Community
23 August, 2024
Safety concerns at boardwalk
OVERGROWN vegetation along the Warrnambool foreshore boardwalk and promenade is the centre of safety concerns among residents.
Member for South West Coast Roma Britnell has this week spoken of her concerns about the safety of pedestrians who regularly use the area, which has become “dense and overgrown.”
“We don’t want to wait for tragedy to strike before something is done about safety in this area,” she said.
“I have spoken with several people, particularly women, who are telling me that they are becoming increasingly frightened of being attacked.
“Parts of the area have become dark and foreboding; there would be nowhere to run and they would be trapped in by the dense foliage in the event of an attack.”
Ms Britnell said there were genuine concerns that native vegetation rules were preventing the trimming back and management of overgrowth, consisting mostly of the widely planted tea-tree and the density of overgrowth along the coastal boardwalk.
Ms Britnell said members of the community (mainly women) had reached out to her, fearing for their own safety that the overgrown tea-tree in the area leaves them vulnerable.
“For years the Warrnambool Surf Life Saving Club has asked for the overgrowth to be paired back, saying it is becoming difficult to look out for beachgoers because the growth is obstructing their vision on parts of the beach they are supervising,” Ms Britnell said.
She added that the coastal tea-tree “leptospermum laevigatum” was indigenous to the Victorian coast east of Anglesea, but not to south-west Victoria and was recommended as part of dune revegetation in the 1880s.
When the boardwalk was constructed in the 1980s, the tea-tree was planted alongside it.
“Native vegetation laws should not serve as an excuse not to remove and replace the overgrowth that is posing a safety risk,” she said.
“People are telling me it has become so dense and overgrown that they feel isolated walking along parts of the boardwalk.
“Workers are being told they cannot tidy up the landscape due to the fact that these plants are native, and therefore protected, and yet this species is not native to this spot and was not there prior to the construction of the boardwalk.”
She said while tea-tree was good for dune stabilisation, it needed to be trimmed back or replaced, where necessary, with new native plants.
