Airlie Beach Main Street slammed for ‘grubby’ pavers

The Queensland gateway to some of the world’s most famous islands has been slammed as “really quite revolting”, with urgent pleas to fix it. TAKE THE POLL

Airlie Beach has a claim to fame as being the gateway to world-famous islands but its main street has been slammed as “really quite revolting” with urgent pleas to fix it. Picture: Google Maps

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Airlie Beach has a claim to fame as being the gateway to the world-famous picturesque Whitsunday Islands but its main street has been slammed as “really quite revolting”.

The stained pavers have been described as embarrassing and an eyesore despite the town recently winning the title of Queensland’s Top Small Tourism Town for the second time.

Save our Foreshore president Suzette Pelt says the Whitsunday Regional Council is scrimping on maintenance, with business owners and residents taking it upon themselves to vamp up the “grubby” Main St.

The street largely winds along the beachfront and binds together key tourism offerings including eateries, retail, and offshore adventures like sailing and diving on the Great Barrier Reef.

Ms Pelt said the situation became so bad recently that Bunnings donated plants, fertiliser and cleaning gear so residents and business owners could “scrub” the “very, very tatty” street, wash graffiti off walls, paint, and plant more greenery.

Airlie Beach has a claim to fame as being the gateway to world-famous islands but its main street has been slammed as “really quite revolting” with urgent pleas to fix it. Picture: Google Maps

She further hit out at the pavers which were cracked, stained and in one section repaired with black bitumen which “just looks awful”.

Councillor Jan Clifford called the pavers “really quite revolting” at the last meeting of council and urged for more money in the budget to fix the issue.

The pavers were installed back in 2013 as part of a $23 million upgrade to Main St but the external contractor had not applied a sealant.

WRC acting CEO Neil McGaffin said the council had bought a Hako Citymaster footpath scrubber to help clean the pavers each Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

Mr McGaffin said the council also used a hot water gerni every three months, and had recently completed a super clean, but some stains were persistent because of the pavers’ porosity.

He said the council had recently applied a sealant to “help reduce further staining” and had allocated funding in the yet-to-be-adopted 2023-24 budget to work with the community and business owners to develop a new masterplan for Airlie Beach.

Airlie Beach has a claim to fame as being the gateway to world-famous islands but its main street has been slammed as “really quite revolting” with urgent pleas to fix it. Picture: Google Maps

Councillor Clay Bauman said the sealant had only served to ensure the stains were “permanently in place”.

“I couldn’t believe that it had actually been sealed over the way it was,” he said.

“But the stains and the footpaths are only part of the problem as far as I’m concerned with the Main St.

“It doesn’t appear to be hygienic or properly maintained.”

He cautioned any redesign of Main St should be more carefully thought out than the last one.

Councillor Mike Brunker said despite the criticism levelled at Airlie’s centrepiece, the pavers were “100 per cent better” than the “dog’s breakfast” that was there before.

“I’ve had people just come back from Bali … if we saw (what they did in Bali) in Airlie Beach, it’d be an uproar,” he said.

He agreed the council should look at upping the maintenance budget to get on top of the stains but “other than that, I think Main St is quite nice”.

How do you think Airlie Beach should be cleaned up? Have you say in the comments section below.

Originally published as Airlie Beach Main Street slammed for ‘grubby’ pavers