Story & photos Eve Jeffery
Tempers were cold then hot then cool as the saga of the Belongil rock wall reached operatic proportions this morning in the Byron Shire Council Chambers.
Speaking during public access, Andrew Winton-Brown and Cate Coorey spoke against the wall and Belongil resident John Vaughan spoke for.
Mr Winton-Brown, a retired civil engineer, opened his speech saying he wanted to cut to the chase and ask pragmatic questions about council process. ‘Council has failed to demonstrate the need for these works’, he said. ‘In reports you have put together you only ask for the hard rock solution and not what is the best solution. Why is that?’
Mr Winton-Brown also questioned why council would spend more than one million dollars on replacing the geobags that have been performing adequately since 2001. ‘Why do we need to change to a rock wall? Why do we need to do anything at all?’
‘You have failed to show that the chosen solution is the best solution.’
Cate Coorey said that she wasn’t going to argue the merits of rock walls as there was enough information already. She said the issue was not the wall. ‘The issue is that the community has been ignored while a decision is being made’, she said, ‘an extremely important one with serious ramifications for the future of our beaches, without our consent and without our input.’
‘I am not a coastal scientist, or an engineer like Andy, or a specialist in coastal erosion, but neither are any of the five councillors who are rushing to get a rock wall built. In fact, when I read the published statements of some of those councillors, I am truly concerned at the gaping deficit in their understanding of what they are messing with.’
John Vaughan questioned Ms Coorey’s comment about the issue being a rush decision. ‘Let me read from the council minutes of 1976’, said Mr Vaughan who continued with notes from that year.
He then went on to number the meetings since the 70s up until 2000 when it was recommended that a rock wall go ahead.
‘And as for the nonsense there has been no public consultation, it is just nonsense. Twenty, thirty years filling this gap is extraordinary and to have a propaganda campaign run by The Echo, I won’t call it a newspaper, to say without mentioning its history, which is there for everyone to read.’
‘I’ll just remind you that one of the solutions is that after the rock wall is built we will have to truck sand from Cosy Corner across the Arakwal National Park, to the Belongil’, said Cate.
‘Over my dead body’, added Delta Kay from the gallery.
Councillors Wanchap and Ibrahim both posed pointed questions to Ms Coorey and Mr Winton-Brown before question time was over and the volume rose as the gallery became restless and everyone looked toward this afternoon when the issue will be put to the vote.
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