By Emily-Rose Toohey
On Tuesday night, Warwick Gymnastics Club was flooded for the sixth time in 18 months.
Warwick Gymnastics Club president Coby Walker said the floods have become increasingly worse with each event.
“Tuesday night was just a storm and this is the worst it’s been,” Coby said.
“There’s a building up issue and it needs to be dealt with.”
Damage was incurred to the carpark and complex itself, which was discovered at 8.30am on Wednesday morning.
Coby said the club had to close this week for maintenance and a main reason for the flooding was a pipe installed by council beside the building.
“The floor matting is the biggest problem, its $120 000 worth and this is the third or fourth time it’s gotten really wet,” he said.
“It’s now mouldy and it’s dangerous for the kids.”
Coby said he has reached out to council multiple times over the past two years with limited success.
“We’re completely independent, we’re not on council land, we pay our rates, we pay everything, and we’re just getting treated like trash and we’re over it,” he said.
Southern Downs Regional Council CEO Dave Burges said council needs to consider the matter.
“We’re not sure of the real problem yet; staff are looking into it,” Mr Burges said.
“It’s my understanding that the pipe isn’t the cause of the problem, it’s heavy rain – our engineering department will have to look into that.”
*This story will be expanded upon and available in this Thursday’s physical edition of Warwick Today and Stanthorpe Today.
