Hervey Bay Gossip

Qantaslink has announced that two return services on the Brisbane to Hervey Bay route will be axed due to pilot shortages. At least we haven’t lost all our services like Maryborough has.

You can read the full story here

Blogs have been around the Internet for several years now and some are very well-known around the world and have a considerable impact on the people who read them and the subjects that they deal with. But blogs that deal with life at a local level are perhaps less well-known and certainly don’t have the same impact.

For sometime now Strewth has been seeking to have an impact on life here in Hervey Bay by exposing what its author and supporters consider to be the poor management of local resouces by our elected representatives on Hervey Bay City Council. But how effective has that impact been?

Well there’s no doubt that Strewth has certainly ruffled some feathers and our current Mayor and the local paper have had something to say about it … but at the same time they’ve been careful not to refer to it by name. Perhaps they thought that they needed to attack the credibility of Strewth without adding to its impact by actually naming it so people who didn’t know about it couldn’t find it.

Despite that the reach and impact of Strewth has been growing and now even people who might not otherwise read a local blog are reading Strewth. I was talking to a candidate for the upcoming Fraser Coast Regional Council elections last night and he mentioned that he is now reading Strewth so that he can see what the important issues for electors are going to be at those elections. He also wants to see both sides of the various issues that he will be confronted with if elected.

When you think about it that goes to show you just how important Strewth is becoming to Hervey Bay. With only word-of-mouth marketing Strewth has become required reading for people who would never have thought of reading a blog before.

I’m not sure that there are many – if any – other local issue blogs that could claim to have such an impact on their communities in the way that Strewth is having an impact on Hervey Bay.

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Thanks to the recent rain Hervey Bay residents can now do some outside cleaning from February 23 right through to March 2.

For the coming week residents will be able to used their hand-held hoses to clean houses, paved areas, cars, boats etc.

Nominations have now closed for the Fraser Coast Regional Council and Strewth has a full list of the candidates who will be standing for election next month.

You can find that list here.

Sadly the list of Mayoral Candidates is not all that impressive.

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At 12.55pm today the Weather Bureau issued for a severe weather warning for parts of the Queensland coast including Fraser Island and Hervey Bay.

Synoptic situation: A strong ridge lies along the Queensland coast south of an active monsoon trough with a low centre 100 km northeast of Townsville. Reorganisation of the monsoon trough should result in a deepening low being located 550 km east of Proserpine by 4am Tuesday.

Heavy rainfall leading to flash flooding is likely in the northern Central Coast and Whitsundays district. A band of heavy rain currently lies through the Whitsundays and inland to near Proserpine and Laguna Quays. Heavy rainfall in this area is expected to persist through the afternoon.

Damaging wind gusts to 90 km/h are possible about the exposed coast and islands in the Central Coast and Whitsundays and extending down to Fraser Island and northern parts of Hervey Bay by Tuesday morning.

Dangerous wave conditions are expected about exposed areas of the Central Coast and offshore islands and should extend down to the east Coast of Fraser Island by Tuesday morning and down to Point Danger late Tuesday. High tides over the next few days will result in waves running up over levels exceeding the highest tides of the year in areas exposed to the open ocean causing beach erosion.

The State Emergency Service advises that people in the affected area should:

- secure loose outdoor items.
- take shelter, indoors if possible, and never under trees.
- beware of fallen trees and powerlines.
- avoid driving, walking or riding through flood waters.
- keep away from the waters edge in beaches exposed to the large waves.

Back on February 8 Strewth asked if the development bubble had burst here in Hervey Bay, something that the Gossip has been wondering about for some months now. Several times we’ve mentioned that there has been a slowdown for small business here in town and pointed to the slow take up of some commercial developments as a sign that things are not going as well for Hervey Bay as it might otherwise appear.

It’s been known for a while that the last whale watching season was not as good for operators as previous seasons have been. Then we had the wet weather over Christmas that really hurt a number of the tourism related businesses here in town. Poor tourist seasons have a flow-on effect for the rest of the town and if thathose poor seasons weren’t bad enough other factors have also had an impact here.

