Council working on flood maps

By STEVE GRAY

THERE is a great deal of community concern about the accuracy of flood mapping but Southern Downs Regional Council is working on the problem, according to mayor Peter Blundell.
Cr Blundell was responding to a statement from Local Government Minister David Crisafulli that flood maps issued by the Queensland Reconstruction Authority could be ignored.
The maps have been shown to be inaccurate at Applethorpe, near Rosenthal Road in Warwick and at Maryvale.
“The QRA flood maps are a high level guide which councils can adopt, use in part, or ignore and do their own,” Mr Crisafulli said.
Cr Blundell welcomed the Minister’s statement.
“Council certainly believed that QRA flood mapping needed to be included on council’s website but note the Local Government Minister’s recent comments,” he said.
“We appreciate Minister Crisafulli’s efforts to resolve this issue and we all know that there is a great deal of community concern about the accuracy of flood mapping.
“I have attended community meetings and had discussions with many ratepayers so I know that our local communities want resolution quickly due to the impact flood mapping has on property values and insurance premiums.
“We will continue to work with the Minister as a matter of priority,” Cr Blundell said.
The council is undertaking its own flood mapping to produce accurate maps to protect owners of homes wrongly mapped as flood prone.
The State Government last week signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the insurance industry which involves Queensland providing flood mapping free of charge, so the inaccurate QRA maps, if used by insurers, could still affect insurance, land sales and finance.