Tweed Shire Council has welcomed a $520,000 state-funding boost to complete the popular boardwalk and path at Kingscliff, a missing link in the Tweed Coast cycleway/walkway network.
Once work on the 125-metre section on the northern side of Cudgen Creek is completed, the cycleway/walkway will extend unbroken from Pottsville to the border, improving opportunities for both healthy lifestyles and tourism.
Planning minister Anthony Roberts made the funding announcement on site at Cudgen Creek during his visit to the Tweed this week, alongside Tweed MP Geoff Provest and a number of Tweed shire councillors.
A suspended concrete boardwalk and concrete path would replace the current old timber boardwalk section and asphalt path.
‘The funding of this missing link and the revamp of the cycleway/walkway is more great news for our community,’ Tweed mayor Katie Milne said.
‘It will provide major public access and health benefits by allowing people to more safely and easily walk and ride from one end of the coast to the other,’ Cr Milne said.
The project is expected to be completed in the 2017-2018 financial year.
Funding was also announced for a number of pedestrian improvement facilities at a variety of locations in Tweed Heads and Kingscliff, for which council will provide 50-50 funding with the NSW government.
And Byron Shire Council is SPENDING $200,000 of OUR ratepayers’ money on a consultant, for a feasibility study to see if it is feasible for a billionaire (out there somewhere) to spend his or her tens of millions, on a multi-modal mayoral dream, (aka The Byron Line) instead of applying FOR funds, like Tweed, and succeeding in getting the funds, to construct something REAL.
Unbelievable ….
And we Byronians voted for it too..!!
If only BSC spent just $50K towards a Rail Trail engineering study, like Lismore and Richmond Valley councils have each done, then we’d be so much closer to having not just 125 meters, but 130 kilometers of cycle and walkway at our doorsteps.
https://chuffed.org/project/the-northern-rivers-rail-trail-a-community-trail
If you want to help with this community trail, then go to the link before 8am Thursday 6th July
Well put Tim. It would be ironic indeed, but all too possible, if the corridor through the Byron Shire becomes the missing link in this opportunity to provide a sustainable, challenging and enjoyable way to pass through our beautiful region. Imagine satisfying a pedal-sharpened appetite in Mullum, the Bay or Bangalow; the view over the Julian Rocks cruising down St Helena past Rayward’s farm; the scent of coastal breeze across the Tyagarah plain; the tired but happy wheelman – or cycliste – enjoying a well earned pale ale at the Billinudgel pub – all these and more will delight the visitor and local pedalers alike, but only if the Byron Shire Council stops stalling and turns its environmental precepts into real action to support the rail trail.