There is more encouraging news for the building industry today, with a report that Queensland’s biggest housing development, at Ripley Valley 5km south-west of Ipswich CBD, has commenced, as reported in the Queensland Times:

AFTER more than five years of delays Queensland’s biggest housing development is under way.

Ecco Ripley, the new name of the Ripley Valley development, will have 50,000 houses and 120,000 people in the next 15 years.

To be developed by Sekisui House, the largest homebuilder in Japan, Ecco Ripley had the first sod of dirt turned on the site yesterday.

Sekisui House Australia president and managing director Toru Abe said Ecco Ripley was the company’s biggest development outside of Japan.

“Ripley Valley is a very exciting development for us as an organisation as it represents a site and scale of development in this country that is almost unheard of,” he said.

Ipswich, as the focus of the Brisbane metro area’s western growth corridor, is set to experience strong growth over the next couple of decades: