Locals lobby Council to enforce quarry conditions
IN a small but growing residential pocket just south of Beaudesert CBD, the rumblings of worried residents are rivalling the steady flow of trucks on Cryna Road.
The Scenic Rim Regional Council in 2012 approved an application for The Neilsen Group to more than double maximum annual extraction from 600,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes at their Cryna quarry on the condition they would build a new haulage route.
Nearly 13 years later, Neilsens are pushing back against that condition and locals are not happy about it.
When the Bulletin caught up with a handful of those locals on Cryna Road between the growling of compression brakes, one thing was clear – they want Council to uphold its condition for Neilsens to build Ferguson Road.
Conditions imposed
Neilsens – one of the largest independently owned concrete and quarry suppliers in Queensland – counts the Cross River Rail, Legacy Way Tunnel, Airport Link Project, and Beaudesert Bypass among its big projects but it does not want to touch Ferguson Road.
On 11 December 2012, Council gave conditional approval for Neilsens to increase its maximum annual extraction at Cryna to 1.5 million tonnes of rock, sand and gravel.
In its 40 conditions, Council said Neilsens must build Ferguson Road between Cryna Road and Mount Lindesay Highway ‘prior to the end of 2016 or as otherwise agreed by Council’.
The conditions also included an infrastructure agreement for Neilsens to reseal the haul route every 10 years, provide all fill materials for free for the bypass (north and south sides) and provide all road base materials at cost price for the bypass (north and south sides).
Neilsens has provided Council with fill and road base materials and anticipates a reseal of Cryna Road in about 2039 or 2040 based on volume of material transported on Cryna Road to date.
Neilsens did not build Ferguson Road and has instead applied to keep using Cryna Road as the approved haulage route.
Council is yet to decide on the matter and in May agreed to extend its decision-making period to August 29, 2025, after previous extensions dating back to November 21, 2024.
Safety concerns
Cryna Road might not have a footpath, but that doesn’t mean pedestrians don’t use it.
From his home on Cryna Road, Kelvin Barr sees people walking their dogs, teenage girls going for a run, parents pushing a pram and children riding the school bus.
He sees posties, learner drivers, cyclists and people test driving cars from local dealerships.
He worries about the safety of those sharing the road with trucks, particularly as Spring Creek Estate continues to grow.
In its submission against Neilsens’ application to keep using Cryna Road, Spring Creek Estate raised safety as a major concern.
“In the interests of maintaining the fundamental integrity of the State and Council’s strategic planning for this progressively urbanising area and the safety and well-being of current and future families that will locate along Cryna Road and surrounding areas, the current obligation on the quarry operator to construct the alternative Ferguson Road haulage route must remain in place,” wrote Spring Creek Land Corporation Director Terry McKinnon.
“As a local developer committed to delivering well planned, quality bousing within a high amenity and safe residential environment to the south of Beaudesert in response to South East Queensland’s well-documented housing supply crisis, Spring Creek Land Corporation strongly opposes the long term and escalating usage of Cryna Road for quarry trucks.”
‘Unnecessary’
Neilsens said they had spent $100,000 on design s for Ferguson Road and the build was ‘unnecessary’.
In a traffic assessment report prepared for Neilsens in June 2024, they said annual production of the quarry had never exceeded 600,000 tonnes
They said the quarry would not reach maximum production of 1.5m tonnes ‘in the near future’ and by 2034 production would likely still be 600,000 tonnes per year.
Neilsens pointed to Council’s Eastern Ring Road plans – which are yet to be finalised – as a solution.
“According to Council’s “Regional Prosperity Strategy 2020 – 2025”, Council plans to construct an Eastern Ring Road to “divert heavy-vehicle traffic and create opportunities for better centre activation in the Beaudesert Town Centre”,” they said in teh report.
“With delivery of the Eastern Ring Road in the future, some of the trips associated with the Subject Site would appropriately be expected to reasonably seek to use Cryna Road and the Eastern Ring Road (ie. to not travel directly to Mount Lindesay Highway) to deliver material to the north.
“It would not be necessary to construct Ferguson Road and the Mount Lindesay Highway / Ferguson Road intersection… the Ferguson Road link is also considered to be unnecessary in circumstances where the Eastern Link Road was to not be delivered.”
Big impacts
Cancer patient Pat Darcy, who lives near Cryna Road in Spring Creek Estate, finds the idea of ongoing and potentially increasing truck noise intolerable.
“I’m on chemo and it makes me sleep irregular – some nights I can’t sleep,” he said.
“I have to sleep during the day and it’s hopeless – it’s affecting me.”
Fellow Spring Creek Estate resident Annette Burton said she did her due diligence before buying and would have made different choices if she knew Neilsens planned to keep using Cryna Road.
“I would have picked an alternative block not backing on to this road,” she said.
“We made our decision based on what we knew at the time. I have no trouble with a quarry that was already there and obviously them using the road now but we were told there would be an alternate route.”
Wendy Gathercole, who also lives in Spring Creek Estate, said she felt blindsided.
“This critical information was never disclosed to me during the purchase of my home or in any community consultation,” she said.
“I urge Council to enforce the original condition requiring construction of Ferguson Road and to be prepared to defend that decision in the Planning and Environment Court on behalf of their residents.”
Council responds
In approving Neilsens’ most recent extension to the decision-making period, Council said it would be in further contact as its Local Government Infrastructure Plan (LGIP) review and the Ring Road alignment options were finalised.
Council told the Bulletin the LGIP should be finished later this year for public consultation.
In response to an enquiry from the Bulletin over claims from Neilsens that the history behind the Ferguson Road condition is ‘not well-understood, nor documented’, Council gave the following statement.
“Assessment and considerations regarding the upgrade of Ferguson Road all form part of the original assessment, which is publicly available on Council’s DAPOnline under the original application,” they wrote.
“The applicant provided representations in response to the original condition requiring the upgrade of Ferguson Road once the quarry reached a certain annual tonnage of extraction. The applicant instead requested an appropriate timeframe to delay the construction for Ferguson Road, to allow sufficient time for Neilsen’s to finance the road works from their operations. Nielsen’s, as part of the representations, advised that it is feasible to construct the road after four years operating under the approval.”
Keeping watch
As Cryna residents continue to watch the situation closely, Ms Burton said it was important to ensure their focus remained clear.
“I want to be clear that we don’t have any issues with the quarry or any of the truck drivers using the road,” she said.
“It’s not personal to anybody, it’s the fact of the increase in the impacts on Cryna Road especially given there’s an alternative.”
