Residents asked to save Ocean Beach with 6 tonnes of sand
IF council won’t fix it, locals will do it themselves — that’s the thinking behind a demonstration at Ocean Beach this Saturday in which six tonnes of sand is being delivered to the car park.
Central Coast
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IF council won’t fix it, locals will do it themselves.
That is the motivation behind a public demonstration at Ocean Beach this Saturday in which the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce has organised the delivery of six tonnes of sand and is urging residents to bring a bucket and spade to help “save our beach”.
Ocean Beach has been stripped of sand back to the dunes by erosion and king tides, which began with the April 2015 “super storms” and has gotten worse ever since.
Central Coast Council has done some mitigation works by scraping sand off the beach to prop up the crumbling vegetation on the dunes but the situation has got so bad that at high tide there is virtually no beach left and the main walkway and several other path ways down to the beach are closed.
The Peninsula Chamber of Commerce has called for the council to buy a dredge so that sand can be pumped out of the clogged channel into Brisbane Water at Half Tide Rocks and onto Ocean Beach.
Chamber president Matthew Wales said it was a “no brainer” with a dredge solving both problems — the silted up channel and renourishing Ocean Beach — but instead council opted for “further studies”.
To highlight the plight of the beach the chamber has organised a truck with six tonnes of sand to come to the surf club car park at 9am this Saturday.
Mr Wales said residents were being urged to bring a bucket and help renourish the beach.
The vigilante approach to renourishing Ocean Beach could land the Chamber of Commerce in hot water but Mr Wales is not deterred by the prospect of hefty fines.
“I want them to come and stop me saving my beach,” he said.
“I want the rangers to come and get me.”
Mr Wales said if something was not done now, it would be too late for the next generation of beachgoers such as four-year-olds Lilly Summers and Harriet Jones.
The little girls were dismayed when they arrived at the beach last week and had to play amid “risk warning” signs and exposed rocks because there was so little sand.
It comes after a recision motion was raised at Monday night’s council meeting calling on the council to look at acquiring a dredge and consider using the sand to create “super banks” at Ocean Beach and The Entrance and tap into the enormous tourism potential that flows from such surfing hot spots.