LONG-awaited plans to replace a damaged section of the Balcombe Creek Estuary Boardwalk will be considered for funding in the upcoming budget after Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors expressed mixed views about repair works.
The iconic 3.5km boardwalk in Mt Martha has been partly closed for more than two years after being significantly damaged in floods in November 2022, leaving one section unrepaired and fenced off near Nepean Hwy and Uralla Rd in Mt Martha.
As reported by The News, locals have voiced their frustration about the repair delays including the Rotary Club of Mount Martha whose members originally built the boardwalk in the 1990s before it was handed over to the Mornington Peninsula Shire to manage.
Last November the shire proposed three options to rebuild the damaged boardwalk, with the community strongly supporting “option one” of replacing the boardwalk along its existing alignment (Rising tide of support to return boardwalk, The News 18/03/25).
Following community consultation in December last year, a shire report said the Rotary Club of Mount Martha sent a letter to mayor Cr Anthony Marsh summarising a preferred option of replacing the boardwalk in its original location (option one) but reducing the width from 2.5 metres to 1.5 metres.
The shire has since made a budget bid of a detailed design for option one while “all opportunities to find cost-saving measures will be explored”. “The width of the path will be dependent upon best practice including the current topography of the creek, which may have been altered by weather events [and an] assessment of environmental and cultural heritage impacts and minimisation of harm,” the shire report said.
Option two proposes to partially rebuild in its original location with fewer “environmental, cultural heritage and financial impacts than option one,” while option three would run the path through the pastureland between the creek and The Briars’ entry road providing the “least impact “on the natural environment and cultural heritage.
A decision to refer “consideration for funding” for option one to the shire’s 2025-26 budget capital works program (which does not guarantee it will ultimately be the preferred option) was narrowly approved by councillors by a single vote at their 8 April meeting.
Marsh said he was “very supportive” of exploring the community’s preferred view of a “like-for-like” rebuild of the boardwalk, noting that the third option of creating a footpath, which was the cheapest proposal, should be scrapped. “If you’re going to bother going down that path, don’t bother doing anything … we shouldn’t be calling it a boardwalk if it’s a footpath,” he said.
Marsh added that after he attended a community-organised forum on the issue in February, he had “never seen such unanimous endorsement of at least exploring this approach (of an original rebuild), so for that reason I endorse it”.
Cr Bruce Ranken said the boardwalk was a “great asset” and “this piece of work is very important”.
“I think there’s some opportunity here as we spoke of earlier around volunteers and their trades working together hand-in-hand to be able to really encourage and get this piece of work done,” he said.
But other councillors spoke with mixed opinion about the best way forward, noting while the boardwalk was a significant community structure, any works undertaken had to be environmentally sensitive and financially viable. “I think that whatever option we choose at this stage, we should be cautious and investigate fully and see what the repercussions are and how people will react to it as they know all of the facts,”
Cr David Gill said, adding option three was “the least environmentally harmful”. Cr Kate Roper said she was concerned about vegetation removal and warned of any work being a repeat of the council’s approved Harry Potter experience event held at the Briars Sanctuary last year that prompted a fierce community backlash because of possible impacts to flora and fauna.
“I’m wondering where they are, where they sit with this one because it’s all very well people say ‘yes, we want it in the original track on the original location’; that’s great, but do they really know all the facts about the vegetation removal?” she said. “I think we should try and do the cheapest option with the least vegetation damage possible.”
Cr Max Patton said while all options “are fit for purpose,” he believed only option three of running a new path between the creek and Briars’ entry road was “actually economical or future proof”. “In a perfect world, I think with an enormous amount of funding this would be a totally feasible option (for an original rebuild) and I’d love to see it, but I don’t see how it’s feasible at all within our current budget constraints, and even tonight we’ve discussed how we need to live within our means,” he said in reference to the shire’s need to respond to rising costs and increase rates by three per cent.
Patton also said calling the boardwalk repairs “flood-proof” was “a false sense of security” when “in reality, we’re talking about making something flood resistant at best”.
So far, the shire has spent $13,000 on consultants with a further $350,000 submitted as part of its 2026 financial year budget bid to fund detailed design and permits. The bid will be considered by councillors through the annual budgetary process.
First published in the Mornington News – 15 April 2025
