6. Hampton Beach renourishment

This stretch of beach from Green Point Brighton to Picnic Point Sandringham was originally know as ‘Fisherman’s Bend’ and illustrations in early journals show a wide sandy beach with fishermen’s nets propped up with poles, drying in the sun. When bathing boxes became popular, most of this area had two rows, but these were gradually wrecked as the beach began to disappear during fierce storms which eroded the coastline.

During the 1930s Sustenance workers or ‘Sussos’ as they were known, constructed stone walls to protect the foreshore according to plans and designs of the Erosion Board, a group appointed by the State Victorian Government and led by A.D Mackenzie, a Hampton civil engineer. While these walls stopped erosion, a serious matter which threatened the stability of Beach Road, they caused a scouring effect and the beach soon disappeared. Wooden groynes were placed along the beach to retain the sand, and were mildly successful, but when they fell into disrepair they were replaced by larger groynes of rocks caged in plastic coated wire mesh. These were also effective for a time but when the mesh eventually rusted, the released stones were scattered all along the foreshore. Large rocks were then piled against the wall and sand, dredged from the floor of Sandringham Harbour, was pumped onto the beach. This sand proved to be too fine and soon returned to its source.

The resultant almost total loss of foreshore meant that wave action caused airborne salt spray that denuded the foreshore of most of its vegetation, and the whole area fell into general disrepair. Sandringham City Council, particularly Cr Jim Bisset, and residents’ groups petitioned the Victorian State Government for many years, climaxing with a Renourishment Rally on the beach in 1996, attended by a huge crowd.

Renourishment began in 1997 with the construction of two large stone groynes along the foreshore and the extension and upgrading of the New Street groyne. The Noordzee a 71 metre Dutch cutter suction dredge, was then used to pump 156,000 cubic metres of sand from a site off shore in less than two weeks. Heavy machinery then repositioned a 50 metre wide stretch of sand to create the new beach. This was officially opened in December 1997, by the then Premier of Victoria, The Hon. Jeff Kennett, and a plaque beside the shared path records this long awaited event.