Mayor welcomes disaster recovery package

Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill has thanked the State and Federal Governments for allocating $242 million in funding for the North Queensland region’s long-term disaster recovery package.

The package includes $100 million for an infrastructure betterment fund, $33 million for river bank and coastal recovery work, $20 million for cleaning up and repairing community assets and $14.5 million to restore damaged water and sewerage infrastructure.

The package is funded by the State and Federal Governments under the Commonwealth-Queensland Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.

Cr Hill said the funding package was crucial to rebuilding our city, community and economy.

“I understand this is a record quick turnaround between a disaster and the announcement, Cr Hill said.

“Council has worked very closely with the Queensland Reconstruction Authority to speed up the process and achieve this outcome.

“Council will continue to collaborate with the State and Federal Governments to make sure the funding can be used as soon as possible.”

Townsville Local Recovery and Resilience Group Chair Deputy Mayor Les Walker said the community will be updated on how the package will be invested as the recovery effort proceeds.

“Our community suffered a lot of damage during the unprecedented monsoon and we will be doing everything possible to ensure our local community is heavily involved in rebuilding Townsville,” Cr Walker said.

“This package gives our community the opportunity to access significant funding assistance to ensure our city recovers from this natural disaster and becomes more resilient.”