STOCKTON caravan park, the Cenotaph area of Mitchell Street and Corroba Oval at North Stockton were all in immediate danger of being washed away through storm erosion, Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes said on Friday.
Cr Nelmes said that was the advice received on Friday morning from Newcastle City Council's infrastructure director Ken Liddell, the council officer leading the council's Stockton works.
She said the big north-east swells that hit the beach earlier this month brought decades of erosion to a crisis point, as shown by the sea undermining the caravan park's beachfront cabins, which were well back from the water when installed in 2011.
"It's not just Stockton Caravan Park, but what you'll lose is three areas: the caravan park, the Cenotaph [opposite Hereford Street] and Corroba oval," Cr Nelmes told the Newcastle Herald at Stockton yesterday.
"In situations like this, where we are managing risks and public safety, you have to rely on the advice of experts, and that's what we're doing."
Cr Nelmes said the failure to provide a long-term solution in the form of offshore sand dredging meant the danger was no longer simply to the amenity of Stockton Beach, but to the suburb of Stockton itself.
Cr Nelmes was speaking after the latest visit to Stockton by Labor's shadow minister for local government, Greg Warren, who joined with Cr Nelmes and Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp in heaping the blame on the state government.
The three Labor representatives said the only way to save the beach was to approve offshore dredging as soon as possible and to allow that dredging to rebuild the beach.
Once the beach was rebuilt, it would probably require supplementary replenishment every couple of years.
All three criticised Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock as failing to deliver a promised rescue plan by the end of last year, and Deputy Premier John Barilaro, whose ministerial approval they said was needed to approve offshore dredging.
They said the government had not responded to the council's requests for help. Asked to comment, Mr Barilaro said Stockton's status as a "significant open coast location" meant the council could apply for "emergency" funding "at any time".
He said the government supported the council's investigation of long-term solutions including offshore dredging.
Stockton Community Action Group secretary Barbara Whitcher said dredging was a necessity because the alternative may well be more rock walls which would mean Stockton becoming "a bay rather than a beach".
The Labor representatives met the media and a group of Stockton locals at the corner of Stone Street and Mitchell Street, at the northern end of the larger and older of the two rock walls along Stockton Beach.
The newer rock wall is at the southern end, in front of the area that includes Stockton Surf Club.
Among the onlookers on Friday morning was Lexi's on the Beach cafe owner Nick Sovechles, who wants Newcastle City Council to agree to a "management plan" that would reopen the business on the basis that he would pledge to shut it again if erosion went beyond agreed parameters and threatened the building.
Mr Sovechles approached Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes after the formalities, and the two had a lengthy discussion, which ended without resolution.
Watched by about a dozen onlookers, Cr Nelmes told Mr Sovechles that the Lexi's closure was part of a much bigger picture, and that the council had no choice but to adhere to expert advice.
Lexi's leases the building from the council, which forced the closure a week ago on the back of a four-page report written by two Newcastle coastal engineers.
But Mr Sovechles said the council had sandbagged in front of Lexi's since the report was written, meaning the calculations were out of date and the building no longer in danger.
He said Burleigh Heads surf club operated under a similar management plan.
