On the NSW Central Coast, addressing coastal erosion is an issue as complex as it is longstanding.<\/p>\n
Paul Green owns a beachfront home at The Entrance North. He said he had watched metres of land slip away from his property over the past five years.<\/p>\n
“We’re looking at around 20 metres of our property, and the rest of it was council land,” Mr Green said.<\/p>\n
“We want to fix it, and it’s just hard \u2026 you watch people’s lives and mental health just crumble.”<\/p>\n
Coastal erosion has stripped metres away from Paul Green’s beachfront property at The Entrance North. (ABC Central Coast: Shauna Foley)<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, coastal erosion was again front of mind as the Central Coast experienced a damaging coastal low.<\/p>\n
In the wake of the emergency, NSW Recovery Minister Janelle Saffin stepped in with a potential way forward, declaring beaches at The Entrance North and Wamberal as reconstruction zones.<\/p>\n
The declaration eliminated the need for home owners to submit a development application (DA) with Central Coast Council to undertake interim protection works, but on the condition that council agreed works were needed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Property owners at The Entrance North are paying for their own protection works to address erosion. (ABC Central Coast: Shauna Foley)<\/p>\n
Mr Green said he and his neighbours were looking forward to using the special permission to shore up their properties with a rock wall.<\/p>\n
“A five-metre wall, rock revetment wall, and then it will have sand nourishment behind and on top of it,” Mr Green explained.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully, that will keep collecting sand and bring back the beach.”<\/p>\n
Once the interim works are complete, the same owners will submit a DA for a longer-term fix.<\/p>\n
Ms Saffin believes those works could provide ongoing protection.<\/p>\n
“The revetment and the sand nourishment works that I understand they’ll be doing, they have the potential to last some time,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some homes at The Entrance North are on the brink of collapse. (ABC Central Coast: Shauna Foley)<\/p>\n
A tale of two beaches<\/p>\n
At Wamberal, the reconstruction declaration has made little difference.<\/p>\n
Central Coast Council will not ask the state government to sign off on interim protection works.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Powerful surf in August caused further erosion damage to some Wamberal properties. (Supplied: Chris Rogers)<\/p>\n
It said that barring another extreme coastal storm, there was no immediate risk of significant structural collapse, and no further temporary protection works were practicable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Despite being declared a reconstruction zone, interim protection works have not been requested for Wamberal Beach. (ABC Central Coast: Ross McLoughlin)<\/p>\n
Wamberal home owner Chris Rogers said it was a blow for property owners who had been seeking a solution for years.<\/p>\n
“[There’s a] lack of leadership at a council level, state level, federal level,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Rogers said he and his wife met with the council before purchasing their home, and were told protection would be put in place along the beach.<\/p>\n
But they were never given a timeline.<\/p>\n
Now, insurers consider the risk of damage to Mr Rogers’s home to be so great, they will not offer him a policy.<\/p>\n
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“We cannot get insured for anything that they deem an act of the sea,” Mr Rogers said.<\/p>\n
“Even if land is slipping due to rain, we have no coverage; we are sitting ducks.<\/p>\n
“It takes a toll on families, husbands and wives that are fighting, people that want to leave the community.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chris Rogers says governments have failed to respond to coastal erosion for decades. (ABC Central Coast: Shauna Foley)<\/p>\n
Long-term solution needed<\/p>\n
Wamberal home owners have a DA for a vertical seawall pending, but there is so much community opposition to the idea that Sam Boughton almost won the safe Liberal seat of Terrigal for Labor on a no-seawall platform at the last state election.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A proposed seawall for Wamberal has been met with community protests. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“If you put a wall there, then what you get is big waves crashing against the wall and dragging all that sand offshore,” Mr Boughton said.<\/p>\n
He said a buried revetment wall could be the answer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sam Boughton opposes a seawall for Wamberal. (ABC Central Coast: Shauna Foley)<\/p>\n
“That’s a wall that sits underneath the sand level, and then you pump sand on top to create more stability,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You don’t lose beach amenity with that, and that’s an acceptable solution that I think most people in the community would be for.”<\/p>\n
Mr Rogers said home owners would be happy with that, but Central Coast Council would need to take the lead.<\/p>\n
“We’re more than happy to look at an alternative solution,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If that can be done quicker, and we can implement it and please everyone, bring it on.”<\/p>\n
Central Coast Council’s draft coastal management plan acknowledges the erosion risk at Wamberal.<\/p>\n
It said investigations into the design of a terminal protective structure at Wamberal had been ongoing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Coastal erosion has affected more than 50 beachfront properties at Wamberal. (ABC Central Coast: Shauna Foley)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the NSW Central Coast, addressing coastal erosion is an issue as complex as it is longstanding. Paul…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[53502,17487,46216,1397,18007,53505,90,53503,53500,56,54,55,53501,53504],"class_list":{"0":"post-110692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-central-coast","9":"tag-central-coast-council","10":"tag-coastal-erosion","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-erosion","13":"tag-jane-saffin","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-seawall","16":"tag-the-entrance-north","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-wamberal","21":"tag-wamberal-beach"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}