by Mat Churchill

With the recent announcement of a generous $30 million donation from the United Arab Emirates state of Abu Dhabi to help fund new evacuation centres in the Far North, Councils and State MP's are scrambling to put their case forward on behalf of their communities.

With the State Government matching the donation, Cairns has been touted as a possible site along with Townsville, the Cassowary Coast, Proserpine/Airlie Beach, Mackay/Sarina, Yeppoon/Rockhampton and Weipa.

Cairns Regional Council Mayor Val Schier said that she will push for more than one centre to be built in the Cairns region.

"I'll be going into bat for more than one centre for our region. Because of the concentration we have of vulnerable communities it would be great to have more than one.

Mayor Schier said that the evacuation centres did not necessarily need to be shared equally among coastal councils.

"If you look at last time around (Cyclone Yasi) we evacuated people from Port Douglas, from the northern beaches of Cairns, and also from Cairns city and Bramston Beach.

"We need to look at and assess the other areas and certainly Port Douglas will be one of the ones that's really looked at."

Mayor Schier added that the result of a The Newsport Poll which showed that 94% of respondents thought that evacuation facilities in Douglas were inadequate "would be true for probably the entire Cairns Regional Council area except for Babinda."

"What we need to do is look at where the gaps are in our community infrastructure, so where do we also need youth centres or indoor sporting centres."

Member for Cook, Jason O'Brien said Port Douglas fits that bill and has written to Public Works Minister Simon Finn asking him to consider our region.

In the letter he wrote "An indoor sports centre of this nature would also be a great asset to the community (of Port Douglas) who do not have facilities of this kind."

Mr O'Brien said that a case for an evacuation centre in Lockhart could be made, "but you get bigger bang for your buck in a place like Douglas."