The Byron Bay argument continues

The previously reported problems at the Byron Bay beachfront continue to make headlines. Today's Weekend Australian newspaper reports that experts say erosion-prone houses in Byron Bay should never have been built and that the council should consider building groynes instead of a wall to protect them. Byron Bay began life as a whaling station in the late 1900s and then became a fishing village. Large-scale development only took place in the past 20 years.

Most of the early development occurred along the beachfront, with the first houses at Belongil Beach - the area particularly affected by the "planned retreat" policy being adopted by the Byron Shire Council - being built in the 1880s. While the beach in front of the houses has been as wide as 150m at various times throughout the 20th century, there is a creek at the back of the beach that inhibits development. While building a wall at the back of a beach is one way of stabilising the beach, another is to build a groyne of wood, concrete, or rock piles and placed at 90-degree angles to the beach.

Colin Woodroffe from the University of Wollongong said that building a wall was a crude way to solve the problem and that it would cause more erosion to other beaches. "Once people begin to interfere with putting in walls sand starts to accumulate and the flow is interrupted," Professor Woodroffe said. "This causes big problems for beaches further north, as less sand makes its way there, causing more erosion."

Professor Woodroffe said the council should look at large-scale engineering structures such as groynes to solve the issue of erosion. "This is something quite common in other parts of the world but I suspect it might be something we have to look into in the north coast and other places facing erosion". Rob Brander from the University of NSW said it was mistake to build houses in areas prone to erosion.