Questionnaire for Northern Beaches

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According to the 'Sandy Beach ... Matters' newsletter (and if you're a reader of that fine periodical and new here, please see the post below for the welcome I posted a few days ago), "Councillor Joass is asking for community input into creating 12 projects of importance for the Northern Beaches".

The newsletter has a little form on which you can suggest things that Council might do, and guidelines on how to submit it (eg, at Sandy Sue's Shop). Keep reading for a very simple solution.

As the correspondence shows, Coffs Harbour Council seems to have little or no intention of grappling with the pressing problem of cars illegally and dangerously using Sandy beach as a road, even though ratepayers could end up with major and expensive lawsuits if a death occurs simply because Council keeps ignoring the issue.

Council expects us to be vigilantes

I have almost but not quite given up hope of getting a response from Council other than their extraordinary suggestion to me that some kind of vigilantism should be done to solve this major safety and ecological problem. Vigilantism? Yes, because Council's officer has suggested that it's up to locals to solve the problem, when by law, Council must enforce the State laws (and council regulations). If you ask Council what they are going to do about the problem, they tell you what you should do. This simply is not how the laws are meant to operate in a democracy.

"Yes, the plan was exceedingly simple ...
but, unfortunately, so was Bullwinkle"

The solution, of course, is inexpensive and simple -- so simple, in fact, that a child of five could grasp it ... and then, with patience and words of few syllables, explain it to the entire Coffs Harbour Council at a single sitting.

The solution is far, far cheaper than paying for rangers to patrol constantly, or forking out millions in a lawsuit -- this is a lateral thinking solution that I propose. All that is needed is a gate, or one of those small vertical devices that folds down to the ground when unlocked with a key. Legitimate beach users, such as boat launchers, rangers and so on, could be provided with keys. As an angler myself, I know that almost all anglers are responsible people and am sure that most of us would gladly pay to have a key cut if it stops Sandy Beach being a Demolition Derby each Summer.

The suggestion is that if Sandysiders simply put on the questionnaire (preferably in first rank):

"Please get cars off beaches"

then someone at Council might get the idea ... if ideas are not taboo there, as it seems. So, please grab the newsletter, or contact Councillor Joass (Council contact details here) and help make beautiful Sandy Beach what it always was before the petrol galoot bully cars ... a beach, not a road.

Here's another urgent one to put on the questionnaire: "Replace unsafe Sandy Beach fencing" (read more -- still pointedly ignored by the Australopithecines on Coffs Council).

Tagged: suv, activism, 4wd, 4X4, beach, beaches, environment, safety, ecology, australia