Building approvals, live development applications and major projects across the Central Highlands (Qld) statistical area — covering Central Highlands and Woorabinda.
These four figures are deliberately not added together. An application, an approval and a project under construction are often the same building at three points in its life, measured by three different bodies with three different lags. Read them as a sequence, not a total.
What councils and certifiers have formally permitted — the ABS series, published about four months in arrears.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing homes, with Queensland and Australia for comparison. This is the same activity as the totals view, divided by the size of the area — which is the only fair way to compare a large SA3 with a small one.
Dwelling approvals a year per 1,000 residents, each year divided by that year’s estimated resident population (ABS ERP at 30 June), not by today’s — which matters most in fast-growing areas, where a fixed denominator can understate the early years by half. The most recent periods use the latest published ERP, as the population series runs a year behind approvals. Read it alongside the per-100-homes view: the two differ wherever household size does.
Dwelling units approved each financial year. The dashed line is the five-year average of 41.
Dwelling approvals a year per 100 existing dwellings.
Detached houses as a share of existing homes, against the share of recent approvals.
Share of each year’s approvals.
The same approvals, measured against the population they have to house.
People added for every new address verified, against the size of an average local household.
A bar longer than the household average means the area gained more residents than its new housing could hold, and the extra had to be absorbed by existing homes.
Dwellings a year: what is currently being approved, against what the 2041 population projection implies.
Implied need assumes the average household stays at today’s 3.0 people. Approvals are not completions, and not every approval is built.
What is funded and moving — the projects large enough to change how Central Highlands (Qld) works, ranked by committed value and how close they are to delivery.
Utility-scale 90 MW solar photovoltaic farm located west of Rolleston in Central Queensland. Developed by RES Australia, the project will supply renewable electricity into the Queensland grid and support the…
Long-term jointly funded Australian and Queensland Government program upgrading approximately 1,185 km of the Inland Freight Route between Mungindi and Charters Towers. The program is delivering staged road…
The Ensham Life of Mine Extension Project extends existing underground bord and pillar operations into the Aries and Castor coal seams, approximately 35km east of Emerald in Central Queensland. In February…
Combined values on this page exclude 1 record that appear to be separate stages of a project already counted. Both are still listed above with their own values.
Denotes AI-based impression for illustrative purposes only, not to be taken as
definitive under any circumstances. Please follow links and conduct other
investigations from the project’s source for actual imagery. Developers and
project owners wishing us to use original imagery please Contact
Us and we will do so.
Beyond 2030: a further $1.32bn across 2 projects with completion dates further out — mostly precinct-scale programs whose dates are indicative. Kept out of the chart so the years you can act on stay readable.
Estimated value of tracked projects by the year they are due to complete, stacked by how certain they are. The dark band is money already being spent; the pale band is still an intention. Estimates are indicative and mix infrastructure cost with whole-of-precinct development value, so read the shape rather than the totals.
Applications and major projects plotted where they are actually proposed, with the 19 projects AreaSearch tracks here on their own tab — filterable by type, delivery stage, area and committed value. To search every application on record rather than this sample, use the section above.
Each area below opens a map builder on its own page — a tool for putting a map and a table into a report. Pick the place types you want plotted (schools, supermarkets, medical, child care, transport and the rest of what AreaSearch holds), add development applications as their own layer, drop your own points, then recolour, renumber and export the result as a table or CSV. A this area only toggle clips everything to the boundary you are looking at. Searches are charged against your credit balance — 1 credit per 40 results from AreaSearch data — and setting filters costs nothing until you search. The builder works on one suburb-sized area at a time, which is why it opens per area rather than across the whole of Central Highlands (Qld).
| Local government area | Share of Central Highlands (Qld) | Applications on record | Register read to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central Highlands | 96% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
| Woorabinda | 3.5% of residents | — | Not yet collected |
The same view of building approvals, applications and major projects for areas neighbouring Central Highlands (Qld).
Central Highlands (Qld) is Statistical Area Level 3 30801 in the ABS Australian Statistical Geography Standard (2021 edition), made up of 3 Statistical Areas Level 2. It has an estimated 30,659 residents, +6.3% since the 2021 Census.
| Measure | Source | To |
|---|---|---|
| Dwelling approvals, five-year average | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| House share of approvals | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Residents per approval | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Value per approved dwelling | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Commercial work approved | ABS / AreaSearch | June 2026 |
| Verified new addresses since the Census | Address register / AreaSearch | May 2026 |
| Major projects | Infrastructure Australia / state agencies / AreaSearch | Ongoing |
Figures on this page are read live from the AreaSearch database each time it loads, so they update as soon as a source does.
The ABS recorded 77 dwelling approvals across Central Highlands (Qld) in the 2024-25 financial year, against a five-year average of 41 a year.
AreaSearch tracks 13 current major projects in Central Highlands (Qld), 5 of them under construction. The largest include Rolleston Solar Farm, Inland Freight Route (Mungindi to Charters Towers) Upgrades and Ensham Coal Mine Life of Mine Extension.
Central Highlands (Qld) is an ABS Statistical Area Level 3. It is covered by parts of 2 local government areas — Central Highlands and Woorabinda. AreaSearch publishes development figures at ABS statistical boundaries rather than council boundaries, so they reconcile with the official ABS series.
On development approvals, Central Highlands (Qld) is adding new dwellings more slowly than Queensland as a whole — 0.18 approvals per 100 existing dwellings a year against the state figure of 0.77.
ABS building approvals are published with a lag of roughly four months; this page carries the series to June 2026. Development applications are collected from council planning portals and refresh continuously. Major project records are reviewed on an ongoing basis. Each section carries its own currency label so the four are never confused.
Development data is provided for general information. Estimated values, dwelling counts and delivery dates come from the lodging or delivering party and are not independently verified by AreaSearch. Confirm anything material with the relevant council or agency before relying on it.