Trashed already, says tourism chief Luke Martin, adding his view to the debate on Mt Wellington … following Don Knowler’s The Man on the Mountain, here and Geoff Law’s What Mt Wellington really needs, here
ABC pic
“Keep the Mountain wild!”…
“Leave it to its natural state!”…
“Our unspoiled mountain!”…
Seriously, are we talking about the same Mountain?
… Cause I find it hard to fathom that people who express such passion for the Mountain can be satisfied for it to remain in its current state, or can seriously suggest that the mountain is free of development.
Let’s be frank, the summit has been trashed. The hotch-potch array of industrial out-buildings, communications infrastructure, and the seemingly ever-expanding car park, that have all been allowed to occur up there over many decades is an indictment.
The Springs’, far from being a “visitor hub”, with its old public toilets and park bench seats, resembles the kind of neglected truck stop area you’d expect to find half way along the Midland Highway, not half way up our iconic city mountain.
If the Mountain really is ‘wild’ and ‘unspoiled’, than we’ve done a pretty bloody ordinary job conserving it, and we certainly haven’t shown it the respect it deserves.
The visitor amenities on the mountain are basic, bordering on primitive. Next time you are up there have a look at the visitor interpretation panels chronicling the mountains heritage at the Springs. You’ll be embarrassed.
The panels telling visitors to the Summit what they are looking at have not been updated for 20 years. Nothing pointing out MONA down below, let alone detailing the mountain’s considerable cultural importance to its traditional owners.
I seriously doubt that if the pathways at the summit were built today they would receive planning approval for their lack of disability access.
Sensible commercial development on the mountain is not about exploiting the mountain. It’s about providing the kind of visitor amenities, services and interpretation that Government agencies have failed to provide. It’s about generating some economic productivity from the 300,000 people who visit the mountain each year, rather than the economic cost the mountain is now to taxpayers and ratepayers through the trust, and the Council’s park management.
Sensible commercial development will never include a “5 star hotel” on the summit, which would neither be economically or environmentally practical. Those that jump to these extreme scenarios are just pandering ignorance.
A cable car however, does deserve rational consideration. Yes, for the tourism experience it would provide, but also for the alternative transport solution it brings the mountain. I can’t accept that those who lament the very thought of a cable car would prefer the footprint of a widening of the summit road, or a second access road, with yet more car parking on the top, which are really the only realistic alternative solutions for increasing access up the mountain in the long term.
Is it economically viable? I don’t know. We bought down the world’s foremost cable-way tourism expert Ken Chapman last month to try and start providing answers to that and some of the other perennial questions on a cable car. His first observation when he saw the mountain was that any development, including a cable car, must not be allowed to impact on the mountain-scape, unlike so many of the non-commercial developments that have been allowed to happen.
If you have the right developer, with the right values, working to a clear planning directive for the mountain. you can achieve outcomes that enhance the visitor experience, while better respecting the mountain’s natural and human heritage. This is what we want to see happen.
Luke Martin is Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive
