2019-03-12 S&O Agenda - Item 6 - Attachment 1 - Regional Facilities Plan for Difficult to Locate Sports

Regional Facilities Plan for Difficult to Locate Sports (including Implementation Priorities) (Final Draft – February 2019)




    3.3 MOTORISED WATER SPORTS
    Activities/ sports that fall within this category are:                 ӹӹ Noosa and Maroochy Rivers (in particular) are
    ӹӹ Wakeboarding                                                           experiencing high levels of adjacent environmental,
    ӹӹ Jet ski racing                                                         rural and urban land use, which means that it
    ӹӹ Ski Racing                                                             is problematic to assign a dedicated space for
    ӹӹ Water skiing (jump, tricks, slalom)                                    competitive motorised water sports, which create a
    ӹӹ Barefoot skiing (jump, tricks, slalom)                                 range of impacts. As development continues within
                                                                              the catchments, further use and development
    Information from motorised water sports related peak/                     of the rivers will focus on increased shared use
    State level organisations, regional associations and                      which prohibits the speeds and noise impacts of
    local clubs indicated that current and emerging trends                    motorised water sport. Additional provision of
    impacting (or potentially impacting) on motorised                         moorings and marinas, and recreational paddle or
    water sports are as follows:                                              fishing access is likely to prevail.  
    ӹӹ The Queensland climate makes most of the State                      ӹӹ Water skiing and related sports have indicated that
       conducive to year-round skiing;                                        they would like to have a competition facility within
    ӹӹ Participants in the various disciplines are largely                    the region. However, they acknowledge that none
       oriented around family groups, with ages ranging                       of the existing recreational or club use areas are
       between 8yo and the mid-70’s;                                          able to support competitive use.
    ӹӹ The majority of participation is recreational;                      ӹӹ The most promising option for long term
    ӹӹ The focus of participants is to build on and better                    investigation of a motorised water sport site is the
       their own performance;                                                 re-use of an exhausted resource extraction site
    ӹӹ Approximately 5% of members/ participants are                          (quarry). A brief overview of inactive extraction
       estimated to be classified as participating within                     sites located in and across the Sunshine Coast
       the elite competition levels.                                          Council area indicates that most are either too
                                                                              small for development of motorised water sports or
    3.3.1 Need for Regional Facilities                                        will not contain water bodies as part of final void
    While water sports and the various disciplines have                       planning. An example of an exhausted (or previous
    little in the way of facility plans, there are some issues                extraction site) that has been used for motorised
    and needs which did emerge from the investigation:                        water sports is the privately owned and operated
    ӹӹ Different water sports require different water body                    Marshalls Ski Lakes and Camping site adjacent to
        and access characteristics. River, lake and ocean                     the Bruce Highway in Chevallum. The site currently
        water bodies can be used for diverse activities;                      would not meet all the draft DSS requirements to
        however, the majority of demand is for recreational                   accommodate a range of motorised competitive
        access. Competitive uses can vary but generally                       water sports but may be suitable to host some.
        they require both launching facilities and spectator                  However, as the site is a private facility and the
        areas.                                                                level of water quality and site management (to
    ӹӹ In general, the key facility locations are lakes,                      comply with standards for high level competition
        rivers and ocean areas, but some artificial facilities                use) is unknown, investigation of the site would
        constructed for wakeboarding, skiing and jet boat                     be required to determine if it could be developed
        racing can accommodate both recreation and                            further to support competitive uses. Previous
        competition uses.                                                     investigations identified a number of candidate
    ӹӹ Key elements for competition use are the                               sites however all had limitations as to the scale of
        characteristics, amount/ area of water available and                  activity they could support. Across the study area
        access for spectators to view the event.                              a dedicated study may be able to find a number of
    ӹӹ The existing lakes and water storages (within the                      candidate sites where proactive post-use planning
        study area) are insufficient in size for potential                    (to guide extraction patterns and the shape of the
        spectator facilities and have limited potential for                   final void) could allow for an eventual use for water
        additional infrastructure to support competitive use.                 sport.
    ӹӹ Availability of appropriate/ accessible water bodies
        is the primary limiting factor for establishment of
        regional competition facilities. The size of these
        water areas and the limited opportunities for
        associated land-based amenities/ facilities, provides
        the limiting factor to the scale of events. This
        results in catchments for these sports being very
        large and extended travel to competitive events is
        common.

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