Access promises not honoured

Last Thursday a resident of Pearl Beach was seriously injured while riding his bike on the old road around Mt Ettalong.

He fell from the side of the road to the rocks below, was unconscious, and a helicopter as well as two ambulances attended the evacuation.

The cyclist had to be taken to Sydney for medical treatment.

Every day walkers, joggers and cyclists travel up Mt Ettalong Rd.

They then have a choice as to whether they continue their travels up Patonga Dr and down Pearl Beach Dr, doing their best to avoid the significant dangers of oncoming and exiting traffic, or whether they risk travelling the less busy, but now badly eroded, pathway around the foot of Mt Ettalong.

Although Gosford Council promised the community of Pearl Beach (back in the late 1980s) that they would keep the road open around the mountain for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, they have left it to deteriorate to the point where it is now as hazardous to travel as the main road into Pearl Beach.

Their promises are a matter of public record but they have not been honoured.

Nor has council developed any plans to provide a cycleway along Patonga and Pearl Beach drives as part of their repairs to the dangerous state of these two roads.

Hence the community is being put at risk by council's continuing to ignore the safety of those residents, visitors and tourists trying to access Pearl Beach by foot or bicycle.

Pearl Beach is a bushfire-prone area and as such should have two methods of road access for safety and evacuation purposes.

The community cannot rely on evacuations by sea because of the difficult nature of the beach.

Although Gosford council was presented with plans by its own department to provide an elevated walkway-cycleway these have been shelved indefinitely, while the main road access has been allowed to grow dangerous.

Council is at stage one of repairing the main roads into Pearl Beach, but these plans offer no safety to those who do not have car access.

The residents need the plan for a pedestrian egress around Mt Ettalong, as well as the repair of Patonga and Pearl Beach drives.

In the process of providing the necessary cliff pathway, a very valuable passive recreation facility would be established for the Central Coast community where some of the most magnificent vistas on the coast can be experienced.

The Mt Ettalong pedestrian walkway-cycleway also needs to be wide enough for a wheelchair or stretcher as well as pedestrian evacuation in times of emergency.

When will this plan be put back on the agenda?

What price does council place on the risk to life and limb posed by the current situation? What solutions do they have in mind?

Kay Williams, Pearl Beach