The upwards creep in interest rates, the cessation of work on the Centro expansions and the collapse of a major building contractor hasn’t helped the situation either so we seem to be in for some interesting times in the months ahead and perhaps we really will see a slowdown in development here in Hervey Bay.

So let’s take a look at some of the affected areas around Hervey Bay.

The resort site in Freshwater Street Hervey Bay that has seen no work since the fencing went up just after Christmas.

One of two construction sites between the Esplanade and Watson Street Pialba. This site seems to have some work going on while work on the other may have stopped.

Courses at the University of Southern Queensland here in Hervey Bay may have been slashed but construction work on the extensions is still proceeding. There were workers on site when this photo was taken last Saturday.

A commercial development in Luizzi Street Hervey Bay that was completed in October. Of the nine units available in the development only three are occupied. Construction of a proposed new development across the road has not yet begun.

These units in Central Avenue Hervey Bay were completed late last year … all of them remain unoccupied.

And out at the industrial estate at the airport things aren’t much different. There’s a lot of empty land, a few commercial complexes going up, one or two that have been occupied and others like this one.

It certainly seems that development has slowed here in Hervey Bay and you would have to wonder if other developments along the Esplanade will now proceed.

Is the redevelopment of the corner of Fraser Street and the Esplanade still to go ahead? A few of the affected shops are empty but nothing more appears to be happening.

Unfortunately this is a town that depends on development so things may not be too bright for Hervey Bay in the short term. And that ‘term’ may be longer than many might hope for because we’re now about to become part of a much larger regional council area and the needs of this area will have to be balanced with the needs of the other areas that are to be amalgamated with Hervey Bay.

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Hervey Bay City Councillor Sue Brooks has taken the bold step of doing a little electioneering via YouTube. With the elections for the Fraser Coast Regional Council coming up next month is good to see a candidate who is prepared to use technology to get her message across.

You can find Sue’s electioneering message here – and it’s worth listening too.

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If you’re looking for a little excitement in Hervey Bay this weekend then the whale boat race is one again this Sunday. You can be on one of the whale boats in the race for just $25.00 per adult and $15 for children.

The price of the tickets includes a chicken and salad lunch and the proceeds from the sale of the tickets goes to charity.

Tickets can be purchased at the Boat Club and cast off time is set for 9am.

At 4.25am today the Weather Bureau issued a severe weather warning for the Wide Bay and Burnett as well as the South east Coast.

Synoptic situation:  At 4am the monsoon trough lay across northern Queensland with a 997 hPa low located around 100km west of Mackay. The low is moving southeast and is expected to be located on the Sunshine Coast late tonight.

The low is expected to remain an intense system as it moves rapidly towards the southeast. Very heavy rainfall is likely, both along the coast east of the low and extending inland to its south.

Locally damaging wind gusts up to 90 km/h are also expected east of the low reaching 110 km/h in coastal areas exposed to the north.  Southeasterly wind gusts to 90 km/h are expected to develop over the Southeast Coast district tonight. Westerly wind gusts are expected to ease north of Townsville during the morning. 
 
The State Emergency Service advises that people in the affected area should:

seek shelter, indoors where possible, and never under trees.

- secure outdoor items.

- beware of fallen trees and powerlines.

- avoid driving, walking or riding through flood waters

Driving down the Esplanade at Hervey Bay can be a challenge even at the best of times. Slow cars, groups of cyclists and tourists who want to commit suicide by dashing out in front of you to get to the tourist bus on the other side of the road are just some of the challenges that you can face … even early on a Sunday morning … but I’ve never encountered a roller-blader on the Esplanade before.

That changed this morning when we were stuck behind this guy for quite some time before he finally decided to move over, a few seconds before I took this photo.

 

And just to make matters worse, he wasn’t a very confident roller-blader either and, with plenty of oncoming traffic, there were few chances to safely pass him.