General News
3 September, 2022
Chamber surveys push for clarity and development
TWO surveys due to be conducted by the Mareeba Chamber of Commerce will ensure businesses have more of a say in what goes on in their main street and fuel a campaign to incite investment and development in the town.
A survey of businesses on Byrnes Street is being done to gather information to present to both the Mareeba Shire Council and the Department of Transport and Main Roads, while the other survey is targeted at local real estate agents.
Chamber president Joe Moro said Byrnes Street businesses had had a tough time with constant works stretching back to the traffic lights first being installed and businesses have felt left out of the process.
Since then, there have been numerous changes to the street over a short period of time including the installation of wombat crossings, planting of trees, new parking and removal of some green areas – all of which, were met with some pushback from the community.
“We are going to get some feedback on the main street and what are the problems – there has been a lot of anger and emotion about the main street and it goes way back to the lights going in,” Mr Moro said.
“The chamber surveying the retail businesspeople in the main street and getting feedback will allow the chamber to have discussions with the council and Main Roads about any potential development of a master plan of the main street.
“It will be preliminary feedback with business owners about what they think, so we can have further discussions with council and Main Roads.”
The chamber is also conducting another survey with local real estate agents, asking for their opinions as the chamber seeks to develop a campaign to incite more investment and development in Mareeba.
The campaign will target both housing development and promoting the industrial estate in conjunction with the council to incite more businesses to open in the area.
“The survey was with the real estate agents to ask them which capital city markets we should be targeting,” Mr Moro said.
“Several businesspeople have approached me about doing something and it has come up a number of times, we have been working on it now for about six months – it is going to be a social media campaign of sorts targeting parts of Australia.
“Businesses believe we should be there out there promoting the area to get more investment in Mareeba.”
Once the information from the survey has been gathered, a campaign will be developed and the chamber webpage will be adapted to handle inquires about development in Mareeba.
