Kingston District Council will receive $1.9 million funding support for a much-needed extension of its existing Wyomi Beach Rock Seawall.
Erosion at Wyomi Beach has been of significant concern for Council and the community over a long period of time.
Mayor Kay Rasheed said: “We acknowledge that coastal management challenges, such as erosion and inundation, will only increase into the future, and that we needed a well-informed, planned approach for effective and responsible coastal management for future generations.”
This came by way of a Coastal Adaptation Strategy (CAS) which identified future pathways and priority actions.
“The CAS identified that the beach area, to the north and south of the existing Wyomi seawall, experiences on-going erosion of approximately 1m/year and is highly vulnerable to storm erosion and that given the proximity of assets and properties to the shoreline, the Wyomi beach area was identified as requiring immediate adaptation to reduce risks.”
“The last thing our community needs is a repeat of the devastating dune and infrastructure damage caused by severe storms in 2016, which saw a large slice of our coastline disappear into the sea, leaving roads and residential properties exposed,” the Mayor said.
Since then, the Council with state government support, has invested millions of dollars in both interim and long-term protection measures including geotextile sandbags, a 412m rock seawall and in more recent time, annual sand nourishment campaigns to protect either end of the rock seawall which has become vulnerable and exposed to ongoing erosion during the winter months.
Planning and detailed design for the construction of the rock seawall will start immediately.