MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors have been urged to reject the “gloomy” view presented by shire officers and instead find a “sensible cost” way of repairing a now-closed cliff path at Mornington.
In a report to council’s Tuesday 16 April meeting water and coasts team leader Laura Crilly recommends $10,000 be spent on an “advocacy campaign” to persuade the state government to pay $10 million on the Beleura cliff path closed by landslides in October 2022.
The preferred option to repair and reopen the path is to use gabions – rock-filled cages – to support the path which is on a steep slope that traverses public and private land. Crilly says the $100,000 previously allocated by council for planning and design work on the path is $400,000 short of the minimum needed. As well as staff costs more than $150,000 had already been spent on closing the path, commissioning a report into landslip risks and how to fix the path and “ongoing vandalism”. The path is closed by barricades and monitored by CCTV cameras.
Peter Nicholson, of the Save Beleura Cliff Path group, said the report given to councillors this week “exaggerates damage to the path” which has been subjected to two landslides. The report states that many sections of the are “badly damaged” and it has “six land slip areas”.
Nicholson said costs quoted to repair the cliff make “the whole project of reopening the path appear like a fantasy”.
“The shire is recommending advocacy in order to raise money from the state. However, in the same breath, it has been describing the path in a way to suggest it is geo-tech basket case on the shire website and in this report. “I can only repeat over and over, most of the path is safer than it has been in its 102-year history.”
Nicholson said “drainage disasters” affecting the path were “directly linked to the reluctance of the shire to approach house owners when a drainage issue arises”. “A solution must be found to circumvent or solve this problem, which I believe is the most important issue of all on this topic,” he said. “Contrary to the shire’s belief, most of the owners recognise that a protocol needs to be developed where the shire can directly and quickly contact the actual responsible owner of a property when a drainage emergency emerges.
“Landslips can cause a threat to life, just like a bushfire. Imagine if the CFA could only approach an owner who had a potentially dangerous small fire on his property by first writing a snail-mail letter to the owner or his legal representative, as seems to be the rule of thumb between the shire and cliff house owners on the subject of drainage.”
Crilly said the shire would “continue ongoing discussions with neighbours to support responsible water management on private property and work with South East Water to deliver an education program regarding water efficiency for property owners, including irrigation and pool management”.
