SeaChange bridge under threat

Pearl Bay’s bridge was something of a long-running joke in SeaChange. The easiest connection between the fictional towns of Pearl Bay and Port Deakin, it was destroyed years earlier and every attempt at fixing it always goes to ruins. Eventually Bob Jelly (John Howard) blew it up.

Now Heritage Victoria has given VicRoads approval to to tear down the 81-year-old timber bridge which links Ocean Grove to Barwon Heads on the Bellarine Peninsula, south of Geelong.

VicRoads intends to “reconstruct” the bridge six metres downstream from its site, using as much as possible of the original timber and sticking close to the original design. It also intends to build a separate 4.5 metre-wide concrete pedestrian bridge a further 10 metres downstream, outside the heritage area.

But like quirky characters in the ABC drama, locals are unhappy about the move, and the intended site of the pedestrian bridge. They say it will wreck the views for which the original bridge is famous, eat up car park and beach land and damage unstable dunes.

Sounds like a job for Laura Gibson (Sigrid Thornton). Or possibly Andrew Knight and Deb Cox, the show’s creators.

Planning Minister, Justin Madden is understood to be looking at the plans when they come before him for approval.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald