From the last-corner-of-paradise dept: Crescent Head council gonna tar road past (famously) epic back beaches!

Keep that dang road dirty!

Ain’t a lot of places around the NSW coastline that haven’t felt the bite of local councils and their incessant need to pave, rezone and demolish.

For whatever reason, this desire for what’s called progress has eaten up all those classic coastal towns on the NSW coastline.

One of two hold-outs has been Crescent Head, five hours-ish north of Sydney. Crescent, maybe you know, is a soft point that thrills long boarders and holidaymakers. Oh it’s pretty as anything but it’s the back beaches you’d come to these parts for.

Vaughan Blakey, commentator, Goons of Doom minstrel, sometime creative artist for Rip Curl, former editor of Waves and SW, has a joint round those parts. (Click here and have a swish around. It looks like a little something El Chapo would build for retirement. You can rent too!)

And he called yesterday to tell me that Crescent and surrounds “are in the midst of being steamrolled by a Kempsey Council decision to push ahead with the sealing of a stretch of dirt road that leads from Crescent to Lime Burner’s Creek National Park, despite having previously promised to leave the area pristine and untouched.”

There’s a Say No to Tar rally at Crescent this Sunday and if you’re around, swing on by.

As reported by the Echo, a local news organ.

Beautiful coastlines, no traffic jams, dirt roads and that ephemeral ‘character’ note that is slowly being beaten out of Byron Shire and northern NSW still remains at Crescent Head in Kempsey Shire and it is something that local residents think is worth fighting for.

Locals are rallying together this Sunday January 13 at 8.30am to highlight their opposition to the tarring of Point Plomer Road that takes people out to the headland at Limeburners Creek National Park.   

‘This is one of the last two places on the NSW coast that has a dirt road leading to the headland,’ said Amy Bruce from the Crescent Head Ratepayers and Residents Association (CHRRA).

‘It’s incredibly beautiful, and so far relatively unspoiled. We’re worried that the developers are ready to pounce. We see the tarring of the road as a means of opening up the area for rezoning and development.’

The tarring of the road was previously rejected in 2003 when the region’s rich heritage and significant Aboriginal sites were identified and residents and Indigenous elders are saying that the council has made the decision to tar with no consultation.

Local Aboriginal elder James Dungay decided to hand back his Certificate of Appreciation for his personal contribution to Wigay Cultural Park, presented to him by Kempsey Shire Council mayor (KSC) in 2012 over the lack of consultation. However, when he tried to make a time to hand his certificate back to the mayor at the council meeting on December 18 he was told by staff that he could hand it back over the counter at the council office.

‘I have lost faith with Council,’ said Mr Dungay.

That little wave we shot the Twenty softboard short at with Chippa Wilson? It used to be the dreamiest drive in before the council-developers built thousands of oversized houses with their bleak little aluminium windows and unlovable orientation away from light and cross-breezes.

Build the bitumen road and, pretty soon, the land’s gonna be sub-divided and unlovely houses will sprout like weeds after a good summer rain.

Go! This Sunday etc.