For months, Stockton residents had feared they would awake one morning to find their childcare centre had been swept into the ocean.
In the end it was an excavator, not unrelenting coastal erosion, that delivered the final blow to the 1932 building that once housed the north Stockton surf club.
Demolition crews expected to make quick work of the building on Friday morning but a last minute discovery of asbestos delayed their work for several hours.
The building's demolition is one of several projects that are occurring to shore-up the Stockton foreshore.
Local Government Minister Shelley Hancock announced on Wednesday that $250,000 worth of funding had been fast tracked to assist the council with the management of Stockton erosion.
Grants were awarded for emergency sandbagging at the end of Griffth Avenue and Stone Street and to assist with the former childcare centre's demolition. Both actions were listed in the Council's Coastal Zone Management Plan.
Deeper reading: Save Stockton Beach
- Deputy Premier John Barilaro confirms all options are on the table for Stockton Beach
- Minister pledges to fast track City of Newcastle funding applications for Stockton
- Stockton residents unite in fight of their lives to revive the beach
- Shifting sands from offshore could save Stockton beach for as little as $5 million
- Our beach is broken and so are our hearts
- Watch the video: Relentless erosion closes Stockton beach
- Erosion wipes out Stockton's only childcare centre
- Community meeting told Stockton beach losing a metre a year
- Mission Australia's storm damaged Stockton early learning centre
- Childcare centre's future under cloud in erosion saga
- Childcare centre forced to close temporarily due to beach erosion threat
- Council back to drawing board over long-term solution for Stockton erosion
- Playground of Stockton's Mission Australia early learning centre set to be relocated as a result of erosion threat
- Fears childcare centre could crumble into the sea
- Stockton solution moves forward with meeting
- Garbage tip washing into the sea at Stockton
- State government handballs responsibility for Stockton beach
- 2017: Exposed mine shaft shows Stockton beach's erosion problem needs 'urgent' solution
- 2016: Newcastle lord mayor Nuatali Nelmes suggests 'underground breakwall'
- 2016: Worst erosion in memory leaves Stockton beach exposed to next storm
- 2014: Dangerous erosion on Stockton Beach
- 2013: Stockton beach erosion | photos, video
