The first phase of a major project to address coastal erosion at Fremantle’s Port Beach will get underway next month.
Last year the state government announced $3.25 million in WA Recovery Plan funding to implement a large-scale sand nourishment project at Port Beach.
The project is being delivered as a partnership project by the City of Fremantle, Fremantle Ports and the Department of Transport.
Phase one, which will start in early October and take between 4-8 weeks to complete, involves sand screening for small rocks within Sandtrax Beach and the southern 200m of Port Beach, south of Tydeman Road, and removal of a remnant seawall.
Works will be carried out between the hours of 7am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.
Sections of the southern car park, main car park and beach access points will be closed to the public to enable the safe movement of construction vehicles to and from the works area.
The program of works will commence at Sandtrax Beach and move in a northwards direction, with the work site barricaded at all times for the safety of beach users.
The works will involve earthworks machinery and a sand screening plant working on the beach and shifting material to stockpiles located in the closed areas of car park. There will also be trucks entering and leaving the site from time to time.
While public safety measures will be in place, visitors to Port Beach will still be able to access open areas of the beach during the program of works and outside of construction hours.
Once all approvals are in place, Phase 2 of the project will see approximately 150,000 cubic metres of sand dredged from Fremantle Ports’ shipping Deep Water Channel and placed onto Port Beach.
The works will involve marine-based machinery transporting the dredged sand from the Deep Water Channel, with land-based machinery working on the beach to manage receival of the sand and construction of the beach profile.
To minimise disruption it’s anticipated this program of works will commence at the end of Summer 2022.
