The unanimous agreement by councillors follows consultation with local residents during the latter part of January.

There has been passionate advocacy for the Tathra Headland Walk to move ahead but until now this has stalled because of a lack of plans.

At council’s December meeting Christine Hamilton of the Tathra Headland and Wharf Access Group made an impassioned plea for funds. She said the group had a “huge opportunity for political funding” this year but the project needed to be shovel ready by April and to do that required about $40,000 of design work.

Unable to fund both the renewal of Thatchers Flat footbridge and the Tathra Headland design work, council asked the community where it’s priorities lay.

The response was very clear, council’s director community, relations and leisure Anthony Basford said at the February 22 meeting.

“Residents have demonstrated strong community interest in the establishment of a walkway at the Tathra Headland,” he said.

In total there were 353 responses, 189 from Tathra residents, 119 from across the shire and 45 from visitors and 213 people said their preference was for design work to start for the Tathra Headland. 

Mr Basford said that at all stages it was made clear that the headland project was only at the design and planning stage and no funding was currently available for the major works needed to create the pathway.

Councillors were given four options to consider and resolved to go with option 3 from its business paper which was to confirm the Tathra Headland Path planning costs and reallocate the Thatchers Flat Bridge renewal budget, and if surplus budget were available install additional footpaths focusing on the key paths of travel from Hobbs Corner to Tathra Beach.

Mayor Kristy McBain also asked for council to look at working with local community/service clubs to discuss the possibility of a joint partnership to renew Thatchers Flat footbridge.