Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc.: Major Campaign 0003 Municipal dumping of broken concrete slabs over Little Beach at Black Rock Point

Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc.

A0020093K Victoria ABN 46 291 176 191 Founded in 1970

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Major Campaign No. 3

Municipal dumping of tonnes of broken concrete slabs over "Little Beach", north of Black Rock Point

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In 1970, Sandringham City Council managed the Crown foreshore reserve at Black Rock. It was also then removing many old concrete-paved roads. It planned to save the cost of transporting the broken slabs of concrete to a distant disposal site by instead dumping numerous truckloads of the slabs over and down an eroded section of cliff just to the right of the roadway that goes down to the car park in the photograph above.

Sandringham City Council had long got away with dumping its unwanted concrete slabs - using the pretext of "protecting against erosion" - on the cliffs at Hampton; at Southey Street, Sandringham; at Eliza Street, Black Rock; and just north of Surf Avenue, Beaumaris; but this dumping caused the public furore that finally ended the practice.

That Council proceeded with its plan, which resulted in much of the sandy "Little Beach" - at the right of the photograph above - being left strewn with a large mass of broken concrete slabs over it.

The issue followed soon after a defeated 1969 proposal to remove the bushland above "Little Beach" that led to the formation then - at the instigation of the Beaumaris Tree Preservation Society - of a local conservation organization, the Black Rock and Sandringham Conservation Association, which became a founding Member Organization of the newly-formed Port Phillip Conservation Council. Both new groups protested at the outrageous environmental damage occurring. PPCC appealed to the then Liberal Minister for Conservation, Hon Bill Borthwick MLA, who quickly had the matter investigated, and promptly directed the Council by telegram to cease the dumping forthwith.

The slope above the beach has been somewhat re-habilitated since then, but regrowth is poor owing to the underlying concrete still there, and much is still visible. The successor Council, Bayside City Council, publicly admits the sad story of the environmental damage inflicted here, in one of several municipal displays in a small circle just west of, and at the foot of, the nearby footpath that leads to "Little Beach", although the painting shown is of the shore further south.