Dunes removed for Commonwealth Games volleyball practice courts shocks Gold Coasters
VEGETATION destroyed as sand is removed to create beach volleyball practice courts the southern Gold Coast will be fixed after the Games, according to the council.
Beaches & Fishing
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THE Gold Coast City Council says it will restore vegetation destroyed during the removal of sand to create beach volleyball practice courts on a southern beach.
Angry residents contacted the Gold Coast Bulletin yesterday upset they had not been consulted as bulldozers cleared dunes at Greenmount as part of Commonwealth Games preparations.
A council spokesman said Games organisers GOLDOC had worked with State agencies in planning for the delivery of the warm-up courts at Coolangatta.
The City has secured all necessary environmental approvals to prepare the site for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games,” the spokesman told the Gold Coast Bulletin.
“Site works include reprofiling areas of the beach at Greenmount, with sand relocated further to the west near the Coolangatta surf lifesaving club.
“Where vegetation is being disturbed, dune restoration-replanting works will be undertaken to re-establish the dune system. Similar re-profiling and replanting works were undertaken by the City in 2005 as part of beach management responsibilities.”
Friends of Currumbin secretary Gloria Baker contacted the Gold Coast Bulletin yesterday as residents on several community Facebook pages vented about the bulldozers clearing dunes.
“It’s getting worse (today),” she said. “They’re flattening the whole of the area. It’s going 100mp/h.”
Ms Baker said the office of local councillor Gail O’Neill had indicated the dunal works were the responsibility of the State Government.
Griffith University environmental researcher and award-winning land care advocate Naomi Edwards told residents on community Facebook pages: “This is crazy, this is why we have a massive sand stock reserve at The Spit. To provide sand stock to replenish beaches. They don’t need to take this approach, this is quite backwards in my opinion.”
Ms Edwards said residents should be told the cost of follow-up revegetation and maintenance of Greenmount Dunes and any economic loss from beach access.
She said costings for trucking sand from The Spit, which did not impacting locals and businesses, should also be provided so the two methods could be compared.
Council expects the shift of 2000 cubic metres of sand from Greenmount to Coolangatta should take a fortnight.