Massive water plan withdrawn

Cherrabah Resort at Elbow Valley east of Warwick.

By Jeremy Sollars

An application by the Brisbane-based owners of Cherrabah Resort east of Warwick to extract up to a million litres of underground water annually from the property has been withdrawn.

Brothers Wenxing and Wenwei Ma had sought approval from the Southern Downs Regional Council for their plan to extract the water, which was to have transported to the Gold Coast for botting for human consumption.

But the minutes of the December council meeting held yesterday, Wednesday 12 December, state the Ma brothers have withdrawn their application.

It’s good news for neighbouring landowners in the Elbow Valley district around Cherrabah, who had lodged strong submissions against the proposal on the grounds it could have potentially devastated underground water supplies in the area.

The council’s planning department had recommended councillors refuse the application on those grounds.

The Ma brothers lodged the application in September through their entity Royal Duke Holdings, under which they own other property on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane.

Their corporate entity which owns Cherrabah Resort is Joyful View Garden Real Estate Development Resort Co Pty Ltd.

Cherrabah has a current licence to extract up to 96 megalitres (ML) of underground water per year from its land, until the year 2111.