• Vote signals death knell for alternative design
• Community heard, says Mayor

The news that the Port Douglas Waterfront Plan was approved by Council at Wednesday's infrastructure services meeting has been greeted with mixed reactions with some residents happy the project is progressing to the next stage, while others expressed their dismay at what they describe as Council's "disregard of what the community wants."

The Council voted unanimously to move forward on the project, which includes the hotly debated lagoon pool, effectively putting an end to any alternative lagoon design.

In a statement Council said "a clear majority were in favour of the location chosen for the 2000 square metre lagoon pool (near St Mary's By The Sea)."

Cairns Regional Council Mayor, Val Schier, said the alternative lagoon design put forward by Hunt Design and Hortulus Landscape Design was discussed at length, however the environmental implications were a deterrent.

"We had an extensive workshop on it, and it was also discussed in the meeting and really in the end the environmental concern about locating a lagoon in the tidal zone ruled out further consideration of it."

Division 5 councillor, Alan Blake, who has previously supported publicly displaying the alternative design was not present at Wednesday's meeting when the plan was passed unanimously.

"I wasn't there for that meeting, I was in Toowoomba at a conference.

"Whilst I might have a personal preference for the alternate design, I had to go along with the majority decision of Council," he said.

Mr Blake said the Council's constitution dictates that councillors have to be present at meetings for their vote to be counted.

"That's often used in places like that (levels of government) when you know the numbers are in your favour. If it's a tight one and you know someone's away at a conference or sick, that's when you get things moved through.

Division 3 councillor, Rob Pyne, was the only other councillor absent from the meeting.

Mayor Schier said community feedback was an important part of the lagoon design process, noting that a number of changes had been made from the original proposal.

"The concerns about the church were taken on board, and so the lagoon was moved further away from St Mary's. The entrance area to St Mary's has changed. The landscaping and buffering between St Mary's and the lagoon has been strengthened, and the splash pool component of the lagoon - which may have been the noisiest part - has actually been relocated to be the furthest possible away from the church," she said.

"People have been listened to, but the reality is that there were going to be some people whose views couldn't be taken on board because of other factors.

"We actually took into account all of the comments that were made on The Newsport articles, your comments, your letters to the editor, the phone (calls).

The approval means Council will continue with their plans to seek funding from State and Federal Governments.

"We are going to prioritise what happens next...We can start developing more detailed concepts for the lagoon and look at seeking funding for it," Mayor Schier said.

"We do know that the State Government has already indicated they are willing to contribute towards it. We do know that we've got Federal Government funding as well so we just need to have a proposal worked up so we can go back for funding."

She added that there will be opportunities for local tradespeople to be employed during the construction of the waterfront.