Residents and holiday home owners are escalating their fight against a planned concrete pathway that will cut through beachfront greenspace in Port Stephens.
A community group opposed to a $1.25 million concrete shared path planned for the Shoal Bay foreshore has lodged a formal complaint against Port Stephens Council.
It is the latest chapter in a stand-off that has simmered since the project was first revealed to residents in April.
The Shoal Bay Foreshore Community, backed by 130 co-signatories, submitted the complaint to council general manager Tim Crosdale on Sunday.
It asks the council to register the correspondence as a formal complaint, and to immediately pause any site works on the Halifax to Harwood path until the complaint is determined.
Construction on the 500-metre, three-metre-wide path between Halifax Holiday Park and Harwood Avenue is due to start in October and run for about three months.
The plans map the path to cut through what is now a wide grassed strip parallel to the beach and a tree-filled park.
More than 50 residents attended a community meeting last weekend about the plan.
Robert Yates has lived in the area on and off for 30 years. He said the open grassed space is used by families and visitors.
"You see them out here doing cartwheels, playing cricket and soccer," he said.
"The current paths will eventually be connected to the new path and create a grid of concrete.
"You can see kids and their parents riding their bikes along the strip three across rather than trying to keep on a path with room for walkers.
"This is a very special area and if they build this path before summer there will be a lot of visitors who will be disappointed."
Other concerns raised by residents include the use of e-bikes on the new path, anti-social behaviour at night, and the end of the path depositing pedestrians and riders into a gravel car park that is busy during summer.
The formal complaint also centres on the sequence in which the project progressed.
Port Stephens Council submitted a funding application to Transport for NSW's Get NSW Active program on November 25, 2024. It recorded the status of community engagement at that time as "Not yet".
Transport for NSW approved the $1.25 million grant on May 13, 2025.
According to the complaint, residents were not invited to have a say on the project until letterbox notices went out in late April this year.
The group argues that by then, the project's website already stated that detailed design and approval activities were complete and the project would move to construction.
The complaint argues the council held only one scheduled community event, an information session on May 12 between 10.30am and 12.30pm.
Residents say that timeslot was less accessible to those who work, non-resident property owners and holidaymakers.
It also claims the two project signs, placed at either end of the 500-metre site, would not have been seen by people using the several beach access points in between.
The complaint further alleges that a formal request to defer construction until March 2027, signed by 45 residents and sent to the mayor and all nine councillors on May 18, has not been directly answered.
A follow-up email on May 27 is also unaddressed, the community group says.
The complaint and accompanying material point to a community-run survey of more than 280 people, including residents, property owners, holidaymakers and local businesses.
Organisers concede the survey was self-selected, but say the results still point to substantial opposition to the project as designed.
Of the responses so far, 89 per cent oppose the proposal and 94 per cent said they believed the project needed further review or consultation.
A Port Stephens Council spokesperson defended both the consultation process and the design, pointing to a longer planning history than the complaint sets out.
The spokesperson said the missing waterfront link between Beach Road and Gowrie Avenue was first identified in the council's 2016 Pathways Plan, and had since been raised repeatedly through community engagement.
"Safe, connected paths were identified as a top community value through our 2024 Liveability Survey and Shoal Bay Place Plan engagements," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said feedback on the pathway plan was first discussed at a council meeting on February 13, 2024, before council consulted its Community Engagement Advisory Group in early 2026.
It then advised residents of the plan in May, holding a drop-in session at Harwood Avenue "to listen to feedback again."
The spokesperson said council had since factored recent community feedback on nighttime safety, e-bikes and e-scooters, and foreshore character into the design ahead of construction, which is now slated for October.
"Wide pathways in open areas with good sight distance are the preferred option to cater for all community needs," the spokesperson said.
The finished path would include bench seating and low-level solar lighting "to maintain good visibility for users while respecting the privacy of nearby properties", the spokesperson said.
The council said the path had also been reviewed against current safety and accessibility standards, and that the chosen alignment followed "the natural route the community already uses".
Taking that route would discourage informal tracks and preserve a wide grassed buffer for social activities, the council said.
