Latest news with #TumbyBay
ABC News
26-06-2025
- ABC News
Uncertain future for historic Eyre Peninsula jetties due to coastal erosion costs
A year after Tumby Bay residents celebrated the town's reopened jetty with a freezing early morning winter solstice swim, the jetty's future is as uncertain as ever. Today marks the day the District Council of Tumby Bay officially hand back responsibility of Tumby Bay and Port Neill's jetties to the state government. The council made the decision to terminate the lease of their town's jetty a year earlier than anticipated. "The spending and works required to maintain the jetty is not in the sustainable financial capacity of our ratepayers — you the community," Mayor Geoff Churchett wrote in a letter to residents on June 5. It marks a tough week for jetties in South Australia, with king tides, rain and strong winds destroying the Robe, Kingston and Normanville jetties in the state's south-east on Tuesday. In Tumby Bay, an estimated $4.7 million of funding is required to repair the jetty, which was built in 1874 and rebuilt in 1999. In February, the state government offered $2.4 million to fix the jetty in a 50-50 funding deal with the council, under the SA Jetties Renewal Program, which the council rejected due to financial constraints. The decision drew the ire of state Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis. "The state government has advised the Tumby Bay Council that this jetty remains the responsibility of council unless or until it returns it in an appropriate condition," he said. The state government has contacted council requesting a report on previous works on the jetty, due by Monday. The Tumby Bay community has seen this episode before. The Port Neill jetty was built in 1912, while Tumby Bay's jetty was built in 1874, and re-built in 1999. The community banded together in 1972 to save a section of the jetty. About 400 people gathered at the jetty to protest against its closure in February 2024, before the Tumby Bay Progress Association raised $75,000, which went towards repairs. "There's a lot of apprehension and a lot of unknown and I supposed that's what scares everybody — the unknown," says local Dion LeBrun, who is a part of the Progress Association that raised funds to help the re-opening last winter. "We're all concerned about what the next steps are going to be." Tumby Bay is not the only council struggling in this space. Local governments from around the country converged on Canberra this week for the National General Assembly of Local Government. The impact of coastal erosion means much-loved and historic jetties around SA are becoming more expensive than ever to fix — a topic expected to feature in many of conversations in Canberra this week. "Jetties are a hot topic for us as a state and we'll continue to keep that advocacy piece going," said Jo-Anne Quigley, Mayor of the District Council of Lower Eyre Peninsula, which leases several jetties, including one still in commercial operation at Coffin Bay. "We all know the social impacts of jetties for our communities and for visitors and tourism, so we feel it's a really important conversation. "We understand and accept the leases are from a state perspective, but the federal government needs to step up and give some more money to the states so we can keep our jetties renewed and in the condition that they need to be in." Local resident Robert Randall moved to Tumby Bay in 2017 to be closer to his children and grandchildren. He is a spokesperson for the For the People group, and is critical of the council's decision to reject the funding offer. "My position all along is that the community would have been better off matching the $2.4 million that the government put up, and then we would have had a new jetty for 15 years, which is what the minister advised it would cost," he said. "My latest concern now is that this week we've lost three or four jetties in SA, so have we lost any opportunity of getting that $2.4 million from the government? I don't know." Mayor Churchett echoed the sentiments of constituents and state government in saying the future was uncertain. "We don't know at this stage what's going to happen," he said. "We just want to sit down and talk see if there's a way we can resolve this that's going to suit us all — the state government, local government and the people."
ABC News
17-06-2025
- General
- ABC News
Tumby Bay newspaper deliverer to retire after 20 years of serving town 'rail, hail or shine'
When Wendy Russ tosses her last newspaper at the end of the month it will be the end of an era in Tumby Bay. She has been the unofficial neighbourhood watch angel of the seaside town for about 20 years — the eyes and ears of the community in the dark of pre-dawn. Ms Russ scooted around town in her little two-door hatchback with its "Toss" number plate, delivering newspapers seven days a week, every day of the year except Christmas Day. There will be no more home newspaper deliveries in Tumby Bay after Ms Russ retires. Her delivery service was the last one to operate in a small town on the Eyre Peninsula — however, deliveries will continue in the regional centre of Port Lincoln. Every day for the past 20 years, Ms Russ has risen at 4:30am to start her deliveries, and in that time, she has only had three short breaks — two of them for medical reasons. "Once was when I tore the tendons in my shoulder [throwing a paper]" she said. Thirty-eight per cent of Tumby Bay's adult population is retirement age, with the town boasting 108 people over the age of 85 at the 2021 Census. Shirley Bierwirth, 89, remembers having the newspaper delivered over the fence as a child and reads it daily. She said Ms Russ did more than deliver her newspaper. "She's been wonderful, when she saw me struggling to get the paper because I can't walk too well, she now comes right into the drive to drop the paper at my door," Mrs Bierwirth said. Ms Russ has organised a volunteer to pick up papers from the shop for Mrs Bierwirth and other close-by neighbours. "If they don't get Meals on Wheels, no-one sees them but if they get the paper every day, if I toss the paper, and I still see it there in the afternoon, I know something's wrong. "I'll pop in or I'll ring one of the family and say, 'Is Mum alright? The paper's still out on the lawn', and they'll ring them and make sure things are okay." Her early morning check-ins helped save another woman's life. "I saw her light on and knocked and opened up the door, and there she was on the floor, and she'd been there all night," Ms Russ said. "She'd fallen over at 5:30 the night before, and she couldn't get up, she'd broken her hip. "She kept saying to me, 'You've saved my life.' "It's lovely to have helped someone." Ms Russ has reached retirement age, and so has the unviable business. "When I first started, I needed room in my car for 525 Sunday Mails, and now I'm down to 120 papers for the whole town — that's how much it's dropped off," she said. Her customer base halved when the freight changed from air to road, and the paper price went up by a dollar. "That really affected our newspaper sales — my round dropped in half in two weeks, so I went from 150 customers down to about 60 customers and it never picked up," she said. "Because most of my customers are in their 70s or 80s or 90s or hundreds — I don't get them replaced when they pass over. She said the younger generation relied on social media news alerts. "They don't want to sit and read about the whole story and the 50, 60-year-olds, they go digital and read it on their laptops," she said. There was no question of anyone buying the paper round. "I couldn't fudge those figures — it's just not viable," Ms Russ said. "It's really been running as a charity for the past year." She only earns 50 cents for each of the 30 papers she tosses daily (earning $15 a day), and 25c each for the 100 or so papers she drops at the newsagency. "No one wants to get up at half past four in the morning to do an hour's work tossing 30-odd papers." The 22-kilometre Tumby Bay round takes her an hour to do, with her trusted dog Rusty in the back of the car barking if she misses a house — a bit of a nuisance when a family is on holidays. She has mastered her toss technique and has only landed two on roofs, after the wind took them. The only other mishap was hitting the local doctor with the paper once. Ms Russ is looking forward to sleeping in and working in her garden. She will also be popping in to see many of the customers for a cuppa, just to check they're OK.
