PORT PHILLIP CONSERVATION COUNCIL INC. Telephone 0395891802, 0429176725                             18 Anita Street, BEAUMARIS VIC 3193 Facsimile 0395891680                                                                                    ggd@netspace.net.au  A0020093K Victoria                                                                               www.vicnet.net.au/~phillip                                                                                                                                      September 1999

The Editor
The Bayside Advertiser

Dear Sir or Madam,

Bayside Council Set to Approve a Restaurant Building on Hampton Foreshore Reserve

A Committee of Bayside City Council is recommending to the full Council that it should approve a restaurant building being constructed on the Hampton Foreshore Reserve on a conspicuous position near the edge of the cliff just south of Linacre Road.

This intrusion of a commercial operation and extra permanent structure onto a narrow but very scenic Foreshore Reserve is an exploitation of, and a substantial inroad into, a remaining part of the treed backdrop of Port Phillip Bay, and the recently restored Hampton Beach.

Those urging this further erosion of the little open space and uncluttered scenery around our Bay are using the pretext that the exact site, which has a long untouched backdrop of indigenous coastal bushland, was incompetently modified by a previous Council and now has no trees. Rather than restoring that modified site, they propose compounding the disturbance to the bushland by dominating it with an obtrusive building, with associated car parks and ‘facilities’, and the option of a liquor licence.

This is far more controversial than the associated proposal for a restaurant at Middle Brighton Baths, which is at least in an existing building. There is no need to rush these two proposals through together.

Yours sincerely,
 

Geoffrey Goode
President
Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc.