Residents of East Toowoomba - Reclaim our Suburb

We are a group of residents who strongly believe that development and growth and the things we love about East Toowoomba can peacefully coexist. However, to do so it is necessary that those within it share a mutual understanding of the things that make our suburb great.

Nestled on the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range in Southern Queensland, East Toowoomba is renowned for its tree-lined streets, well maintained pre-war character housing, bustling suburban cafe's, historical parks and gardens and its close-knit and friendly community. We believe it is one of the safest and most livable suburbs in Australia.

However, the rapid growth of the Toowoomba Anglican School over the last five or more years is changing how we feel about this special place we call our home. The impacts of this growth including traffic congestion, unlawful on-street parking, increased noise and ever deteriorating privacy and residential amenity are now affecting the safety, health and happiness of our families. So much so, many of us are thinking we would rather move than continue to feel invisible and ignored by the TAS in our own community.

Some of us made properly made submissions to the development application approved by Council for the Gill Precinct Building on Wirra Wirra Street. We feel neither the school nor Council has listened to our concerns. It is now time to exercise our rights, and this may be the last opportunity we have for some time to do so.

We intend to appeal Council’s approval of the Gill Precinct Building and commence legal proceedings in Qld's Planning and Environment Court. In doing so, we seek to have the impacts of the school's growth and the resulting impacts on the community understood and considered by the Court.

If, despite our challenge, the Court finds that this growth has planning merit and its impacts can be managed, we will seek the imposition of lawful conditions that will regulate and mitigate the impacts.

The Court proceedings will be costly. It is difficult to estimate total legal and consultant fees at such an early stage but we estimate that between A$50,000 - A$150,000 will be required. No donation is insignificant and every dollar will assist.

Thank you for helping us reclaim of neighbourhood, our home.