Community & Business
18 March, 2025
Town centre needs spruce-up
COMPLAINTS about how the Atherton town centre looks have triggered a review into whether Tablelands Regional Council’s parks and gardens staff need more resources to keep the commercial hub of the region looking clean and attractive.
The town, which won Queensland’s Tidiest Town award 20 years ago, is looking “a bit sad” and “disgraceful” according to Cr Con Spanos and Cr Kevin Cardew.
“A lot of other towns (in the TRC area) have voluntary garden groups that do a magnificent job in keeping our towns beautiful,” Cr Cardew said.
“But Atherton’s town centre and the approaches into town are disgraceful.
“I get complaints every single week about the Atherton town centre and I’m sure I’m not the only one.”
Cr Cardew said he did not blame staff for the condition of the town’s main business district and its approaches, saying more funds were needed.
“It’s not an indictment upon staff, they are under-resourced, but we need to start thinking about it because we have budget deliberations starting at the end of March,” he said.
“The whole point about this today is to bring the attention to everybody that we need to do something – it’s (Atherton) our major town in the TRC footprint and it doesn’t look pretty at all.
“I’m not looking for something new – it’s about maintaining what we have better.”
Cr Spanos said he was getting pushback from the community about how the town looked and agreed the budget allocated to parks and gardens needed reviewing.
“The town is looking a bit sad,” he said.
“Atherton is the commercial hub of the TRC, it’s never going to be pretty little village again, it’s grown immeasurably.
“You’ve also got to remember that the main street is also the main road, getting in there and getting things done isn’t as easy as other places.”
He also noted that smaller towns often had volunteers and community groups actively involved in making their town attractive.
“The buck shouldn’t just stop with the TRC. If the community is interested in how our main street and our verges look, they can help.” Cr Spanos said.
“It’s not just on us. I think the community should jump up and say ‘hey, I’d like to do a bit as well’.”
Even new chief executive officer Dr Nikola Stepanov had noticed the town needed some care.
“As someone who drove into town, I certainly noticed it,” she said.
Mayor Rod Marti also backed a review of the resources allocated to keeping the town looking clean and tidy
“We have all expressed for some time that our parks and gardens are basically under-resourced – we have been talking about that for a long time,” he said.
“We have to put more resources in because they work so hard. Perhaps what we need to do first is to give it an increase in the upcoming budget well beyond CPI if we want our entrances to towns to look better.”
Community Services general manager Hilary Jackson suggested the first step “to address the frustrations of councillors” was for councillors to agree on the level of standard that should apply to the area.
Cr Dave Bilney said he would like all towns in the local government area to be given the same review to see if more resources were needed there.
“I understand Atherton is the primary focus but we should be looking at other town centres and entries as well. We may need to look at all towns, I think that would be smarter,” he said.
But Cr Cardew said he wanted it to specifically focus on Atherton to begin with and wanted the information for the next monthly meeting in March so that it could guide 2025-26 Budget deliberations.
Dr Stepanov said that timeline would not be achievable and committed to bringing back a report to council at its June ordinary meeting.
Last week, the council finished planting the embankment on Kennedy Highway/Tolga Road between Golf Links Road and Grove Street in Atherton. The project involved around 350 plants, with a few flowering species to add some colour.
