April 13, 2023
Amplitel, part of the Telstra Group, has filed a Notice of Appeal with the Queensland Planning and Environment Court in relation to its application to build a new mobile base station near Kingaroy.
Telstra Regional General Manager (Queensland) May Boisen said the proposed site on Redmans Road was the best available in terms of meeting Telstra’s technical needs and having access to a location to build a base station.
“Telstra knows the importance of good mobile coverage for regional Australians,” Ms Boisen said.
“Demand for data on our mobile network is increasing by 30 per cent each year and nationally each day we have about 60 million calls and 40 million SMS travelling across our network.
“With this new site, Telstra is seeking to improve overall mobile and data coverage and call capacity to east of the Kingaroy township.
“Our existing infrastructure is experiencing congestion from high mobile phone and wireless internet usage and what we are proposing will greatly improve call quality, network capacity and overall performance.
“It will also provide additional Telstra coverage along the D’Aguilar Highway towards Coolabunia and Triple Zero connectivity for users of other providers where there is no coverage.”
The Planning and Environment Court appeal was discussed in a Confidential section of the South Burnett Regional Council’s Liveability, Governance and Finance Standing Committee Meeting on Wednesday.
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Thank you Mayor Brett Otto for listening to the Tinfoil Hat brigade and voting down Telstra’s proposal to bring better connectivity to the area via a new 5G tower.
Ratepayers will now have to foot the bill to defend this poorly thought out decision in the Planning and Environment Court, a case which Council will almost certainly lose.
Is there a way the legal costs to defend this decision can be spread across the tin foil types? Whatever was done with the charges for the Memerambi development should be done here with individual properties covering this cost. That or the cost is covered by Crs Otto and Duff. Perhaps he could take down a billboard or two to help cover the cost?
There is a majority of people for progress and about 100 against it. Otto and Duff took this upon themselves to make a poor decision against the majority.
I know for a fact there were people there who weren’t against the 5G tower but just interested in what was being sprouted. Unfortunately Otto, Duff and crew need to pay for this court cost because as a ratepayer I’m not allowing my money to be wasted on councillors’ poor decisions.