Adversity & Resilience: Infrastructure & Utilities

By the 1920s, Ipswich had grown and become more complex. Its residents now expected a better lifestyle including the provision of sewerage. They also wanted improvements in services such as roads and water supply, as well as more parks, library books and immunisation services. Council had many other commitments including, for example, an annual contribution towards the cost of the hospital, but it tried to respond to the city's expanding needs.

Typical minor works of the time included improving the steep road across Limestone Hill, building a new kiosk in Queens Park and adding more land to Cameron Park. Council was conscious of the need to appear to be progressive as an alderman commented at the kiosk opening that Ipswich suffered "the stigma that it was the same now as it was 50 years ago."

Council took on other "lifestyle projects.

Golf was increasing in popularity and the poor quality of the local course was seen as a matter of civic pride - it was reported that many golfers would not come to Ipswich to play. In 1924, Council accepted responsibility, making it the first municipal course in Queensland. It still operated in conjunction with the Ipswich Golf Club, but now “it gave all people an equal opportunity of playing the game”. It seemed a good idea at the time, but it didn’t work, probably because the cost of producing a first-class course was higher than Council had expected. Within a year, players were complaining that the greens had not improved and the experiment soon ended.

All these improvements were expensive and Council had a rising debt. In 1917, it had owed £19,000 to the Government and £11,000 to its bank. It is hard to estimate the modern equivalent of this amount, but at that time, a house could be bought for £500. By 1920, the debt had increased to £31,000 to the Government and £14,000 to the bank. A concerted effort was made to reduce the debt but then in 1926, Council raised another loan of £25,000 for road construction and began to bitumen streets in central areas following many complaints by shopkeepers, bus company owners and general motorists. [1]

An incinerator becomes a local icon
The rubbish dumps at Devil's Gully (now Marsden Parade) near the Bremer River had been criticised during the plague outbreaks but had continued to operate. In 1929, Council began to investigate new methods of waste disposal and decided to construct a municipal incinerator to burn the rubbish. The structure which resulted a few years later has proven to be one of the city's most significant buildings.

It was designed by the important architect Walter Burley Griffin who, with is wife Marion Mahoney, had produced the winning design for Australia's national capital Canberra. During the Depression, Griffin and his partner Eric Nicholls were forced to look for a broader range of work. They formed the Reverberatory Incinerator Company and designed municipal incinerators using the reverberatory system patented by Australian engineer John Boadle. Altogether they constructed 12 facilities including the one at Ipswich.

The Council selected a former quarry in Queens Park as the site and its construction was supervised by local architect George Brockwell Gill. When it was completed in 1936, the newspaper commented that it was "an attractive structure built at a cost of £5597 - though the contracting company assured the Council that it lost a couple of thousand pounds on the deal".[2]

From Ipswich Yearbook, Volume 1, 1977-1978, p.21, 23

Sewerage 

With the commissioning of the Tivoli Treatment Plant, built to serve a population of 27,000, the first of the sewer lines were laid in the late 1930s.

Water Supply

In 1922, Council began obtaining supplies of water from Brisbane City Council.  It was determined to be more economical to purchase purified water in bulk from Mt. Crosby than for the City to develop its own treatment plant.  Previously, raw water had been pumped from the Brisbane River at Kholo Bridge to the Kholo Reservoir.