{"id":919992,"date":"2026-07-08T03:26:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/919992\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T03:26:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T03:26:30","slug":"lancelin-residents-try-to-self-fund-sea-wall-to-stop-imminent-erosion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/919992\/","title":{"rendered":"Lancelin residents try to self-fund sea wall to stop imminent erosion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calls to help stop a seaside town from slipping into the ocean are growing more desperate, with its community left to fundraise $150,000 to build a new sea wall.<\/p>\n

Lancelin, 125 kilometres north of Perth, has experienced extreme erosion<\/a> along its northern beach, with one business owner estimating 50 metres of beachfront near his property has been eaten away in 15 months.<\/p>\n

\"And\"Erosion Erosion near the hotel at the end of May last year. \/ And at the start of June this year. (Photos supplied: Kaeto Hoffman\/DroneSphereAU)<\/p>\n

An online fundraiser aims to raise $150,000 to build an emergency seawall in front of a “decimated” sand dune which protects a nearby hotel and pub, and the neighbouring caravan park.<\/p>\n

Nearly $90,000 has been raised in the two weeks since the appeal was launched.<\/p>\n

Lack of action criticised<\/p>\n

Simon Dreyer has kite surfed at Lancelin and performed with his band Coastal Drift for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Simon Dreyer says the Lancelin Sands Hotel has provided significant support to local bands. (Supplied: Coastal Drift)<\/p>\n

He said the owners of the hotel and pub were “hugely responsible” for supporting the five-piece band and other local acts, and it was emotional to see the business at risk.<\/p>\n

“To see the whole thing eroding away is terrible,” Mr Dreyer said.<\/p>\n

“This is a disaster and we’re not putting any funding towards this disaster for reasons unknown.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He said it should not have been left to residents to mount a response.<\/p>\n

“It should be unnecessary considering, I mean, the state should really be jumping in and doing it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Everybody seems to be sort of wringing their hands and saying they’ll talk about it and think about it, but nothing’s actually being done.”<\/p>\n

\"Red<\/p>\n

The erosion destroyed a public path which now leads to a drop-off to the water. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

Quick-fix not holding<\/p>\n

The Shire of Gingin, Lancelin’s local government, has been lobbying the state government for support, receiving $150,000 to stabilise the dune last year.<\/p>\n

The shire added another $100,000 worth of self-funded sand at the dune this year.<\/p>\n

Both attempts at sand renourishment washed away within six months.<\/p>\n

Mr Dreyer said hard infrastructure like a sea wall was needed as a long-term solution.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

About $250,000 worth of sand was deposited to rebuild a dune. (ABC Midwest Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

While there was concern a sea wall would simply push the issue further up the coast, he said they had been successfully used to protect other coastal areas in WA.<\/p>\n

“The foreshore of Perth has got a seawall right along for miles and miles,” Mr Dreyer said.<\/p>\n

“If it was happening in City Beach or anywhere like that \u2026 it would never have been allowed to get to this point.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Erosion becomes political<\/p>\n

WA Nationals leader Shane Love, who is also Lancelin’s local MP, said the Cook government had been “missing in action”.<\/p>\n

\"Shane<\/p>\n

Shane Love says he is frustrated by the lack of a government response. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

Mr Love said he had raised the issue as a grievance multiple times in parliament with little or no response.<\/p>\n

“The community members are desperate now and they’re at the point where they need to have resources to combat the situation,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We could see a large amount of public and private infrastructure being lost if the government doesn’t get behind the Lancelin community and take some urgent action.”<\/p>\n

Last week, WA minister Jessica Stojkovski said the government had been working to protect the area, and warned building a sea wall could damage other parts of the coast.<\/p>\n

“I’m not aware of the details of the sea wall and whether that will actually assist,” Ms Stojkovsiki said.<\/p>\n

“But we do have to keep in mind that anything we do in Lancelin will affect other coastal areas.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Metres of beach has been lost in the four weeks since this photo was taken. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

A government spokesperson said it supported coastal communities through the CoastWA program, with $24 million committed over the next three years.<\/p>\n

They said the state worked closely with local governments to respond to urgent risks on a case-by-case basis, including ongoing work with the Shire of Gingin to support Lancelin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calls to help stop a seaside town from slipping into the ocean are growing more desperate, with its…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":919993,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[23586,746,371442,371440,371441,371437,132667,210349,371438,159,371439,371436,67,132,68,8632],"class_list":["post-919992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-beach-erosion","tag-environment","tag-lancelin-crowdfunding","tag-lancelin-dunes","tag-lancelin-pub","tag-lancelin-sands-hotel","tag-midwest-news","tag-sand-bags","tag-sand-renourishment","tag-science","tag-sea-wall","tag-shire-of-gingin","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wa-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116882230267575116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919992\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}