Remember when: surfers protested council plans to build a new boulder wall at Main Beach

SOUTHPORT Surf Club president and former alderman Garth Andrews claimed that boulder wall construction at Main Beach would eliminate one of the Gold Coast’s most popular surfing areas.

Gold Coast History: Gold Coast Bulletin 1967, December 1. Front page.

Gold Coast Bulletin Friday December 1, 1967

SOUTHPORT Surf Club president and former alderman Garth Andrews claimed that boulder wall construction at Main Beach would eliminate one of the Gold Coast’s most popular surfing areas.

He was commenting on a proposal by the city council and the Co-ordinator General’s Department to extend the existing Main Beach boulder wall from Glen Pacific private hospital (formerly Sans Souci) to the northern end of the Esplanade.

This was to include the area in front of the Southport Surf Clubhouse and the Main Beach Public Pavilion.

Mr Andrews said he was speaking personally as the surf club had not yet discussed the issue.

The proposal was expected to arouse controversy among public organisations at Main Beach.

The council was asking the Co-Ordinator General’s Department, as its consultant on anti-erosion work, to recommend priorities for expenditure of $750,000 available that financial year for boulder wall construction to protect public esplanades.

Mr Andrews said beach replenishment experiments should be carried out before the council committed itself to losing its beaches by constructing a rock wall.

Thousands of people surfed at Main Beach and its popularity was continuing to increase because of availability of parking and because there was sand on the beach.

“People who surf at Main Beach spend 10 per cent of their time in the surf and 90 per cent of their time on the sand,” he said.

“A boulder wall will protect public assets such as the surf clubhouse and the pavilion but there will be little use for these assets if the beach is eliminated.”