The row of almost 100 bathing boxes has a combined real estate value of some $30 million, but the picture-postcard landmarks are under threat from erosion, and it’s up to the local council to save them.
The picture-postcard Brighton bathing boxes, built in the 19th century, now sell for more than $300,000 each.The council plans to import sand from north Brighton beach to “renourish” the boxes.It will cost $3 million to save one of the most Instagrammable scenes in Melbourne due to increasing sand erosion that threatens the picture-postcard Brighton bathing boxes.
“We can’t do much about the rising seas, but we can do something about the storms,” Bayside mayor Alex del Porto said. It would be nice to see governments and business doing more to address the effects of climate change, he said.“Obviously if sea and storm damage consumes my box they will be consuming coasts around the world, so it has to be in perspective. I don’t think we are pushing against the tide, so to speak.”The worsening situation has forced Bayside council to consider building a protective groyne or a breakwater, which the mayor said would cost $3 million.
“There used to be 120 bathing boxes at the beach, the numbers had dropped down to 82, and the council have built 14 new boxes, including six at the southern end of the beach, which is where boxes were washed away historically,” said box owner John Rundell, secretary of Brighton Bathing Box Association. “The southern end of the beach has been subject to storm damage,” he said.
“Professor Weston Bate years ago warned Alex del Porto, a still-sitting councillor, never to build boxes at the south end of the beach where they have been traditionally washed away, and Alex responded ‘caveat emptor’ [let the buyer beware],” said McQuire, who attended a meeting between the local historian and the councillor in October 2013.Del Porto said he did not recall that conversation. “I love the heritage precinct idea. There used to be a lot of gaps there,” he said.
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