Fears of major landslide

Residents of the beachside towns of Patonga and Pearl Beach are in fear of being completely cut off from road access by a major landslide, but Gosford Council has failed to act for the last four years.

Residents are alarmed it will take a fatality to get action on the road: Last night serious accidents were narrowly avoided in two major rock falls.

In 2004 and 2005, Gosford Council received geotechnical reports that there was a high risk of collapse of the rock walls along Patonga Dr.

The situation on Pearl Beach Drive is also serious.

Despite repeated requests from residents and Progress Associations nothing has been done to stabilise the road for drivers, and increasingly, accidents are narrowly averted.

At about 5pm last night (Thursday), a large boulder 600mm x 600mm x 300mm.

6" fell near the start of Patonga Dr, halfway up the hill towards the hairpin bend.

Cars traveling down the hill were forced, shortly after rounding a bend, to cross over double lines to the water-side to bypass the rock. At about 5pm resident John Walklate rang the police.

At 6pm a second resident rang the RTA who were not interested as it is a Council road, and on their advice he logged an emergency call to police.

The boulder was about 600mm x 600mm x 300mm and was a major hazard in the dark, as the dark rock was hard to see in the headlights.

Pearl Beach resident Paul Barclair next organised a team of three motorists to move it off the road in the dark after 6pm.

At about 11pm, there was a second and even more major landslide onto the road, just above the hairpin bend.

Resident Bruce Glynn was coming home from the theatre when he saw a young man with a torch on the hairpin bend, flagging cars to slow down.

Had the young man not done so Bruce believes he would have driven straight into the huge fall of rock - the biggest of the many boulders being about 1200mm round.

This morning Gosford Council had moved the fallen rocks to the road verges, but had done nothing to remove loosened rocks above the fall, which are now perilous.

Water is seeping through the rock structures all along the road and residents and tourists need to be aware to take extreme care when driving these roads.

There are also many ongoing smaller falls all along Patonga and Pearl Beach drives, since the last rain.

Local residents are talking about the need to alert the state coroner and various State and Federal Ministers as to Council's failure to take action to rectify the situation for the last four years.

On the June 13, the long weekend, Pearl Beach will again host a major Chamber Music Festival.

We trust Gosford Council will act to ensure the safety of its patrons well before that date.

Kay Williams, Pearl Beach