COVID Best Practice Guidance for Beaches

The Coastal Safety Group is pleased to present its COVID-19 Best Practice Guidance for Beaches document.

The NSW coastal environment offers a range of outdoor spaces for leisure and recreation, and as we enter the Spring and Summer season, specific management approaches for our beaches that responds to the COVID Pandemic are required. Councils have an obligation to the community to manage the provision of services and amenities in a way that acknowledges the increased patronage of these spaces throughout the Summer period, promotes community members taking appropriate precautions against the spread of COVID-19, and that works within the confines of Public Health Orders.

This document shares our collective knowledge to support Council's in the effective management of beaches and covers topics such as:

• Local Beach Safety Working Groups;

• Beach monitoring and escalation;

• Communications;

• Lifeguard operations, and

• Cleaning protocols.

The guide represents best practice drawn from a number of existing summer safety plans that can improve the consistency and quality of COVID management activities on our beaches. The guide is available now for download by our members here. To become a member simply sign up on our web page www.coastalsafetygroup.com.au

The Coastal Safety Group is a collaboration amongst a group of Local Government Coastal Safety practitioners to facilitate effective and consistent evidence-based approaches to coastal safety risk management across all NSW Coastal Councils. We work to harness the individual and collective knowledge of our member’s to take leadership on coastal safety management and offer a cohesive voice for advocacy on behalf of Councils responsible for Coastal Safety.