Beloved WA town’s erosion emergency laid bare in confronting images

Confronting photos of extreme coastal erosion at one of Western Australia’s beloved coastal holiday towns have emerged online as a plan for the area’s future hangs in limbo.

The photographs contrast a view of Lancelin from 2020 and one taken this month, showing the loss of 25 metres or more of coastal land. Other photos show the exposed foundations of a community-erected beach gazebo that last week the Shire of Gingin had to move for the third time.

The shire has for six years been working on complex adaptation plans for its deeply divided community as knowledge of the threat to Lancelin’s shorelines advances. In 2023, a coastal risk management draft plan made a strong recommendation for Lancelin to remove assets and retreat from forecasted flooding and erosion.

The document showed confronting mapping of most Lancelin property and infrastructure being at high or very high risk of flooding within 50 years, saying the town would be “difficult to protect in the long term” and that comprehensive investigations of potential solutions – seawalls, groynes, offshore reefs, onshore development controls and “raising and rebuilding” – had ruled them out as not feasible.

The shire committed to investigate “town-scale retreat” in partnership with the state government and community, saying the shire would make appropriately zoned land, that still “enjoyed the Lancelin environment”, available for relocation of properties from 2050.

Meanwhile, it said it would investigate other ways to bolster the natural protection of the dune systems, including reducing four-wheel-driving access to the primary dunes – a move attracting major community controversy.

The adaptation strategy has been in flux since commencement in 2019; the conclusions described went to council for review and approval in late 2023.

But one source, who has owned property in Lancelin for many years but wishes to remain anonymous due to the high level of local controversy, says the council was forced to withdraw the plan and go back to the drawing board.

“A group of people in town think the plan was over the top, and we didn’t need to relocate,” they said.

“I didn’t see a problem with the original plan, it was just a plan. There would be nobody alive from today when it happens. But people overreacted to a 100-year plan as though it were happening tomorrow.

“I think it never got properly communicated because social media took control and twisted it.”

A community-erected pavilion in Lancelin was last week moved for the third time.

The person said erosion was a natural process and not the problem – infrastructure in the wrong places was the problem.

“Locals clubbed together to build this pavilion at Harold Park and now the shire has had to move it last week for the third time,” they said.

“People shouldn’t be trying to grow grass there. We need foredunes.

“The shire is trying to preserve assets that can’t be preserved.”

They also said while most people did the right thing, the behaviour of some was destabilising the foredunes, clarifying that while areas depicted in the photos were not the same areas in which cars drove on the beach, it was causing problems and endangering infrastructure in other areas.

Beach driving in itself was not the issue, they said, but people driving up beyond the beach into the foredunes, to sandboard and camp, and maintain 4WD access at high tides when the beach was inaccessible, was degrading vegetation and destabilising dunes, lessening their ability to protect from storm surges.

They said there was no need to ban beach four-wheel-driving, but beach access needed to be closed to damaged areas at high tide, with a penalty system in place, as at Daytona Beach in the US.

“In Queensland if you go beach driving like an idiot you get fined for dangerous driving; police can fine people for not doing the right thing, just like they can on the roads,” they said.

“We shouldn’t stop people enjoying our coast but as our population grows we have to manage things smarter and more effectively.

“No one wants anything banned in town, but the state needs to help the council manage this better because it doesn’t have the resources.”

A Shire of Gingin spokesperson said the 2019 Coastal Hazard Risk Management Adaptation Plan was still in operation, and a revised version of the document was still under development and would be subject to a peer review process.

They said the shires of Gingin, Coorow and Dandaragan had developed a master plan, which is currently out for public comment until May 15, to support “sustainable recreation” along the coast while protecting the environment.

“Whilst the master plan does discuss the closure of uncontrolled, or illegal [4WD] tracks, it generally focuses on education as the key management tool,” they said.

“No consideration has been given to closing beach access at high tide.”

Shire President Linda Balcombe told Radio 6PR’s Simon Beaumont the shire was monitoring the area for safety reasons, but could not afford erosion combat measures.

“Unfortunately, this has got worse since we put in our last application to the state for funding; we can’t afford to fund all of this along our coast,” she said.

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