Updated ,first published
Dozens of Lancelin residents poured into Forrest Place on Thursday morning, armed with signs and banners with one message: “save our town”.
Almost 100 residents aged seven to 80 chanted “no surrender, no retreat” as they peacefully protested in Perth city to try and raise awareness of their coastal erosion fight.
“A proposed retreat is not an option, Lancelin matters, it’s a beautiful town, these kids live there, people work there, we’ve got nowhere else to go,” Lancelin resident and protester Kirsty Harding said.
Over the past 12 months, approximately 50 metres of dune has eroded away, leaving less than 10 metres between the ocean and local homes and businesses.
So locals took it upon themselves to take part in the Lancelin Rescue Ride to bring their message directly to government officials.
“There’s been an evolving, serious, and rapidly progressing erosion situation in the town of Lancelin, which has reached crisis point,” Harding said.
“There’s now a very small section of sand dune holding back the ocean from one property currently, but also that sand dune is acting as a dam wall, really, to the entire town, which has a lot of low-lying land below sea level.
“So there’s a lot of homes and businesses and people’s livelihoods at stake. And despite this situation being known about, and having been progressing over some time, the state and local governments have not acted effectively or intervened effectively, and we’re now at a crisis point.”
Now Harding and other residents say they are at breaking point and are ready to bring their message straight to government officials.
“Where’s [Roger] Cook, where’s Basil Zempilas, where’s [John] Carey, there’s no one here. They were all invited by many of us, but no one wants to listen to us,” one local shouted at the protest.
Lancelin Rescue Ride organiser Michael Cardy said Carey – who visited the town earlier this month – apologised he couldn’t make the meeting at 11am but has organised a meeting with a group of representatives later this afternoon.
Cardy said the group contains Lancelin residents as well as engineers who will bring ideas to the table that could help resolve the erosion issue.
Carey told WAtoday on Wednesday that the meeting would help to continue support for the struggling community.
“I recently visited Lancelin because I wanted to see the coastal erosion issue firsthand and meet with those directly impacted,” he said.
“[Thursday’s] meeting is a further opportunity to hear from members of the Lancelin community as we continue to support the Shire of Gingin on interim and longer-term responses.”
Lancelin Sand Hotel owner Glen Trebilcock told the crowd gathered at Forrest Place that he has been working on a solution to the erosion problem for the past 18 months.
“It’s very, very unfortunate that it happened bang smack in front of our property and the caravan park,” he said.
“The lowest it got about three or four weeks ago was 1.5 metres and if that breaches it’ll go straight through the caravan park, straight through the north of Lancelin throughout the rest of the town. This has never just been a pub problem, it’s a town problem and for some particular reason we just all seem to be ignoring it.”
Gingin shire president Linda Balcombe told 9 News Perth in June that the local council was advocating for state government support.
“All we want are the ministers to come here, stand in this spot, get sandblasted like I am today and see the damage that is happening, and we need help,” she said.
Locals have also created a GoFundMe page to raise money to build a seawall. The goal is to reach $150,000 with $97,565 in donations so far.
Harding said the town of Lancelin is now calling for the state government to step in and find a broader solution to the problem.
“Lancelin has been ignored on this for a long time to get to this critical point, and we were desperate to be heard for fear that our town would be inundated, and properties and businesses washed away by the ocean,” she said.
“We’d like [government officials] to, in a timely manner, given the urgency of the situation, use their expertise and their resources to devise a long-term engineered solution to this erosion crisis that protects the town, protects the people, their properties, and their livelihoods and their businesses,” she said.
At a press conference on Thursday, former environment minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said she was hopeful that Carey would be able to help the Lancelin community.
“I know that we have made a number of investments in supporting some of those erosion issues,” she said.
“My understanding is that the minister will meet with that community today when they’re in town, and that he is continuing to work closely with the shire on immediate solutions, but also more long-term solutions.”
Greens climate change spokesperson Sophie McNeill said the coastal erosion in Lancelin had reached crisis point.
“Unfortunately, coastal erosion like what we are seeing in Lancelin is exactly what climate scientists have been warning of for years,” she said.
“Over the last decade the [state] government has failed to take any meaningful action to mitigate climate change and now communities like Lancelin are being forced to adapt to survive.”
WA Nationals leader Shane Love also called on the state government to “immediately commence a detailed coastal study and develop a long-term plan to protect Lancelin from coastal erosion.″
“What we need now is the immediate commencement of a comprehensive coastal study and the development of a long-term plan to safeguard Lancelin’s future,” he said.
