New centre needed in booming suburbs

Above: from left - Ken Butler, Minister Leeanne Enoch, Laurence Christie, State Member for Bancroft Chris Whiting, Keith King and Helen Wright at the Community Cabinet meeting.

A campaign has been launched for a new neighbourhood centre in one of Moreton Bay’s fastest-growing areas - Mango Hill, North Lakes and Griffin.

Mango Hill Progress Association (MHPA) made the first move at a State Government Community Cabinet meeting on Bribie Island last month.

MHPA spoke to Minister for Communities Leeanne Enoch seeking support to “investigate the establishment of a neighbourhood centre in Mango Hill-Griffin-North Lakes”.

Ken Butler told last month’s MHPA meeting: “We’ve got a population of about 60,000 in those three areas – North Lakes, Mango Hill and Griffin.

“We don’t have a neighbourhood centre and there are indications we need something like that.

“We put a submission together for Minister Leeanne Enoch and were given a good hearing.”

There are currently 128 state-funded neighbourhood centres across Queensland providing support to around two million people each year.

A spokesperson for the Department of Treaty, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships, Communities and the Arts said it will respond to MHPA “in due course”.

“The Department balances several factors in assessing where to establish new Neighbourhood Centres,” the spokesperson said.

“This includes relative community needs, population size and existing services provided in the area.”

MHPA President Laurence Christie said the only similar facilities in the three suburbs are Mango Hill Community Centre and The Corso, North Lakes.

There are, however, neighbourhood centres at Deception Bay, Kallangur, Redcliffe and Caboolture.

Mr Butler said the proposal “happened pretty quickly” after MHPA heard examples of people offering to or actually running community services.

They included guided walking tours needing a “focal point”, a program to help residents through “bureaucracy” and a coffee drop-in for individuals wishing to socialise.

Neighbourhood centres, by design, have a variety of rooms and facilities offering privacy for sensitive meetings/programs, while community halls tend to have one large area.

Most neighbourhood centres are state funded, Mr Butler said, but criteria need to be met, including an Index of Community Disadvantage and significant Aboriginal/First Nations community.

“We don’t have that here,” Mr Butler said, “we foreshadowed that and our submission included an argument that maybe the indicators are not the right ones.

“We have a rapidly increasing population, a lot of stress, we’re in a tight mortgage belt and demographics are changing.

“More recently there have been a great influx of people from different ethic groups. The needs for those people are very real, even if socio-economic indicators might not suggest it.

“Neighbourhood centres provide a range of services – legal aid for women, Red Cross, psychiatric services, language training/lessons, socialising with other people, organised bus trips …. I think those needs may exist in our community.”

Mango Hill Community Centre is already heavily booked each week and being in a flood-prone area needs to be moved – or more likely replaced on a new site.