Mayor requests meeting with Premier on coastal zone management

Published on 18 December 2018

Byron Shire Mayor, Simon Richardson has made an urgent request to meet with the NSW Premier and Minister for the Environment to clarify why recent changes to Byron’s Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP), endorsed by the State Government, to exclude Belongil Spit from the plan, were over-ridden following lobbying from landholders of properties at Belongil Beach.

“We were well down the track of a highly cooperative coastal management process with the State Government’s Office of Heritage and Environment (OEH) and we made a joint decision, based on a large foundation of scientific evidence, to separate the previous CZMP Byron Bay Embayment (2016) into two locations and develop a newly formed plan excluding the Belongil Spit,” Mayor Simon Richardson said.

“This was initially supported by the Minister for Environment, who invited Council to re-submit a coastal zone management plan excluding the Belongil Spit, so that’s what we did over 8 months, to get certification of the plan."

“Next thing we know, there appears to be a backflip from the State Government, going against this invitation and the advice and work of its own department – and it appears that this is the result of complaints from a few landholders of properties at Belongil Beach."

“We are extremely disappointed that all our hard work and this cooperative process between OEH and Council, not to mention the science, appears to have been subverted due to disproportionate influence by a few local landholders."

“The reality is that there is no opposition to our coastal management planning from the wider Byron Shire community – who, lets face it, are all key stakeholders when it comes to the management of our precious coast and what the impacts of climate change and sea level rise will mean for all of us in the future." 

“What I want to ask the Minister for the Environment is whether she believes that opposition to this scientifically backed approach to achieving the best coastal management planning outcomes for Byron Shire by one stakeholder group should supersede getting this right for the whole community,” he said.

For more information contact Mayor Simon Richardson on 0427 076 834.

Or Council’s Coastal and Biodiversity Coordinator, Chloe Dowsett 02 6626 7128.