12:00a.m. 19th March 2008

The Friends of Noosa believe Bob Abbot’s election win has given their town a temporary reprieve from unwanted development but the group won’t wait around to see how long that lasts.

Privately, the group’s most outspoken members, Bob Ansett and Jim Berardo, are happy their former ally in the anti-amalgamation fight won control of the top job in the new council.

And they liked Mr Abbot’s early warning to the state government that the Sunshine Coast would not bend to open-slather development simply to meet population projections.

But the group said any slip-ups by the new council would become welcome fodder in their fight for deamalgamation.

“When you get these super councils forming they ultimately become corrupt and bloated bureaucracies that lose touch with the people,” Mr Ansett said.

“If rates increase, response times for public services decline, if there are deviations from the town plan then they will be judged against the established benchmarks that were in place prior to the amalgamation.

“Any deviation from those benchmarks will form part of our dossier.’’