On January 26, Noosa Matters published an article of mine in which I proposed a permit system to control the number of day visitor vehicles entering the coastal areas of Noosa. You can read that article here:

One of the key issues facing Noosa is overtourism, and especially the number of drive-in, single day visitors, generating traffic congestion, parking problems, impact on public infrastructure (roads, public toilets, etc) and yet providing minimal benefit to the local economy. According to Tourism Noosa’s 2023-24 Annual Report, there were almost a million day trippers visiting Noosa in the year, amounting to 47% of all Noosa visitors. The total spend from those day trippers was just 10% of total tourist dollars spent. Tourism Noosa has a “value-over-volume” policy that targets overnight visitors and not day trippers. Under the State Government’s planning, an additional 2.2 million people are expected to be added to South East Queensland by 2046, which means that the pressure on Noosa from drive-in visitors will only increase.

As the permit idea appears to have received a significant amount of attention, I figured I’d flesh out the concept so that NM readers have a bit more to chew on. 

HOW WOULD A PERMIT SYSTEM WORK?

The aim of the permit system is to reduce the number of vehicles entering the coastal areas of Noosa, and in so doing also limit the number of day visitors to the area. 

If you travel across Brisbane’s Gateway Bridge or drive through one of Brisbane’s tunnels, you are required to have a registered e-tag to pay the toll or else you can buy a pass and have your number plate registered with Linkt. If you don’t have such measures in place, cameras record your number plate and the vehicle’s registered owner is issued with a penalty fine. The Noosa system would work in a similar way. Instead of e-tags, vehicle number plates would be registered on a website portal.

The area requiring a permit to enter would need to have a name. Let’s call it the Noosa Blue Zone for now. That would include the coastal areas of Tewantin in the north down to Peregian Beach in the south. There are only five feeder roads into this area, so zone gateways could be established on each of these five roads. The gateways need to be positioned so that drivers can’t access backstreets or alternative routes to skirt around the permit system. Fortunately, with the way Noosa’s road network has been created, that is quite easy to design.

Just as people have become universally aware of the need to pay tolls on certain city roads, so there would be broad recognition of the requirement to have a permit to enter Noosa’s Blue Zone.

Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras are used across the world, such as for the congestion tax in London. All roads around the perimeter of the zone in London are monitored by ANPR cameras. It costs £15 (AUS$30) per day to enter the London zone if you pay in advance. On Italy’s Amalfi Coast, cars with licence plates ending in odd numbers cannot drive the coast road on days with odd numbers, and cars with a license plate ending in an even number can’t use the road on even numbered days. Even if you have booked accommodation and collected a rental car, you will still be subject to the same rules. Plainly, the Italians want to get visitors out of cars and onto public transport.

Buying or having a permit would not entitle a driver to a parking space within the Blue Zone. However, plainly by reducing vehicle numbers, parking would become easier.

Noosa’s permit system could be supported by other measures including park and ride services, with shuttle buses ferrying people from sizeable out-of-zone parking areas into the Blue Zone. The problem becomes finding appropriate parking areas to operate a park-and-ride system. One possibility, for example, would require council to do a deal to utilise unused State Rail land at Cooroy.

WHERE WOULD THE GATEWAYS BE LOCATED?

1. Mckinnon Drive (Boreen Point Rd) near Yellowood Close and the Noosa District Sports Complex.

2. Cooroy Noosa Rd near Gyndier Drive.

3. Eumundi Noosa Rd before the Beckmans Rd roundabout.

4. Walter Hay Drive before Noosa Civic .

5. David Low Way just north of the Emu Mountain Rd roundabout.

The infrastructure would simply be a metal frame above the road to house the number plate recognition cameras. There would also be signage to explain that vehicles were entering the Noosa Blue Zone, and that permits were required and fines applied for non-compliance (just as there are at toll roads in Brisbane and other Australian cities).

There would not be boom gates nor card readers etc at the gateways. There would be no impediments to the free flow of traffic.

Just as for Brisbane’s paid roads, there would be warning signs situated some distance before the Blue Zone. These might read “Blue Zone Ahead. Permit required. Fines apply.” These warning signs would need to be positioned where vehicles could pull over or turn around if necessary.

WHO WOULD HAVE TO PAY AND WHO WOULD GET FREE PASSAGE?

All Noosa Shire residents would get up to two free, ongoing passes. In other words, if you are registered with council as living at a verifiable Noosa address, you can go to the website portal and enter one or two vehicle registration numbers. If a household requires more than two vehicles to be registered, additional vehicles could be registered for a nominal cost. All shire residents, whether they live inside the Blue Zone or outside the Blue Zone, would have the same benefits.

People who work at businesses in the Blue Zone, but who travel from outside the shire by vehicle, would also need to be registered. Their place of work would need to register their vehicles on the website portal at no cost. Delivery vehicles etc would also need to be registered.

Visitors who have booked accommodation in the Blue Zone, whether at a resort or Airbnb, would need to have their vehicle registered, noting the number of nights they were staying. On the understanding that overnight visitors are “high value”, and their visit was contributing to the local economy, I’m suggesting they would pay no fee to drive into the Blue Zone. The accommodation provider, already registered with the council, would arrange the vehicle permits by using the website. The system would have the added benefit of capturing all the STA properties currently avoiding council registration.

