CLEARING THE WAY FOR COSSACK TOURIST DEVELOPMENT

Karratha City Council moved to amend its town planning scheme to allow tourism development at Cossack and Jarman Island this week.

Alan Wilson, who has a share in four Cossack blocks, said it was the most exciting thing to happen for Cossack in 40 years.

“I can walk on my land and I can look at it, and for nearly 40 years that is all I can do,” he said.

Like many landowners, Mr Wilson had not been allowed to build.

“One of the problems with some of our blocks is that they are low lying. They have been flooded several times over the last 40 years. The family house has been wrecked at least once from cyclones. You can build temporary structures. If we build something - we understand it’s going to be flooded occasionally, you can work out how to deal with that. The engineering solutions are there to all of the problems.”

The scheme amendment now needs to be approved by the State Government.