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Top chefs take over By Abbey Cannan Top chefs are taking over taste-buds in Noosa from 29 May to 1 June, with the most ambitious Noosa Eat & Drink Festival planned to date. While busy setting up the Festival Village in Noosa Woods, festival director John Guise gave Noosa Today an insight on what to expect from this year’s event. “The numbers are up and the weather is looking better than last year,“ John said. “Our restaurant program and signature events are almost sold out, which is amazing, and we’re expecting close to 6000 people through our Festival Village across the weekend.“ The festival was successfully brought back to life in 2024 after a four year hiatus, where award winning chef and restaurateur George Calombaris claimed, “Without an audience, we’re nothing as chefs and restaurateurs.“ George said it provided reassurance of the hospitality resurgence, and in 2025 he’s back for a sold out long lunch at Peli’s Noosa. The Eat & Drink team has secured an exciting lineup of new events and immersive experiences designed to delight festivalgoers. “Restaurants and brands have really brought their A game to the village this year, so it’s worth a look,“ John said. Continued page 2
Matt Golinski and his Food Truck will be a highlight of the Festival Village in Noosa Woods. (Rob Maccoll)
Race against time By Margie Maccoll Noosa Council has until 29 June to engage contractors to complete about $4 million in disaster reconstruction work on 70 roads, stormwater and waterway crossings, that were damaged during the Cyclone Alfred weather event on 29 March or risk losing state government funding to undertake it. Council lacks the capacity or capability to complete the essential work, Council’s Disaster Reconstruction coordinator told councillors at a
Special Meeting held on 21 May. At the meeting councillors gave the go-ahead for the chief executive officer to negotiate, finalise and execute external contracts for the emergency works for asphalt and gravel roads, immediate reconstruction works for damaged roads including stormwater crossings and for project and supervision resources. Staff told the meeting the damage, sustained mostly to gravel and asphalt roads, was significant enough to engage the Queensland Recon-
struction Authority (QRA) and be granted the funding for the emergency repairs. “The roads are not in a great state. We want to keep the community safe by improving that,“ the coordinator told the meeting. Under Disaster Reconstruction Funding Arrangements the work must be completed within 90 days of the disaster event to be eligible to funding. If it’s outside the required time the cost comes back to council budget.
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Staff said without council resources available to do the work the team had been progressing a “2025 Disaster Reconstruction Program“ to outsource the work. When asked if there was time to complete the work the coordinator said: “the 90 days started ticking from the event and we’ve been using this time to come up with a plan, given we didn’t have council resources. Continued page 7
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