$3.5m not enough to build Roma flood levees - ABC Online

Posted November 28, 2012 12:25:59

The Maranoa Regional Council says it still needs federal funding to build flood levees in Roma, in southern inland Queensland.

Insurer Suncorp has refused to write new flood policies for Roma residents but says it will now reconsider after the State Government committed $3.5 million towards the flood mitigation project.

Suncorp says premiums will not reduce until construction starts.

The Federal Government is currently taking submissions for the next two rounds of the Regional Development Australia (RDA) Fund.

Maranoa Mayor Robert Loughnan says the flood mitigation project will be submitted to the RDA program, along with Roma's mid-street crossing proposal.

"I remain hopeful that it'll start to spread its wings and we'll see some money coming out of Canberra to these sort of regions in the future," he said.

"There was some good success with the theatre in Toowoomba last year, so I'd love to see that sort of thing replicated across the entire region in the future.

"We're putting our hand up but I know full well that there are a lot of other councils also putting some important projects forward as well."

Councillor Loughnan says he is disappointed with Suncorp's response.

"We're very pleased that a number of companies remained in the market and particularly in the banking sector became heavily involved in that market which has essentially created a few options ... we believe there's plenty of other companies in that space fortunately," he said.

Meanwhile, the Toowoomba Regional Council says work to extend the Gowrie Creek flood warning system to Oakey should be completed next year.

Oakey Early Warning System is expected to include about six monitoring systems across the catchment.

The State Government is contributing $204,000 for the $510,000 project.

Mayor Paul Antonio says work continues on a flood study of the area.

"We know the levels that it made, we know what happened, we know that there was water moving from one creek to another, we know that water didn't get away in Oakey," he said.

"I think that there are a number of factors that people really need to have a hard look at - maybe the impact of the railway line, the impact of the bypass ... one would not know - let the experts work that one out."

Topics: floods, local-government, emergency-incidents, emergency-planning, roma-4455, toowoomba-4350, oakey-4401