00:00The impact is devastating and it's wide reaching. It's predominantly volunteers who respond
00:08to incidents like this. And so that affects them in a tragic way and reaches in, you know,
00:13ripples through the community, their families, friends, neighbours.
00:17And so how are you going to try to limit the number of deaths in future?
00:22So immediately we're rolling out new signage with internationally recognisable hazard symbols
00:28and some fencing.
00:30And so how much fencing will there be? As I understand it, you're kind of trialling
00:35it at one site?
00:37Yes, so Salmon Beach, which is potentially the most dangerous, we're going to have post
00:43and wire fencing at the beach, access to both headlands. And if that's successful in the
00:49coming months, then we'll also roll that out to the other two hazardous and, you know,
00:53very popular spots, Chapman's Point and the opposite of Twilight Beach, Picnic Cove, Dolphman Cove.
01:00And is it the headland? I think you can see these images that we're bringing up now.
01:04Is it the headlands at the ends of the beaches that are the most dangerous spots?
01:10Yes, it is, because the tourists arrive in the car park and then they walk off the beach
01:16up onto those rock headlands, yeah. So we're just hoping that the signage, the fence will
01:21corral you to the new signage and you can make an informed choice at that point whether
01:26or not you want to continue.
01:28And how much fencing will there be in this first trial? Like in terms of metres?
01:34Not very long at all. It's more about capturing you at the beach access, the entrance points
01:40and corralling you to the signage, so just a few metres.
01:42Yeah, so it's not going to be kind of too ugly in terms of a beautiful, natural feature?
01:47No, not at all. You couldn't possibly fence every single beach in Esperance. We're not
01:51attempting to do that yet.
01:54And yeah, so are you hopeful that this really will have an impact?
01:59We believe so. We were working with the Esperance Coastal Safety Group, made up of all the people
02:04who respond to these incidences, so their local knowledge and expertise, Department
02:08of Transport, SES, Marine Rescue, local police. So we've made an informed decision based on
02:15feedback from the locals with knowledge in this area.
02:19And how have you gone there with tourist numbers since COVID? Have they bounced back or they
02:24didn't fall off too badly?
02:25Oh, it's exponential, the growth post-COVID. I think we've been discovered by our own country
02:32because people couldn't leave the borders.
02:34Your secret's out.
02:35The secret's out. Esperance is no longer a hidden beauty. Everyone knows about it.
02:42And so how's the local community been handling that? Has it been good for local business?
02:48There are some people thinking it's maybe a bit too much or not?
02:52I think it's been amazing for local businesses, but we are struggling to keep up with just
02:57the sheer volume of visitors coming in such a short space of time. We don't have adequate
03:02infrastructure for that many people in such a short amount of time. So that's something
03:06we need to work on to smooth those peaks out across the year.
03:10And so how are you planning on doing that?
03:13So we're trying to provide more attractions throughout the year, putting events on in
03:17winter and the shoulder seasons, and also trying to encourage people to plan ahead to
03:22come at the off-peak time because it's beautiful 24-7 here in Esperance. You don't have to
03:28come only in summer.
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