Brisbane Lord Mayor Campbell Newman today announced that he wouldn’t repair the river walk without federal funds and that the Council will delay a number of road projects and scrap some non-essential council projects (e.g. $4.8m for Vibrant Laneways) to pay for flood repairs:

Roads, riverwalk delayed to pay for flood

The Council, however, appears to have overlooked an easy saving of $22 million it could make by giving up plans to resume the old Milton Tennis Centre site, and by letting developers build a 20-storey apartment tower on the site (see Old Milton tennis centre to become parkland).

I don’t know where the resumption process is up to, but surely the Council could come to some arrangement with the developer to stop the process or to sell the land back to the developer, if required. The site is ideal for residential development, being so close to the city and to both train and bus services.