COVID-19 security guards to patrol Sydney beaches
Sydney AU Aug 30 2021 Former Waverley mayor Sally Betts said it would be better if the area’s parks and beaches were patrolled by more council rangers and fewer police officers as “not everyone understands the rules”.
Last summer Randwick Council erected barricades at some beaches but found they just crowded people on to grassy areas. The council is reviewing its coastal management plans for this season.
“We learned a lot last year and I hope never to see our beaches closed again,” said Randwick Labor councillor Dylan Parker. “We are all relying on them. I’d very much hope that any move to restrict access is made only on the basis of sound health advice and never according to political pressure or bad optics.”
Saturday, August 28: NSW continues to break COVID-19 records, with 1035 new local cases and 156,165 vaccinations in the past 24 hours.
The Northern Beaches Council is also reviewing its policies. It has already introduced temporary one-hour parking limits on the beachfront from Manly to Queenscliff to discourage gatherings.
“We have found that even when the beaches look busy, most people are complying with restrictions and exercising social distancing,” said mayor Michael Regan. “We will continue to work alongside NSW Police to monitor crowds and act as required to reduce crowding.”
Councils are also grappling with big hits to their budgets from COVID relief measures and loss of income due to the extended lockdown.
At last week’s Woollahra Council meeting, councillor Luise Elsing opposed ongoing financial assistance for locals suffering from COVID restrictions as she was worried the state government would use the $2.7 million (and growing) impact on the council’s budget to force it to amalgamate.
“We’re acting as if we’ve got all the money in the world to hand out. We’re not the sheikh of Iran or something or other, we’re not rich as anything,” she said.
“It’s like us in the ICU unit giving away a ventilator to benefit a few people, and then the community comes to us and says ‘where’s the ventilators?’ And we say ‘oh, we gave them away to people who needed them when we had COVID’. We can’t give away our money just willy-nilly on the assumption that it’s all going to be OK.”
Cullen was concerned about the $325,000-a-month reduction in parking ticket revenue, and complained camper vans had parked across several spots at Camp Cove for four days without a ticket.
“They’re not local, they’re in camper vans,” she said. “There are so many people here that you cannot get a car park. It’s out of control. The same thing’s happening at Nielsen [Park]. We need to make sure we’re booking people who are not meant to be in the area and are breaking rules.”
General manager Craig Swift-McNair said issuing parking tickets during lockdown was a “vexed issue” for all councils. “If we start going as hard as we normally do with parking infringements when everyone’s working from home, we have a big issue reputationally to deal with there.”
