Dozens of parks and green spaces around the city have been getting a makeover, thanks to Ipswich City Council’s Beautiful Ipswich program.
Some of the parks which have been beautified include McNess Park, Paddington Park, Leichhardt Park, McLeod Park and Jack Perrett Park.
Local touch football grounds, Jim Finimore Park, has also been transformed, with new gardens and seating installed in under the trees, along with bollards to prevent parking on the embankment areas and to prevent further erosion.
Beautiful Ipswich Supervisor, Dane McQueen, said the project was going well.
“The new gardens and the bollards will really help prevent long term damage to the ground and help improve the quality of the local waterways,” Mr McQueen said
“The improvements we’re making at Jim Finimore Park and all other Parks will make a significant difference and make it more user friendly for residents and visitors to Ipswich.”
Several parks across Ipswich now have new seating and plants
Having interaction with residents is crucial to the Beautiful Ipswich program’s success, according to Mr McQueen.
“Our aim is for residents to have a sense of ownership and it’s great when little changes encourage residents to take pride in their suburb. We generally receive positive feedback and residents have been reporting any incidents of vandalism or theft”
After eight years working as a member of council’s Streetscape team, Mr McQueen says he still gets enormous satisfaction out of seeing the growth of all the trees and gardens he’s planted over the years.
“When my son and daughter were younger and we were driving around the city, I’d point out all the trees and gardens I’d planted over the years,” Mr McQueen said.
“We’d play a game where they’d name the different trees by their common names as we drove past them, for example mango tree, umbrella tree, jacaranda tree etc. As you can imagine, this turned into a really competitive little game.
“I’ve lived here all of my life and I appreciate that I have an opportunity to improve the city in which I reside.
“It’s a really satisfying and rewarding opportunity to enhance our local areas. It’s a bit like ironing a shirt- you can see the results straight away.”
