Around 150 people rallied in support of a clothing-optional section of beach in the Byron Shire on Sunday, many of them nude.

Twenty years of nude bathing at Tyagarah beach is set to continue after Byron Shire Council voted to retain its clothing optional status despite a staff recommendation to end it.

Nude bathing at Tyagarah Beach could be banned within weeks if councillors support Byron Council staff’s recommendation at today’s meeting to revoke the beach’s clothes-optional declaration.

A group of naturist women and skinny dippers from Byron Shire say they do not feel intimidated visiting Tyagarah’s clothing optional beach, despite claims from some locals that it remains a haunt for sexual predators and exhibitionists.

Magistrate Dunlevy told Byron Bay local court on Friday that a Sunrise resident had no case to answer for bathing naked at the tea tree lakes at Grays Lane in January.

Byron Councillors voted at last Thursday’s meeting to continue a trial of changed conditions at the shire’s only official nude beach at Tyagarah but emphasised there was no guarantee the beach would remain clothing optional long-term.

Tyagarah residents told a meeting on Thursday they are pleased to see the change in behaviour at the area’s clothing-optional beach, which they say had become a hotspot for sexual predators. But activist Dean Jefferys said the police needed to show more tolerance towards skinny dippers shire-wide.