Residents go online to fight store

Kepnock Residential Action Group spokeswoman Mary Walsh is determined to have the proposed Megastore development moved to a more appropriate site.

Max Fleet

A RESIDENTS’ group fighting to stop a home improvement megastore being built in their area has turned to social networking sites to help them in their battle.

The proposed Masters store, a joint venture between Woolworths and giant US firm Lowes Companies, is still awaiting evaluation by the Bundaberg Regional Council, but the plan is to put it on a site on the corner of Kepnock and Greatheads roads.

However, the new store is a direct challenge to Bunnings, and will be 40% larger.

Residents in the area have formed the Kepnock Residents Action Group in an attempt to get the megastore stopped.

Group spokeswoman Mary Walsh said at a meeting on Monday the group decided to establish a website and use Facebook and Twitter in their campaign.

“We are very united and very determined,” she said.

“Residents are devastated by the impact on the safety of schoolchildren, their residential amenity and the fact that they are all considered to be collateral damage in a war between two multi-nationals fighting over market domination, not their market share.”

Mrs Walsh said the new store would attract more traffic down Kepnock Rd, putting the safety of students at Kepnock State High School at risk.

She said she had already written to Premier Anna Bligh, Deputy Premier Paul Lucas, Education Queensland and Main Roads asking them to intervene.

“We did try to speak to the landowner and the developer before this was locked into the local government process,” she said.

Mrs Walsh said the group was not anti-development, and had made no objection to the construction of an Aldi store a few hundred metres away.