Redlands may rise as the home of sushi in South East Queensland after council decided to investigate setting up an aquaculture business at a local bushland centre.
Division 2 councillor Craig Ogilvie convinced the council to investigate joining forces with aquaculture business Fish Protech.
After much debate, he was also victorious in convincing council to explore the pros and cons of using the Runnymede site, next to Indigiscapes.
In making his pitch, Cr Ogilvie said the Redlands needed to develop a more diversified economy to take pressure off ratepayers and the business would create up to 10 jobs.
He also said it would be environmentally friendly, add to the Redlands bayside brand, provide food security and create long-term local jobs.
"One of the issues for our local area is that we have concreted over the best soil in the area and, that the poultry industry is threatened by globalisation, competing businesses with better economies of scale and the encroach of the urban footprint," he said.
"It's worth remembering the poultry industry has odour issues – aquaculture does not.
"It is also worth noting that old poultry sheds potentially make for good aquaculture sheds and their production methods are remarkably similar."
Cr Ogilvie said locally-based Fish Protech, had been operating for 25 years and was successfully exporting.
His suggestion raised the ire of deputy mayor Alan Beard and Cr Julie Talthy who both said councillors had not had enough time to "seriously" consider the proposal and had not been adequately briefed.
Cr Beard called for Cr Ogilvie to withdraw his motion or call for a workshop. Cr Talty said she just wanted an officer report and Cr Wendy Boglary, who supported the idea, called for both.
"We have councillor-mayor meetings every two weeks; we have workshops three days a week," Cr Beard said.
"This motion was lodged a week-and-a-half- ago and we had a pre-meeting yesterday in which we asked Cr Ogilvie for information and we got some information at 11am yesterday.
"But nothing like what have just heard and now we are asked to vote on this motion - this is bizarre."
Only Cr Paul Gleeson (Div9) said he could not support the venture as he did not want the council to favour one business over another.
Mayor Karen WIlliams had to bring the meeting to order after Cr Paul Bishop's claims councillors "lacked collective imagination" in how the Rural Futures Strategy could be delivered, which provoked Cr Paul Gleeson.
The meeting finally decided to get officers to report back on the aquaculture business proposal by December.
