Friday, July 13, 2012
A Star News Group publication
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President on plan:
California dreaming for coast lifesavers
Safety second at 13th
BY CHERIE DONNELLAN
Challenge: Tom Penney prepares for training this week.
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FIVE LIFESAVERS from the Surf Coast and Bellarine Peninsula will battle Los Angeles counterparts in California next month. Anglesea’s Tom Penney said representing Victoria in the Wieland Shield competition was a “big honour”. Mr Penney won a place on the state team after consistently placing in the top two in a series of summer competitions. The 25-year-old architecture student said he had spent “months” preparing for the event but confessed the Surf Coast’s “particularly cold winter” had made training a challenge. “It’s been quite different, trying to do the training in the middle of winter that we would normally be doing in summer. “It’s been hard having to get up and run or swim at 6am in the cold but the team has been working hard.” Mr Penney said the LA team’s “great training program” could provide a lesson for the Victorians. “They have paid lifeguards because they basically have a tourist season all-year-round. “I think our voluntary service is very much a part of Australian culture but it’ll be good to see how the professionals work.” The Victorian team will compete in the Wieland Shield from August 3 to 4. The biennial event was conceived at Melbourne’s 1956 Olympic Games as a way to build camaraderie and exchange ideas between Californian and Victorian lifesavers.
BY CHERIE DONNELLAN FORESHORE managers chose plants over people when they abandoned plans for a pedestrian pathway along 13th Beach Rd, according to the club’s president. Peter Bell said community safety should have had “priority” over vegetation when Barwon Coast Committee of Management considered the proposed pathway between 13th Beach Life Saving Club and 33W Signpost car park. “I believe the vegetation loss is extremely minimal compared to what the pathway can provide to the community,” Mr Bell said. “Developing the track between the club and the car park is the sensible thing to do”. The Independent revealed last week that the committee had released the plans for 13th Beach as part of a draft coastal management plan. The plan failed to include the proposed roadside pathway but recommended a “constructed” trail between the western end of Stephens Pde and 33W Signpost car park along an existing vehicle track for maintenance works. Mr Bell said increasing numbers of tourists and residents visiting the beach in summer were putting pressure on car parks. The lack of established car parks meant beachgoers were “parked illegally” during peak times.
Mr Bell said his “personal” opinion was that people “parking illegally and walking over the dunes” during summer was worse for the dunes than creating a permanent pathway. Barwon Coast Committee general manager Bob Jordan said the proposal to construct the roadside pathway was shelved due to “environmental concerns”. “We’d have had to create a new trail, which would have involved a lot of vegetation removal. “As we endeavour to minimise that vegetation loss, we have no intention to develop that trail.” Mr Jordan said the committee was aware of illegal parking issues but was considering options encouraging visitors to access the beach in environmentally-friendly ways. “We’re trying to get more people to walk to cycle to the beach.” Mr Jordan said the construction would “simply formalise an already existing pathway”. “People have created the pathway themselves by wandering through the dunes over the years. We want to keep environmental damage to a minimum and this path will stop visitors from walking elsewhere through the dunes.” The Independent has been reporting Barwon Coast’s attempts to improve 13th Beach access for safety reasons since 2007.