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A brief history of the Mandalay
Progress Association given at the 1994 Annual General Meeting by
Warren Fletcher President
The Association is
twenty years old. Born out of a disaster, the 1974 floods, the
Mandalay Progress Association has since prevented a number of
disasters that would have done more damage to the area than the
flood itself.
Few residents
associations have had greater hand in moulding the development of
the area they have represented, or; for that matter, have actually
remained active for as long as the Mandalay Progress Association.
Tonight, I would like
to very briefly run through a few of the issues that would have
transformed Mandalay
had the association not
been formulated.
The first battle began shortly after
the M.P.A. came into being.
Industrial noise from
across the river was many times worse than it is today. The plant
operated twenty-four hours per day with sirens signalling shifts,
breaks and even telephones were linked to them. Vehicles without
mufflers moved the product around, and barges discharged loads at
all hours.
An attempt by
industry to discourage development of Mandalay encouraged as much
noise as possible, and such things as cleaning rust from barges with
sledge hammers at night were not unheard of.
Although there were
vested interests with politicians involved, we managed to stop
intense noise at night, have a curfew imposed on river traffic and
have a barrier of thousands of trees planted on both sides of the
river.
Most of the trees failed to survive,
but the major problems were eliminated.
When Mandalay was
promoted, first buyers were promised, the development of "Queensland's
most unique park" and a levy was imposed on every block of land
sold to pay for its development and upkeeping.
The developer, Alfred
Grant, went into receivership and the money collected by levy was
spent by the council in another ward for the development of a
sporting complex.
The park turned into
a swamp with two-meter high weeds surrounding a stagnant lagoon.
Requests to have the
park slashed and mown were answered by the council with the comment,
" If you approve our leasing the land to various sporting
clubs, it will be cleared and developed."
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