Lancelin’s warning: Start relocating townsite by 2050 or risk flooding, report urges

The shire for some of Western Australia’s best loved coastal holiday towns has published a bombshell report on the need for their “retreat” from forecasted flooding and erosion, with one needing to relocate its entire townsite.

The Shire of Gingin’s coastal risk management draft documents show confronting images of the property and infrastructure at risk in Lancelin, Seabird, Ledge Point and Guilderton.

The mapping shows most of Lancelin being at high or very high vulnerability to flooding within 50 years.

“Lancelin will be difficult to protect in the long term,” a summary said.

It discounted seawalls, groynes, offshore reefs and onshore development controls as being effective or desirable solutions, having investigated them all through various consulting firms in recent years. It also said to raise and rebuild the town would be prohibitively expensive.

Instead, the report made a strong recommendation for Lancelin to retreat.

“Once all assets are removed, it simply makes more sense to find a less vulnerable location,” it said.

The shire has committed to investigate such a “town-scale retreat” in partnership with the state government and community, hoping to find locations that still “enjoy the Lancelin environment”.

“By 2050 the Shire will be prepared with appropriately zoned land available for relocation of properties,” it promised.

Meanwhile, it will investigate other ways to bolster natural protection that is the dune system in a “hope for the best, plan for the worst” approach.

This includes reducing four-wheel-driving access to the primary dunes – a move that is apparently more controversial than the idea of shifting the town itself.

This masthead spoke to a resident who wished to remain anonymous given the depth of discord in the community between those who want free car access and those who don’t.

“The main ones going off their brain here, you’ll never satisfy them, they are about lifetime total access as their right,” she said.

“I think if they reopened the area from Bayliss Street to Timothy Street for boat launchings that would probably ease a lot of the angst.

“We’re saying in the meantime, you could keep it open, but it’s really up to the council.

“They are looking at the big picture, they’re trying to close down the accesses that will allow storm surges to rush into the town.”

She said beach driving was hampering the recovery of vegetation that would be resilient and regrow if given the chance.

“We hope the people in the town will take ownership ... if they get behind revegetating and protecting the dunes they will be amazed to see how quickly the dunes will come back.”

Thomas Cameron’s family has been visiting their holiday home in Lancelin for 35 years, and Cameron has been involved in campaigns on erosion and environmental protection in the area for the past decade.

“People are scared and shocked,” he said.

“It will take time for people to understand the facts and the council is not trying to kick people out, it’s just Mother Nature taking her course.”

Cameron said he had thought the erosion was coming, but even so it was forecast sooner than he had expected.

“Of course it’s sad, it’s a great little town, but this is the reality and there’s nothing we can do to stop it,” he said.

“The town now has an opportunity to come together, follow the recommendations that have been made, support stopping the four-wheel-driving, and allow the council to re-establish the dunes. It’s going to take everyone banding together to do this ... try to slow this down and enjoy the town as long as we can.”

The draft report notes that the vast majority of the Ledge Point townsite is not directly impacted by either erosion or inundation, but that there is one street filled with mostly private properties highly exposed to erosion – considered at very high risk by 2030.

These would have to self-fund protection works, but given that this kind of work and its maintenance could cost anywhere up to $20 million and there are only a handful of homeowners affected, the shire noted that retreat, as recommended, might be preferable for those landowners.

There is a similar story in Seabird, where the owners of a handful of properties are already living with erosion and facing the limited lifespan of a seawall erected in recent years.

In Guilderton, only the car park and some public buildings are at high erosion risk in the near term.

The shire is currently advertising the plan for public comment until August 28.

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