Lindsay Fox’s coastline land grab all at sea

Billionaire Lindsay Fox’s bid to reclaim part of a public beach for private use could be finished after three senior judges made a call on the case.

Lindsay Fox's Portsea house, complete with helicopter.

A coastline land grab by billionaire trucking magnate Lindsay Fox appears dead and buried, after three of the state’s most senior judges threw his case out of court.

Mr Fox has been fighting to reclaim hundreds of square metres of public beach for private use at his family’s multimillion-dollar Portsea compound.

The Linfox boss had enjoyed title over the land at Point King beach down to the waters of Port Phillip Bay.

But planning changes enacted under the Coalition government in 2014 changed the land’s zoning from residential to “public conservation and resource”.

Lindsay Fox’s land grab appears dead and buried. Picture: Alison Wynd

Fox failed in a move to have the beach rezoned as residential, given him more control over its use, before launching what has become a long-running Supreme Court battle.

He has been arguing for almost three years that the zoning change was invalid and of no legal effect.

He further believes it involved an ‘acquisition by subterfuge’ of the beach land, and has sought compensation for the move.

He lost an initial court challenge in 2021 but appealed to the Court of Appeal.

In November, appeal justices Karin Emerton, Kristin Walker and Michelle Quigley dismissed his case, finding he’d failed to make out two key grounds of appeal.

They also noted Fox’s delay in challenging the original 2014 rezoning decision.

Fox in the water at Portsea.

“In bringing the proceeding the applicants sought to challenge the lawfulness of administrative decisions made some six years earlier that effected the amendment of the VPPs (Victorian Planning Provisions) and every planning scheme in Victoria,” the court said.

“The amendments affected land across Victoria. It is contrary to the public interest for decisions forming part of the process by which a planning scheme amendment is made to be challenged so many years after the amendment has come into force.

“While there may still be a dispute to quell between the applicants and the Planning Minister, in the sense that the applicants continue to feel they have been singled out and treated unfairly as a result of the Amendment Decision, that dispute could and should have been raised for resolution well before now.”

The decision is the latest in a series of stoushes over the sprawling Portsea property.

In 2019 Fox’s company W Everton Park Pty Ltd was fined $20,000 for laying turf over a protected 4600 sqm section of the beach at the front of the $30 million estate.

Fox also upset the council by installing bollards on a stretch of the beach in 2014, while locals flew into a rage over Fox flying his helicopter onto his land in 2003.