Community & Business
29 October, 2024
Big refresh for Kuranda street
KURANDA’s Coondoo Street will be given a refresh, with Mareeba Shire Council awarding nearly $900,000 in two contracts to install new bud lighting, replace other lights, upgrade the switchboard, and rectification works to improve the footpath.
Council awarded the $368,980 contract to install the lighting and upgrade other lights to i-LEC Solutions Pty Ltd.
The works will include the installation of 24-volt bud lighting wraps to the 14 fig trees in Upper Coondoo Street.
The project will also involve the replacement of 17 ageing council-owned streetlights with new poles and LED fixtures.
They will also replace the existing para-flood lights and cages at the base of the fig trees with lockable stainless-steel pillars with 24-volt outlets to service the bud lighting and 240-volt plugs that will provide a power supply option to any festivals or events being held on Coondoo Street.
“This will be great for Kuranda,” Deputy Mayor Lenore Wyatt said at the recent council meeting.
“A lot of people have been asking for lighting up Kuranda for a long time.”
She said everyone was aware that Kuranda operated mostly between 9am and 3pm, but there had been a long-time desire for people to stay longer.
“And for them to stay longer you have to be lit up, you have to feel safe. Quite a few restaurants have been waiting for this to happen,” she said.
“The bud lights, especially, on the heritage-listed fig trees, will be beautiful to see.”
The project also includes the replacement and upgrade of cabling and the existing switchboard located on the Anglican Church frontage, that has reached end of life.
The new switchboard will be reconfigured to 3-phase power and will service the upper Coondoo streetlighting and fig tree bud lighting.
The streetlighting upgrade and fig tree bud lighting project is being funded through the Kuranda Infrastructure Agreement tourism fund and was “the last of the funding”, Mayor Angela Toppin said.
The announcement of additional funding recently secured from the Queensland Government Building Bush Tourism Program was “very welcome” she added.
Council also awarded a $510,915 contract to Perosa Landscaping Pty Ltd to upgrade the footpath in Coondoo Street.
The street was the recipient of an upgrade in the mid-1990s with a combination of pavement types, exposed aggregate, paver, porphyry stone and cobblestone. But sections of the pavement have moved or been affected by fig tree root growth.
The contract rectification works include demolition and replacement of several exposed aggregate slabs, repair of dislodged pavers and cobblestone, as well as the replacement of missing sections of porphyry stone facing on various garden beds and retaining walls.
