I am writing to object to Byron Shire Council’s intention to revoke the clothing-optional status of Tyagarah Beach.
I grew up in neighbouring Ballina Shire and have spent many, many years visiting and enjoying Byron Bay. I continue this regular pilgrimage despite now living in Queensland for work. As a young gay man, closeted and hiding from the realities of my ultra-conservative surrounds in rural northern NSW, Byron Bay was an oasis of tolerance and freedom.
The clothing-optional status of Tyagarah has a long-established cultural significance stretching back decades. It has its roots in the counterculture that once thrived in Byron Bay.
I fear the conservative, and often repressive, social strictures of the surrounding communities are steadily encroaching on Byron Bay, progressively sanitising what made the town the mecca it now is.
Byron Bay is not unique in its natural beauty. Nor is it sophisticated or cosmopolitan in its restaurant and hospitality offering. There are dozens of equally beautiful, more affordable and more accessible towns up and down the east coast of NSW.
What makes Byron Bay unique is its counterculture roots that give it status, give it a vibe, give it the power to make positive memories that move past a happy snap on a lovely beach. It attracts artists and artisans, it generates a pseudo-alternative economy and culture that is unique in NSW and certainly rare in Australia.
I would hope that Byron Shire Council understands this cultural significance and the additional obligations it places on its representatives. In addition to ensuring the smooth runnings of key services, Byron Shire Council has a duty to preserve and defend the many histories and cultures that Byron Bay has nurtured.
The clothing-optional status of Tyagarah and other naturist spaces in the area symbolises and embodies Byron’s unique cultural status. Equally, revoking the protection these spaces rightly deserve sends a powerful cultural message that damages the global reputation of Byron Bay as a unique cultural oasis. But more importantly, it says to the countercultures that have called the region home for half a century that ‘you are no longer welcome here’.
While I understand there are challenges in terms of the regulatory framework and jurisdiction between Council and state government in terms of who has authority to declare rules for what areas, it is imperative that if Tyagarah’s clothing-optional status is revoked Council finds an alternative for the community.
Byron Shire Council must halt the steady march of banality that conservative mindsets have sought to force for decades in the Shire. It must safeguard the cultural practices that have made the town unique – or, simply, Byron Bay will become just another pretty coastal town with little to offer but sand and expensive fish and chips.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
