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Coles Bay residents and business owners are worried their sewerage systems are not coping with the rapidly increasing demand from visitors to the Freycinet Peninsula on Tasmania's east coast, and fear proposed solutions are not coming quickly enough.
The sewerage issue is among a raft of concerns raised in public submissions to the Draft Freycinet Peninsula Master Plan.
The master plan is being developed to manage the challenges posed by the number of visitors flocking to the Freycinet National Park and includes plans for a new visitor gateway hub, "experience nodes" and an improved transport network.
State Government figures show visitation to the park has increased from 186,000 in 2011-12 to 301,000 in 2017-18.
It is predicted that number could increase to as many as 330,000 visitors per year by 2020.
Susan Carins from the Freycinet Association said sewerage was one of the main issues raised during community consultation.
"The solution that's proposed is inadequate," she said.
"In the form of how it rolls out reticulated sewerage to the residential areas of Coles Bay."
The draft plan proposes a five stage approach to improving the sewerage system to cope with the demand pressures.
A new sewer treatment plant and pump stations are proposed to be operational within five years, but the community will have to wait longer for some major upgrades, including gravity sewer reticulation, pump stations and rising mains for the Coles Bay and the Fisheries residential areas.
"The solution that's proposed in the draft master plan just isn't coming quick enough for the residents of Coles Bay," Ms Carins said.
The Freycinet Association is also calling for the community to be given the opportunity to comment on any revisions made to the draft plan.
"We would like to see a revised draft," Ms Carins said.
"I think originally from here the process was, after we provided our feedback, then the next time we would see the plan would be the endorsed document, so we are requesting through our feedback submission that we get another chance to have a look at a revised draft.
"Just to feel confident that the process is addressing those community concerns and the Government is listening to what we have to say as a community."
The Freycinet Action Network is worried the draft plan focuses too much on tourism, to the detriment of the community and the environment.
The group has several concerns about the draft, saying it has not considered capping visitor numbers and fails to clearly provide projected visitor numbers for the next decade.
Convenor Sophie Fitzgerald said it was crucial to know what the projected numbers were in order to plan appropriate infrastructure.
"We need to have a proper discussion around what are appropriate levels for Freycinet," she said.
"So that's one big question mark I see in the plan."
The steering committee overseeing the master plan development includes representatives from the Department of State Growth, Glamorgan Spring Bay Council, East Coast Tourism, the Freycinet Association Inc and Freycinet Destination Action Plan group.
Ms Fitzgerald said her network's members were worried environmental and community concerns were not adequately represented within the committee.
"It seems to be quite tourism industry heavy," she said.
"I'm suggesting that we need more local people on that committee but also people representing the natural environment, so actual environment groups, maybe BirdLife Tasmania or the Tasmanian National Parks Association, groups like that."
Public comment on the draft plan closes at 9:00am Monday morning.
Topics: tourism, industry, business-economics-and-finance, recycling-and-waste-management, tas, australia
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