🌿 Speak Up for Coochin Creek and the Inter-Urban Break🌿
Protect the Northern Inter-Urban Break — once it’s gone, it’s gone forever. The Northern Inter-Urban Break — the vital green belt separating the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay regions — is under serious threat from inappropriate development. Your voice is urgently needed by 17 November to help protect this irreplaceable landscape and safeguard the Pumicestone Passage, one of South East Queensland’s most significant natural assets.
The Northern Inter-Urban Break — the vital green belt separating the Sunshine Coast and Moreton Bay regions — is under serious threat from inappropriate development.
Your voice is urgently needed to help protect this irreplaceable landscape and safeguard the Pumicestone Passage, one of South East Queensland’s most significant natural assets.
🚫 Coochin Creek is No Place for a Mega Tourist Park
Coochin Creek, a tranquil tributary of the Ramsar-listed Pumicestone Passage, has long been a sanctuary for wildlife and a peaceful retreat for locals.
Now it’s under threat from a massive, so-called “eco” tourist park that’s anything but eco-friendly.
This high-impact proposal would:
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Threaten internationally protected wetlands and endangered species habitat
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Introduce large-scale earthworks, concrete, and sewage infrastructure
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Create noise, light, and water pollution in an environmentally sensitive, bushfire-prone area
Coochin Creek deserves to remain a peaceful, natural haven — not an intensive entertainment zone.
📣 Have Your Say Before 17 November
A brief consultation period is now open. This is your chance to stand up for the Inter-Urban Break and the Pumicestone Passage.
Our Community Coalition has prepared background information and a submission guide to help you make a meaningful contribution.
🔗 Submission guide and template
🗓️ Deadline: 17 November
Every submission counts — the more the Planning Minister hears from the community, the greater the chance of protecting this precious landscape.
✍️ You can also sign and comment on this petition Protect Pumicestone Passage and the Greenbelt – Refuse highly inappropriate developments— and share it widely — as an alternative or additional way to make your voice heard.
⚠️ What’s Being Proposed
The Comiskey Group has applied to build a Big4-style tourist park at 1807 Roys Road, within the protected green belt and next to the Pumicestone Passage.
The proposal includes:
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75 cabins and 75 camp/caravan sites (accommodating up to 600 people)
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Swimming pools, water park, bars, and entertainment areas
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A 1,000 m² reception, dining, and amplified music building
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Concrete pools beside mangroves
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A 2.43 ha sewage treatment area processing 64,400 litres of effluent per day
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Increased noise, traffic, and recreational pressure on fragile wetlands
And there’s more — the same developer has also lodged plans for a 150-hectare festival site nearby at 1641 Roys Road, designed to host up to 35,000 people per day/night for major events.
Together, these proposals would turn a tranquil, flood-prone wetland into an urban-scale entertainment complex.
💙 Together, We Can Protect Coochin Creek
This is a critical moment to defend the Northern Inter-Urban Break and the ecological health of the Pumicestone Passage.
Every submission helps show that Queenslanders value nature, not overdevelopment.
➡️ Make your submission before 17 November
Protect Coochin Creek. Protect our future.
🏛️ Planning Context
These development applications were originally being assessed by the Sunshine Coast Council and the State Assessment and Referral Agency (SARA).
However, the Planning Minister, Hon. Jarrod Bleijie MP, has called-in the applications — a rare and exceptional action that removes the usual and appropriate process of local and state assessment.
This means the Minister alone will now make the final decision with no third-party appeal rights.
This short public consultation period is the only opportunity for the community to have its say.
🌳 Why the Inter-Urban Break Matters
The Inter-Urban Break is essential to the health of both the Pumicestone Passage and Moreton Bay.
It is a strategic green corridor connecting the National Heritage-listed Glass House Mountains, identified in both the Sunshine Coast Planning Scheme and the Queensland Government’s ShapingSEQ 2023 regional plan.
It safeguards:
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Water quality and biodiversity
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Climate resilience and flood protection
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The distinct identity and liveability of the Sunshine Coast
Once compromised by urbanisation or incompatible development, this landscape cannot be reclaimed.
⚠️ Key Environmental and Safety Concerns
The State Assessment and Referral Agency (SARA) has recommended refusal of the tourist park due to major environmental, safety, and planning conflicts.
Major risks include:
🧭 Ramsar wetland contamination — Effluent ponds and dams are located beside internationally significant wetlands.
🐟 Aquatic ecosystem impacts — Potential harm to fish breeding grounds from chemical mosquito controls.
🪶 Threats to migratory birds — Over 40,000 migratory shorebirds rely on the Pumicestone Passage’s undisturbed wetlands.
🔊 Noise, light, and traffic pollution — Disrupting wildlife and the quiet natural character of the area.
🚒 Bushfire and flood risk — A single narrow, winding access and egress road through a pine plantation is unsafe for mass evacuation and any emergency situation
🛑 Don’t Break the Break
The Inter-Urban Break is not just a planning boundary — it’s the living heart of the Sunshine Coast’s environmental identity and lifestyle.
It exists for everyone, now and in the future.
Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
✍️ Take Action
📝 Make your submission by 17 November to the Planning Minister via email deputy.premier@ministerial.qld.gov.au and industrialrelations@ministerial.qld.gov.au
📜 Sign and share the petition: Protect Pumicestone Passage and the Green Belt
Let’s stand and speak out together for Coochin Creek, Pumicestone Passage, and our regional green belt.