Safety must come first, says Council chief

Moreton Bay City Council's hit back at suggestions it has put the historic Lakeside Raceway "at risk".

In a statement, CEO Scott Waters doubled down on Council’s support for motor sport at the 2.4km track, which it owns.

But the priority, he said, is to “address ongoing safety and compliance concerns, with the highest order being conducting of independent safety audits”.

“This will provide Council, as the landowner, with the assurance Lakeside Park is operating as a safe and compliant motor sport facility," Mr Waters said.

Council yesterday said Lakeside operator and lessee John Tetley said access can be granted to undertake the audit at the Kurwongbah venue. 

It follows a January 24 social media post by Mr Tetley, on the Lakeside Park Facebook page, which attracted more than 1000 comments,.

Mr Tetley said, in the post, the Kurwongbah track did not "deserve" to be “copping a lot of heat” over its “skinny events calendar”.

“Until we have formal approval from Moreton Bay City Council on sound limits we can work with - everything is at risk,” Mr Tetley wrote.

He said issues included measuring and enforcing noise limits, especially changing systems from an average over a period of time to every second.

But, in a post on Saturday, Mr Tetley thanked Scott Waters for commissioning the Lakeside Park Motorsport Precinct Socio-Economic Impact Statement.

He said the assessment of the venue’s value to the community is a “detailed document” and offered to send electronic copies to those wishing to read it.

Mr Tetley added: “With regard to noise, we are doing a best effort to comply with issues raised .... and think we have a strategy that will overcome these issues”.

He said more events would be added to the calendar “if we can”.

Council publicly supported motor sport at Lakeside - which hosted the 1966 and 1969 Australian Grand Prix - at its December and January general meetings.

Mr Waters said: “Council is committed to supporting ongoing motor sport activities at Lakeside Park as a historic facility where motorsport commenced in 1961, however this must occur in a compliant manner.

The statement says examples of compliance being sought are food safety, building maintenance, noise monitoring and on track safety and operations.

“Efforts around responding to noise matters remain ongoing, however Council’s immediate and primary concern is safety and the conducting of audits,” Mr Waters said.

“The lessee has proposed options to mitigate noise impacts, however in the first instance the lessee must focus upon independent safety audits occurring.

“Lakeside Park site is public land, owned by City of Moreton Bay, for the community to use.

“Council has reiterated its position that motor sport activities remain a priority at Lakeside Park, committing to ensure the site’s future use for our community.”