The BeCA September Public Meeting held at the Bellvista Meeting Place on Monday September 5th was packed full of news and updates and was attended by up to 40 people.
Kevin Hegarty Chief Executive Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service brought the audience up to date on recent developments with the new Sunshine Coast University Hospital. The number of new staff, budget spent, cables used and other mind blowing statistics further added to how this wonderful new facility will be a magnificent addition to Sunshine Coast Health Services.
The current year’s SCUH budget is around one billion dollars and it currently employs around 5500 people, many of whom are part time. The building itself is due to be completed in November but following lessons learnt from other recent hospital openings, will be given a further five months as services slowly come on line. The hospital should be ‘officially’ open during April. It won’t be a grand opening date but the official opening will be staged over a period of time in April as different services come on line. It will be an ongoing journey as services become available.
75% of beds will be single rooms.
In 2012 a contract was signed for information technology services to be installed. Some of the projects now up and running weren’t even invented in 2012.
The current Caloundra Hospital will be modified and upgraded to support the new Sunshine Coast University Hospital. Its focus will be to more effectively provide support services to local needs. There will be paediatric services available to reflect the needs of a burgeoning Caloundra South community and a range of other services to suit the demographic needs of this community.
Recently Caloundra Hospital took around 33,000 emergency visits. Of these only 2,200 were admitted to hospital with 90% of these then being moved by ambulance to other hospitals. So the Emergency Department Services won’t change. It is envisaged the Caloundra Hospital will become an “Urgent Care Centre”.
Stockland’s Josh Sondergeld and Hannah Madill provided a report on the Caloundra South development and in particular the new suburb of Baringa. Baringa will provide around 1500 residences and thus will be bigger than either Bellvista (1200) or Bells Reach (1100). It will have schools, playing fields and a District Shopping Centre comprising a large Super Market, a Tavern, restaurants and specialty shops. It expected these facilities will be up and running sooner rather than later.
The P-6 school will have its catchment area as Bellvista, Bells Reach and Baringa. It is expected to open for the 2018 school year and will be a nominated STEM school, specializing in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
A secondary school could open possibly in 2020.
The school’s sports fields and hall faculties will be available for public use outside of regular school hours. Further growth of Baringa will see an off leash park area for dogs established and other recreational areas for walking and cycling.
Dedicated cycleways will be an important feature of Baringa with separate bicycle and pedestrian pathways established across the new suburb. A dedicated cycleway will begin at the new roundabout at the entrance to Arbour and head over the bridge into Baringa.
Josh Sondergeld also expects a new pathway to be in place by December which will connect Arbour along the eastern side of Bellvista Blvd up to bus stop near Bellcarra Place.
The bridge crossing the Lamerough Creek will be known as the Aura Boulevard Bridge and should be completed by the end of this month. The new road into Baringa should be completed soon after and the final link to the Bells Creek Arterial by Christmas. Then Bellvista and Bells Reach will have its second entry exit road!
The new overpass bridge in Pierce Avenue going over the “under construction” Bells Creek Arterial (near the racecourse) will open any day now allowing final earthworks on the Arterial to be completed.
Stockland are currently talking with mobile phone companies on a new mobile phone tower planned for the Caloundra South development. When constructed, the tower will provide effective service for Bellvista and Bells Reach for the Optus and Vodafone networks, two networks which currently provide poor coverage for these areas.
Caloundra West Lions are a new organisation in our area and provided a number of wonderful examples of the work in which they are involved. They are always on the look out for new members and welcome any inquiries. They have Pizza Nights, Coffee Mornings as well as their monthly meeting. It is a wonderful opportunity for interested residents to get ‘involved’ with this busy community based organization. Lani Ogilvie at the Positive Property People office at Bellvista Market Place is a great contact point if you seek further information.
Cr Rick Baberowski reported on an upcoming meeting with BeCA regarding filling in various missing links for pathways across the estate. He mentioned Council had been busy dealing with the Caloundra South and Palmview housing developments, current Sunshine Coast Arts Prize entries at the Caloundra Art Gallery near the Library, and Council grants available for local organizations.
Rick also reported on recent maintenance works and scheduled gardening mulching programs.
The meeting closed around 8:45 pm with a query from a resident regarding the apparent disappearance of some bird life from the ‘lakes’ and the water quality there. BeCA reported that the lake was carefully monitored, repairs carried out on pumping equipment as required, and according to Council, the water quality wasn’t a concern.
It was the end of a busy meeting!
