Scenic Amenity Study

Thank you for your interest. This consultation has concluded.

The Whitsunday region is deservedly famous for its spectacular scenery. Council has engaged consultants Cardno to map and assess the scenic values and varied landscape character of the region, using a standard method in Queensland, which will help identify the features of importance to our community. The Scenic Amenity Study will inform a new mapping overlay within the draft Planning Scheme to facilitate development in a manner that protects areas of high scenic value.

The scenic preferences of the regional community will be established by interested participants who will review photographs and give each image a relative score, according to individual preferences. Photographs of local landscape and scenery combinations will be represented at four ‘landscape assessment sessions’ in Airlie Beach, Bowen, Collinsville and Proserpine. Each session will take approximately 2 hours on the 9th and 10th November 2016. On behalf of Council, Cardno seeks participants for these assessment sessions. If you would like to register your interest for one of these sessions, please download the registration form on the right before 7 November 2016.

If you are unable to make one of these ‘landscape assessment sessions’ but would still like to have input into protecting areas of scenic value please click 'take survey' below. This will take approximately 15 minutes of your time. You will view 24 photos in this survey, we request that at least one photo is rated 1 (least liked) and at least one photo is rated 10 (most liked), and no more than 5 photos are given same ranking.

The survey of preferred scenes follows a standard methodology, first adopted in South east Queensland (http://www.statedevelopment.qld.gov.au/resources/guideline/scenic-amenity-guideline.pdf) and subsequently adopted by other local government areas in Queensland, to assess community scenic preferences. This information is then categorised and combined with maps of visual exposure (the visibility of various parts of the landscape) in order to map ‘Scenic Amenity’. Ratings of one photograph over another will be analysed in terms of the various elements in the photograph (trees, mountains, water etc) and extent of development or disturbance, so please provide comments on what is desirable or undesirable in each photo to assist the analysis process.