Community consultation can be a tricky exercise.
It works wonderfully well when everyone’s in favour of a project. Scrutiny averted, all boxes ticked, and we move on.
It’s when there are objections that things get interesting. No longer is it about the process itself. It becomes about how governments or councils respond to the feedback.
The rail trail is a great project, and a majority of the community is in favour of it, whether or not they decide to use it.
However, there is one stretch which has potentially hundreds of residents in Palm Lake Bethania concerned.
As a gated community, they are concerned that the rail trail will be positioned in a way that allows people from outside the community easier access to their backyards and homes.
These are people in their retirement years, and they have a right to be worried. They also have a right for Logan City Council to provide them peace of mind.
Letters asking for their opinion don’t offer solutions.
Asking existing owners of the retirement village to build a fence seems a farcical solution. It’s not their project.
Millions of dollars are being spent on this valuable project. Council is proud of its safety cameras and solutions city-wide.
So if this final 2km stretch of rail trail is necessary, why can’t council listen to the people of the area and modify plans accordingly? Surely that’s what effective consultation is all about.
