Busselton suburbs feel abandoned in City’s draft Coastal Hazard Risk Management and Adaptation plan

Busselton home and business owners are calling for better community consultation on the City’s plan to battle coastal erosion. The calls come as mitigation measures to protect Siesta Park and Marybrook have been excluded in the City of Busselton’s draft Coastal Hazard Risk Management and Adaptation plan from 2070. The draft plan, which is still in its community consultation phase, outlines the potential strategy for the City to protect coastal areas from storm damage over the next 100 years. Within the plan the City’s coastline is divided into 19 management areas with potential risks and management or adaptation options identified in each area, including recommendations to protect, accommodate or retreat from the coastline. After several community consultations, information sessions and community surveys, residents and homeowners claim they are still left feeling abandoned by the City, not understanding how the draft plan can dismiss their areas. Siesta Park Holiday Home owner Greg Tickle said the two communities would accept a plan which did not benefit them, if it was further researched and the process was more transparent. “It seems they have made a decision that our areas are not worth protecting,” he said. “We believe they’ll do untold damage to the area if it’s not considered by many, which just can’t happen when it’s moving so quickly. “There is a lack of recognition for the stable areas that have dunes ... in actual fact over half of Siesta Park is fronted by meaningful reserve that can be worked within to create containment seawalls and groynes if the desire exists. “As for Marybrook, there is very significant sand accretion and developing dunes over the majority of the coast and perhaps only the last few hundred metres lacks significant dunes. “The City have said there’s no public facilities, but while we may be a privately-owned business, we see ourselves as a public access facility with more than 40,000 families visiting in the last 20 years.” City director planning and development services Paul Needham responded to the concerns saying further rounds of consultation and planning would come before the final decision. Mr Needham said excluding Siesta Park and Marybrook from the plan post-2070 would allow future generations to determine whether continued protection of this section of the coast was appropriate beyond that time, rather than committing future generations today. “Unlike most of the rest of the coast, there is not a continuous foreshore reserve in this section of the coast, within which coastal protection can be accommodated,” he said.