly favoured by the council’s Bridge Street Quarry advisory committee, which features tourism groups, small business leaders and residents along with several councillors.

According to the report by project managers Liam Folk and Lindsay Jobling, both options would make the site safe for future development.

“(The more highly-preferred strategy) seeks to remove and address instability and risk areas associated with the central bench and associated faces, by reducing the height of the central bench, to a flat even platform,” the report said.

“The material ‘won’ from this will be used to reprofile the central bench eastern face eliminating that risk area and providing sufficient material as required for bunding at the base of the main eastern wall.

“(The other strategy) considers the ‘path of least resistance’ to making the site stable, however, still requires significant material to be hauled.

“This strategy maintains the site in its current landform and focuses on installation of management techniques such as bunding and fencing, to exclude the public from risk areas.”

The most preferred strategy is expected to cost up to $4m to complete, while the second-choice method would be less than $3m.

However, this strategy would lead to less developable land in the long run and would require fencing.

In both cases, blasting and significant earthworks would still be required.

The detailed design process for both options is expected to cost council $325,000.

The decision comes almost three years after the council received the 2018 feasibility study by KPMG, which outlined a three-stage process to turn the site into a major tourist attraction.

Funding for the rehabilitation was included in the council’s $50m pandemic response stimulus capital works program last year.

“We have a tremendous opportunity to do something spectacular in the old quarry site which would bring thousands of visitors to the Toowoomba region every year,” Mayor Paul Antonio said in June 2020.

Geotechnical investigations into rehabilitation works began in February.

More recently, Wagner Corporation’s John Wagner made an offer of 200,000 cubic metres of soil to aid in the works.

The offer was declined by the council.