“The Toowoomba Coal Mine Action Group” is a non-political group of concerned citizens who decided to work together to ensure that the peaceful rural areas around Toowoomba remain the beautiful places to live in that they are now. The Gowrie Junction and Kingsthorpe communities lie on the edge of the city of Toowoomba. These towns are thriving rural communities that consist of much new development, established homes, farming land, businesses and schools. We first learnt of the threat to our lifestyle and land in February 2011 when the local Newspaper (“The Toowoomba Chronicle”) first published a front page article exposing plans to eventually establish an open-cut coal mine on top of our community. Thousands of residents learned for the first time that their homes, their businesses, their lifestyles and their health were in danger due to these plans.
For this reason the Toowoomba Coal Mine Action Group was established to ensure that our close-knit community had a means of banding together to protect our lifestyles, our properties and our health. Our initial community meeting attracted approximately 700 local residents, the Toowoomba City Mayor and other local Politicians and drew the Toowoomba Public’s attention to the issue of rural/residential land being taken over for mining purposes.
Since then the group has attracted many supporters, and is still growing rapidly. This is not a professional group, but is a band of concerned locals who are doing their best to ensure our local community is protected.