06/10/2026
PORTSEA FRONT BEACH UPDATE.
Portsea Coastal Erosion Management
What's been released
The Victorian Government, through the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), has opened a public consultation on Engage Victoria titled "Portsea coastal erosion management," inviting the community to help shape the future of Portsea Front Beach.
It is the first formal state-led consultation on the beach's long-term future since the sandbag seawall was rebuilt in 2020.
The timing matters. The current sandbags are due to reach end of life in 2029, the Shire has made Portsea Front Beach a priority in its 'Shout Out' advocacy campaign ahead of the November state election, and Portsea was named Australia's Top Tiny Tourism Town in the 2026 awards, all of which has put the beach firmly back on the public agenda.
Mayor Stephen Batty attended a community gathering on the beach last week and said plainly: council wants the beach back.
The report, in brief-
Portsea Front Beach, once about 30 metres wide and 600 metres long began disappearing from 2009, in the period immediately after the Port Phillip channel deepening project. The state has consistently attributed the loss to swell waves from Bass Strait, storms and higher sea levels; the community, the Shire's own consultants Water Technology, and two engineering reports have pointed to the deepened entrance allowing larger, more powerful waves to reach the beach.
That disagreement over cause has shaped every option put forward since.
The history of studies is long. A sandbag seawall and pier stabilisation went in during 2010, followed by a 2012 pre-feasibility study, two years of wave modelling by Worley Parsons (2014–16), a rock seawall west of the pier in 2014, and a 2016 options analysis. The Advisian options report that followed costed five approaches at between roughly $2 million and $32 million over 50 years and found that only two — reconfiguring the nearshore seabed by dredging, or a breakwater — addressed the actual cause of erosion; groynes and sand nourishment would need ongoing top-ups.
The government chose instead to spend about $2.5 million rebuilding the sandbag wall in 2020, which it said would last around ten years.
The Shire's long-preferred option, a nearshore reconfiguration to reduce wave energy, was estimated at up to $20 million and never funded.
The new report is expected to revisit these options with current data and costings, and to put them to the community for the first time.
The key things to look for when it is read: which options are on the table, whether nearshore dredging and a breakwater are still among them, what each is estimated to cost, whether the channel-deepening question is addressed, and what happens to the beach between now and 2029.
What the community is being asked
At its core, DEECA is asking the people who use Portsea Front Beach what they value about it and what they want its future to be.
Expect the consultation to ask:
• How you use the beach and foreshore now, and how that has changed since the sand went
• What matters most — a swimmable sandy beach, safe access, protection of the cliffs and foreshore buildings, the pier, the look of the place
• Your views on the management options presented in the report, including any trade-offs between cost, environmental impact and how quickly a solution could be delivered
• Any local knowledge about the beach, tides, sand movement or past works that the report may not capture
The consultation is not a vote.
Submissions feed into DEECA's assessment of options and the advice that goes to the Minister.
That makes specific, practical and well-reasoned feedback useful.
https://engage.vic.gov.au/portsea-coastal-erosion-management
