Plan should protect and beautify

There seems to be a lot of hot air expressed about the Ettalong Beach Foreshore Management Plan.

First, we're led to believe a century of research is wrong and that the planting or maintenance of vegetation does not prevent erosion, salination or reclaim deserts.

Then, nostalgia is expressed for the halcyon days of children, waders, families and the only high rise on the beach was a six-foot father.

I can recall Ettalong Beach in the late 1940s, pristine then, sparkling and unpolluted.

A decade earlier, Ettalong and Woy Woy were called the Venice of New South Wales.

Since those golden days, the beach has been devastated in the 1970s and nourished in the 1980s.

Let us hope a sensible plan can be developed that protects the beach, beautifies the area and doesn't lay down for the almighty dollar.

Keith Whitfield Woy Woy