Eurobodalla Shire Council is being asked to get moving on investigating long term options to stop further erosion of the beach at Surfside.
A number of beachside homes are at serious risk of flood inundation during the next East Coast Low after a decade of erosion.
Two immediate requests and two for the future were made by a new group just formed to save the homes of locals living along Batemans Bay beach.
Eurobodalla Shire Council urged during a presentation at yesterday’s meeting to have another go at scraping the beach to build another temporary protective sand dune after the previous one all but washed into the ocean earlier this year and include a special line in the budget for this purpose.
The request were:
- Immediately conduct another urgent sand scraping of the beach;
- Include a line in the council budget for this;
- Start planning to find a long term fix for the decades long problem; and
- Communicate it clearing with the community.
But Jason Ford from Friends of Surfside said it is just as important longer term fix is not filed away as something to examine down the track.
“Those options are going to require further investigations, consultations, environmental assessments, design, development approvals, funding and all of things as you know take time,” Mr Ford said.
“If planning doesn’t commence until the problem becomes critical the community and the council will inevitably be responding from a position of urgency rather than preparedness,” he said.
