Eurobodalla Councillors vote to adopt Coastal Management Program

The council is responsible for managing about 60 per cent of the Eurobodalla's more than 140 kilometres of coastline. The CMP outlines how the council can best manage and protect the Eurobodalla's treasured coastline.

It is a 10 year strategy incorporating ecological, social and economic factors related to the shire's littoral areas. It includes proposed priority actions such as a revetment to protect Long Beach's Bay Road, an inundation berm to protect Surfside and rock-wall upgrades at Wharf Road and Caseys Beach to address current and future coastal hazards at these sites.

READ MORE:

Having a certified CMP allows the council to access $5 million to fund coastal hazard protection works for the northern Batemans Bay area from the NSW Government and apply for a ratio of 2:1 funding with the NSW Government to implement the program.

The council agenda said these funding sources would be essential to deliver the estimated $47million worth of actions over the next 10 years as identified in the CMP.

However, Cr Hatcher said the council was not obliged to adopt the CMP to access the funding, and councillors were not obliged to adopt the plan on the day.

At the council meeting on December 13, councillors Mat Hatcher, Alison Worthington, Anthony Mayne, Amber Schutz, Rob Pollock OAM, Peter Diskon and David Grace voted in support of adopting the plan.

Councillors Tubby Harrison and Tanya Dannock voted against the motion.

"I still don't think we've got it quite right," Cr Harrison said.

The CMP was on public exhibition from October 12 to November 23, and received 83 responses from the community.

Earlier, at Public Forum, the councillors heard from four speakers regarding the adoption of the CMP.

One speaker was Surfside resident Rosemary Deadman, who said the proposed CMP was "an insult to Surfside property owners."

She said a single storm event had carried away four metres of beach dune earlier this year, with sea water washing into residential backyards.

After community consultation, the draft CMP was altered to specify that the Surfside levee sand nourishment would raise the dune crest height in low sections and revegetation would stabilise existing and imported sand.

Ms Deadman said the sand nourishment was a "temporary and expensive" option.

"Surfside is vulnerable to massive erosion right now," she said.

"Why are we being totally ignored?

"Something has to be done. We have to stop the erosion."

She would like to see a sea wall similar to that at Casey's Beach installed along the northern side of the Clyde River near Surfside.