A Queensland ‘Beach Win’ For People With Mobility Aids

Hervey Bay’s Sheila King of Australia For All reports that at a recent meeting the Fraser Coast Regional Council agreed to install access ramps to the firm sand at Torquay, Scarness and Pialba, to enable people with mobility aids to ‘put a toe in the water’.

Welcome News

This initiative will enable not only people with mobility aids, but families with small children in prams, and the elderly to access the firm sand along the 16 kms of the Esplanade, Hervey Bay.

Access to the firm sand for all these members of the community has been a long time coming says Sheila.

“In 2000 I personally brought to the attention of the council the fact that there were 32 accesses to the beach, but none of them were accessible to people with mobility aids. At that time both the Mayor and the CEO were signatories to an agreement made under the Queensland Disability Discrimination Act that accessible ramps to the firm sand would be installed at Torquay, Scarness, Pialba and Urangan by July 2003. This never happened and the matter eventually ended up in the Supreme Court in 2005.

8 years have gone by since that signing, and 6 years since the Court action, and at long last Council have decided to install these access ramps at Torquay, Scarness and Pialba. Council has recently installed a new access ramp at Urangan, however this only has access to the firm sand via the soft sand, unless there is a high tide. Hopefully the Council will do something about this problem as well.”

Another win, well done Sheila!