A Central Coast councillor and her husband have been charged with assault following an alleged confrontation with a home owner undertaking unauthorised works on Wamberal Beach to protect his property from coastal erosion.<\/p>\n
Councillor Corinne Lamont and Mark Lamont, who lead the community group Wamberal Beach Save our Sand, are facing one count each of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Warren Hughes alleges he was assaulted during a confrontation on Wamberal Beach. (Supplied: Chris Rogers)<\/p>\n
The pair vocally opposes a proposal from beachfront residents for the construction of a seawall to address coastal erosion.<\/p>\n
It is alleged they clashed with Warren Hughes, a beachfront home owner, on Tuesday afternoon, while filming construction work he had ordered to reinforce his property.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Corinne Lamont and her husband Mark Lamont are both charged with assault. (Supplied: Wamberal Beach Save our Sand)<\/p>\n
They were charged and granted conditional bail on Wednesday and are due to face court next month.<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Lamonts said, “We look forward to our day in court.<\/p>\n
“We are innocent victims of a prolonged violent assault on the beach by a group of men.<\/p>\n
“Violence has no place in Wamberal. No violence, no seawall.”<\/p>\n
Mr Hughes declined to comment to the ABC.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dozens of rock bags have been placed outside a home on Wamberal Beach. (ABC Central Coast: Emma Simkin)<\/p>\n
Calls for councillor to step aside<\/p>\n
Acting Central Coast Mayor Doug Eaton described the situation as “distressing and quite concerning”.<\/p>\n
“My personal view is she [Corinne Lamont] should stand aside pending the outcome of the charges,” he said.<\/p>\n
Cr Eaton has asked the council to refer the matter to the Office of Local Government to determine whether there has been a breach of the councillor code of conduct.<\/p>\n
He said he understood residents were frustrated by the lack of action to deliver a solution for Wamberal Beach.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had too much talk and no action,” Cr Eaton said.<\/p>\n
“It is bureaucratic inertia. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare.<\/p>\n
“The Reconstruction Authority has taken over as the authority for authorising any works and in my opinion, they haven’t adequately discharged that duty.”<\/p>\n
Reconstruction Authority responds<\/p>\n
Last month, Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin signed off on interim protection works to address erosion at another Central Coast beach, The Entrance North.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Unauthorised protection works are underway at the Wamberal Beach. (ABC Central Coast: Emma Simkin)<\/p>\n
She said she was waiting for Central Coast Council to submit a scope of works to clear the way for the same permission at Wamberal.<\/p>\n
“What I did as Minister for Recovery was give the community, through the council, a way through to protect their properties at The Entrance North and it’s exactly the same with Wamberal when council puts that scope of works up to us,” Ms Saffin said.<\/p>\n
“I need council to take the lead and come up with the scope of works and work with the local community and council knows this.”<\/p>\n
However, in a statement, Central Coast Council said: “Only a terminal protective structure correctly designed in accordance with council\u2019s engineering design requirements can provide an acceptable level of further risk reduction.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Last month, Central Coast Council placed some rock bags on Wamberal Beach to protect properties from erosion. (ABC Central Coast: Sarah Forster)<\/p>\n
The ABC understands residents have been told they will not receive the same permission granted to their neighbours at The Entrance North.<\/p>\n
Central Coast Council has issued two stop work orders after unauthorised works were undertaken on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n
Council officers are applying for an injunction in the Land and Environment Court to stop further unauthorised works occurring on Wamberal Beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Central Coast councillor and her husband have been charged with assault following an alleged confrontation with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[53370,64,63,53366,17710,53367,44,53365,13616,53364,53368,53369],"class_list":["post-67080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-acting-central-coast-mayor-doug-eaton","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-corinne-lamont","tag-erosion","tag-mark-lamont","tag-news","tag-rockbags","tag-seawall","tag-wamberal","tag-wamberal-beach-save-our-sands","tag-warren-hughes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}