If a resident living in the Blue Zone needed a tradie or other visitor to attend their property, they could go to the website and register the vehicle for one day only, with that vehicle registered against their home address. Similarly, friends and family visiting residents in the Blue Zone would need to have their vehicles registered. That would be a simple matter of the resident going to the website at least one day in advance to register the number plates.

Of course, emergency vehicles and the like would be pre-registered for free access.

Anyone else visiting the Blue Zone and not staying overnight would be required to book a permit. On the basis that day visitors and their vehicles create congestion, parking problems, impact on local infrastructure, and provide minimal benefit to the local economy, they would be required to book ahead and pay. (Just as happens in many tourist locales across the planet, from US National Parks to many European sites.) There would be a limit on the number of paid permits issued per day. This could be, say, 500 permits each day, though that figure would need to be tested against traffic counts and could be adjusted for high and low season periods. Advance bookings would allow day tourists to determine which days were available and which were fully booked. The fee might be $30 or $50 for a day visit by vehicle. (This is really no different to people currently wishing to drive or camp on Teewah Beach, who are required to go to a QPWS website and book ahead plus pay a fee of $14.40 for the day.) To give a cost comparison, if you drive a car from Sydney’s M2 Lane Cove tunnel and exit from the M4 at Homebush, it will cost you $44.10 with a tag and $47.05 with a tag-less account. If you are driving a Class B vehicle, which includes a car with caravan, that same trip will cost you $134.85 or $137.80. 

WHO WOULD OPERATE THE SYSTEM?

The Blue Zone permit system would be run by council. Bookings and permits would operate through a council website and database. A dedicated staffer would be appointed to take care of complaints, disputes etc. Staff and overheads would be paid for by the income from day permits and fines. Over time, the establishment cost of the system would also be covered by that income stream.

The system would require cooperation between Noosa Council and the Queensland Government. Some of the gateways and signage would be on state controlled roads. It may be that state legislature is required to establish such a system, although there are precedents such as Brisbane toll roads. Furthermore, Noosa Council would need to create a new Local Law, which detailed how the system would work and establish fees and charges. Such a Local Law would require state government sign-off.

WHAT ABOUT COMMUNITIES OF INTEREST NEXT TO NOOSA?

There are a number of communities of interest outside of Noosa Shire that regularly use Noosa as their base for schooling, shopping etc. Residents living within the suburbs of Peregian Springs, Peregian Breeze, Verrierdale, Doonan, and Eumundi (and perhaps Coolum) might be offered annual passes at a low fee. Plainly this is open to debate.

WHAT ABOUT ACCESS TO AND FROM TEEWAH BEACH?

There is one other gateway to Noosa, and that is Teewah Beach from Rainbow Beach via Noosa North Shore. Even now, very few vehicles access Noosa from the north via Rainbow Beach. (Most of the visitors to Teewah Beach and Cooloola hail from south of Noosa, especially the Caboolture area, according to QPWS statistics.) And it wouldn’t be economical, or make sense, for people to drive all the way up to Rainbow Beach and then travel back to Noosa via Teewah Beach just to avoid the Blue Zone fee. 

People who wanted to travel to Teewah Beach via Noosa would have to pay both the Blue Zone fee as well as the QPWS fees. If this has a suppression impact on numbers of people smashing Teewah Beach with 4-wheel drives, and despoiling Cooloola with their human waste, then well and good. That’s a huge environmental win.

WHAT ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORT?

All public buses would travel in and out of the Blue Zone at no cost. The permit system is designed to reduce vehicle numbers, and to minimise day visitors, but not inhibit those day visitors who choose to travel by public transport. A park-and-ride system could still operate.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO FAIL TO PAY FOR PERMITS?

The fines for non-compliance would need to be sufficient such that they worked as a deterrent. For Brisbane toll roads, there is a video matching/image processing fee, requested statement fee, toll invoice fee and demand notice fee. According to a 2023 Choice report, in Brisbane, on top of those fees charged by Linkt, “you may also be fined $201 by the Department of Transport and Main Roads or the Brisbane City Council for each unpaid day of travel if you don’t pay an overdue toll notice.” 

The penalty fee for entering the Blue Zone without a permit is open to debate, and would be subject to financial costings for installation and operation of the system.

IN CONCLUSION

All of this is open to scrutiny and debate. Of course, I haven’t done any costings or feasibility studies. This is just the start of the discussion. I make no claim to be an expert on transport systems, though I did learn a few things when I was on council.

As with any system, there will always be some people who attempt to rort or abuse it. Such people would be a small minority and would not diminish the overall objective of controlling vehicles and limiting day visitor numbers.

If the council were to get serious about considering a permit system such as the one outlined here, I imagine it would take a couple of years to implement. But if something of this nature isn’t started now, then resident amenity and visitor experience will only continue to decline.

There are plenty of real-world examples across the planet where similar access zones are already in place, so there are no end of case studies on which to base a Noosa system. (No, I’m not advocating more overseas junkets for mayor and/or councillors.)