On The Homefront: Landscapes & Natural Environment

The 1949 Master Plan detailed the names and areas of parks and reserves then existing within the Ipswich City Council area. Parks and recreation area comprised 577 acres (233.5 ha) – some of this area comprised developed public parks with varying levels of facilities, sports grounds, and a number of forested and cleared undeveloped areas. Not all of these areas were 100% publicly accessible and useable (e.g. the 93-acre racecourse). The thrust of the recommendations in the Master Plan was for developing parks and sporting fields on the principle that:

“No greater calamity can overtake a city then young, virile and imaginative youths being deprived of mental and physical expression on playing fields”.

Of the 401 acres (162 ha) proposed to be added to the existing stock of parklands, much comprised undeveloped land along creeks and the river, as well as old quarry workings and the like. The recommendations for almost all the 31 proposed new parks involved development of some level of facilities, and the planting of many varieties of flowering trees, shrubs, grassed areas, flower beds, and the like. No specific recommendations were made for retaining bushland. The recommendations for “the new Riverside Park System” went closest.

The Riverside Park System, proposed for both banks of the Bremer, offered “a rich natural heritage” which could “provide a splendid breathing space for the increased population”. Tree plantings, above the usual river height, were recommended. Such a scheme would, in the opinion of the authors, “afford forest-like natures, being heavily tree-planted … [to] preserve for all time areas of parkland in complete contrast to the built-up suburban areas”.

Flood

On Sunday 26 January 1947 Ipswich suffered what was described by the Queensland Times on 27 January 1947 as its worst flood since 1931. Widespread flooding caused by a cyclone which crossed the coast around 65 km north of Brisbane affected an area from the Mary River south to the border, and as far west as the Darling Downs and Warwick.[1]