Eurobodalla Shire Mayor Mat Hatcher, Max Castle, councillor Mick Johnson, Ken Brassell, Fitzroy Boulting, Mylene Boulting, councillor Rob Pollock OAM and Tuross Head Progress Association vice president Tom Webster. Photos: Marion Williams.
The proposed closure and sale of Coopers Island Road is unlikely to appear on a Eurobodalla Shire Council meeting agenda anytime soon. Some councillors share community concerns that critical questions must be answered before making a decision.
At a councillors’ catch-up in Bodalla on Wednesday (18 March), residents told Mayor Mat Hatcher and councillors Mick Johnson and Rob Pollock OAM that there was considerable public interest in the issue and there would be community backlash if the sale went ahead.
For decades Coopers Island Road has provided public access to popular fishing spots in the area around Trunketabella Lake.
The proposal goes against a decision that councillors made on 8 June 2021 to retain the road to give people access to the tidal zones and non-private land around Coopers Island and Bowns Creek.
On 10 November 2025 however, council issued a press release notifying its intention to close and sell Coopers Island Road.
Announcing the proposal, council said it followed a Crown Lands survey and correspondence received that confirmed there was no access to public land or water. It said a detailed Crown Solicitors’ investigation had revealed the causeway and adjoining land were privately owned.
Since then residents have questioned the Crown Lands decision and insisted that council investigate what led to it.
Mayor Mat Hatcher, councillor Rob Pollock, Tuross resident Max Castle and councillor Mick Johnson.
Clr Pollock agreed. “We got advice from Crown Lands when we sorted the road and created the carpark and now it is saying it is freehold.
“This advice that the causeway is a fixture came out of the blue and needs to be challenged,” he told the gathering in Bodalla. “We have no idea why Crown Lands has changed its mind. Some very legitimate questions have been raised.”
He said he had asked council staff for the brief that they gave to Crown Lands.
Clr Johnson had a similar view. “If they give different advice, they should explain the reasons.”
Resident Mylene Boulting said there was a ruling dating back to the mid-19th century that when there was Crown land and tidal waterways there should be a Crown reservation 30.48 metres inland. Clr Pollock said that was known as the riparian strip. “I have asked for the definition of that and if it applies,” he said.
Ms Boulting said their requests for information about the Crown Lands decision through the Government Information Public Access (GIFA) had been refused.
Max Castle, a longstanding member of the Recreational Fishing Alliance of NSW (RFA), said the issue was in its seventh year and would take a long time to resolve. He said the RFA would raise Coopers Island Road as an issue at the Budget Estimates on 20 April.
“There will be action certainly from the RFA if the decision isn’t acceptable,” he said. “I think it is morally unacceptable to override earlier decisions by selling off land.”
Councillor Rob Pollock, Max Castle and councillor Mick Johnson.
Tom Webster, vice president of the Tuross Head Progress Association, said the community would challenge any sale of the land. Ms Boulting said over the past two Saturdays at Moruya Markets, almost 200 people had signed a petition opposing the sale of Coopers Island Road.
Mr Castle said Crown Lands did not have a good track record for getting things right so the decision had to be questioned further. He asked to see the advice that Crown Lands had given.
“If we can’t see the advice they have given, how can we get independent advice,” he asked. “The advice from private solicitors is that there are examples of Crown Lands decisions being overruled on many occasions. That creates precedents.”
He gave councillors a list of issues that needed to be clarified including the scope and content of the brief provided to Crown Lands, and in turn to the Crown Solicitor’s Office, and the precise tenure of the land beneath and surrounding the causeway.
He asked if the 30.48-metre Crown reservation applied and asked for the evidentiary legal basis for classifying the causeway as a fixture.
Mr Castle wanted clarification of the existence of lawful authority for causeway construction on Crown land and asked about the impact of any proposed action on established public rights in tidal waters, including historic Aboriginal cultural access and connection to Country including special sites.
“An independent legal review would assist in ensuring that decisions affecting the public access and Crown land are legally sound and consistent with longstanding principles,” he said. “Given what is fundamentally at stake – public land and public access – these questions deserve the fullest transparency and careful investigation and review before any further action is taken.”
