Michael Warren

Journalist

A long-term Daintree resident so fed up with the unreliability of the much maligned and troublesome Daintree Ferry will take his frustration to the streets ahead of tomorrow’s latest ordinary Council meeting in Mossman.

Lawrence Mason plans to conduct a peaceful protest outside of Douglas Shire Council chambers from 8-10am to reinforce to Council the importance of having a reliable, sustainable and dependable option at all times to get across the Daintree river.

Mason’s want to stage a protest comes after Newsport learned that Council intends on closing the Daintree Ferry in the coming days or weeks for yet, again, further repair and maintenance works.

The potential closure of the ferry Newsport has learned would be for six straight days, or, alternatively throughout a six-week period, from roughly 8.30pm each night until the following morning each day. It’s understood this specific issue will be further discussed in a workshop at the conclusion of tomorrow’s ordinary meeting.

Both mooted options provide subsequent complications, particularly around the use of local emergency services resources like police cars, and ambulances.

In case of any type of emergency these specific resources would have to be stationed north of the river while works took place.