SORRENTO Lifesaving Club has official won approval to rebuild its ageing clubhouse. Under the proposal, the existing building would be demolished to make way for a new clubhouse with new amenities including on-site accommodation, as well as a new beach access ramp.
Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors voted unanimously in favour of granting a planning permit at their 25 February meeting. As it stands, the club’s 23-year-old building is no longer fit as a training facility or to have lifeguards or equipment onsite.
The state government, which owns the land at Ocean Beach Rd, has provided $3.5 million towards the club’s redevelopment while the Mornington Peninsula Shire has committed to contributing $1 million.
But despite the peninsula having the highest drowning rate in Victoria, the club has had to turn to the community to raise a funding shortfall, which is estimated to be $3.5 million.
The club’s treasurer Marc Clavin has previously warned that without a new facility, including the ability to train lifeguards, this would threaten the safety of visitors (about 650,0000 per year) and impact its dwindling member numbers.
The shire has said it won’t release any money until the club was able to find the funding shortfall before any work on the $7 million project began.
Clavin said the club was thrilled to win approval for a planning permit, noting “It’s been a long journey so we’re really excited”. “Current membership is around 570 with the whole purpose of this to help drive the club to the next level – we’re hoping to get to as many as 1500 members by 2030,” he said. “We’ve got no amenity so trying to gain members and keep members is not possible, so it’s a win-win for the community.”
While fundraising was still under way, Clavin said he hoped construction would begin in May with completion aimed by the summer of 2026-27. Clavin said he estimated the rebuild costs would be revised to $8 million, but was confident they could raise the remaining funds through the community, saying the club was “forever grateful to the Beck family for their contribution so far and ongoing”.
Property developer and philanthropist Max Beck has been a big driver behind the significant fundraiser, which has seen TV personality Eddie McGuire throw his support behind the club’s redevelopment with social media messages.
Nepean ward Cr Andrea Allen said the new development would provide the club with much-needed modern amenities, ensuring it could continue to serve the community and visitors. “The current clubhouse is just a patrol tower storage area and some basic training or office spaces. A lot of their equipment is stored in a separate shed off the end of Ocean Beach Rd, which is a short drive away,” she said.
Allen said the footprint of the plans covered the current 2002-built clubhouse as well as the public toilet block at the request of Parks Victoria, which would be detached from the clubhouse and require some vegetation removal as would a new timber access ramp to the beach. “The new building includes accommodation which the club considers to be a necessary component for a number of reasons. The travel distance for lifeguards and lifesavers from Melbourne is significant and the lack of affordable accommodation within the peninsula, especially over summer. This means that staffing the facility is often challenging.” Allen added, “The club are very passionate about this build and have been willing to engage directly with the community about it”.
Speaking of the timeline of the project’s funding, Allen said funding was extended by council in 2024 and the “clock is still ticking”, noting, “the longer it takes for approvals to be obtained for this project, the more expensive it becomes, which means a lot more fundraising is now needed to complete the project than they originally expected”.
Allen also addressed community concerns after four objections had been received regarding the plans, which among them included overdevelopment of the site and a lack of environmental sustainability in the design/future proofing. “I too was originally worried about the size of the build but now having seen how small the current building is on the inside and visiting the club at Portsea, which has a lot more space for club activities, I can totally understand the need for a bigger clubhouse,” she said.
“It’s also important not to forget the actual purpose of this building, which literally is to save lives.”
The proposal was however nearly derailed after Cr David Gill sought to introduce an eleventh-hour amendment during the meeting, arguing there “hasn’t been enough scrutiny in my mind about what the outcome should have been”. While Gill did not oppose the new development, he said “poor design and risk factors like slip stability need full and considered responses based on merit of the built form and surrounding issues”. “There were further opportunities to reduce scale and bulk, including the level of accommodation and the consolidation of the amenities building,” he said, with changes to the ramp also “impacting ocean beach cliffs”.
In a statement, the Nepean Conservation Group Inc expressed its concern, saying the scale, scope and bulk of the proposed new building was not appropriate for the location, with its impact to the National Park being “severe” within a sensitive coastal topography. But the proposed amendment was ultimately shot down by all councillors at the meeting with Cr Marsh saying, “my concern is I don’t really know where these changes come from or what sort of expertise or decisions have gone into suggesting them”. “Given that we’re here making a decision on this application tonight after almost two years since it was submitted, I think that it would be a poor process, so I won’t be supporting the amendment.”
First published in the Mornington News – 4 February 2025
