Tyler Redway
A COMMUNITY consultation session will decide the true fate of the Robe Obelisk despite the District Council of Robe recently declaring preventing the obelisk from collapsing was not a worthwhile investment.
The session, which is planned for July, now aims to gather a final opinion from the Robe community on whether the council should pursue strategies to preserve the obelisk or to focus on other projects and opportunities.
District Council of Robe Mayor Lisa Ruffell said during the council’s last community consultation period, the obelisk’s renewal was not a high priority for those in attendance.
Ms Ruffell mentioned despite these findings, there was still a group who wanted to see the iconic landmark saved to preserve the town’s history.
“It just wasn’t a high priority to the people who were there at the time, but I know there is passion out there in a small group because I have been asked about it since I was elected last year,” Ms Ruffell said.
“I have been trying to push the subject by saying if we should spend some money to try and find some answers or do we believe it needs to be stopped.
“It’s sad and it is an icon to Robe in the fact we use it through the District Council of Robe as a logo and I use it in the chocolates and many businesses use it as a logo.
“Wherever I go and whenever I talk to ministers, they always talk about it and people are always taking photos of it, but sometimes you do have to make some hard decisions and the community is saying they don’t want us to spend any more money on what we can do to investigate saving it.”
Ms Ruffell said with the current opinion of the public, the decision to cease renewal projects for the obelisk would still remain if there was not a different outcome in the upcoming July session.
She said there have been other projects on the council’s list of priorities which could potentially utilise ratepayer funds more effectively than the obelisk.
“If everyone wanted it then I would be going full steam ahead but at this point, we are hearing that no one wants us to go that way and wants us to focus on other priorities,” she said.
“Our road maintenance needs addressing so that is one thing we are trying to do and we would love to do the development of Robe Street.
“There is so much we could be doing and at the end of the day, it’s just the erosion which is happening there and I know overseas have built concrete blocks around the cliffs but it is a huge amount of money to be doing something like that.
“I think there will be mixed feelings about it but I also think people will also understand sometimes you have to say we are not going to spend anymore time on this, which is what we are going to do at this point.”
Ms Ruffell said although some believed the obelisk could be “dead in the water”, she did not want to give up on the iconic landmark so easily.
“You could say it is dead in the water but for me, I don’t think that way because I will always keep asking if there is something we can do when meeting with ministers and engineers but at this point, we can’t spend any money on it, which is what we are hearing from the community,” she said.
“It saddens me that we had to come to this point and we couldn’t reach some kind of an outcome, but then I look at it in the way that we have reached an outcome because it’s what the public is asking us to do.
“I will not stop trying to push this in all of my walks of life while I am the mayor, but I will not spend ratepayers’ money on it until everyone wants it to happen.”
Retired Coast Protection Board principal advisor Doug Fotheringham said his family, who have lived in Robe since the 1850s, considered the Robe obelisk as an “icon” to the town.
Mr Fotheringham said he believed the council’s decision to stop the obelisk’s preventative measures was a good move as it would prove to be a very expensive investment.
“It’s something which has been there for a long time, it had an important role for shipping in the early days and it is a site which tourists have gone to for many years,” Mr Fotheringham said.
“I agree with the council, I just think it is going to be very expensive and very difficult to protect the obelisk and how you would do it without destroying the ambience would be an absolute challenge.
“Purely taking it from an engineering point of view, building protection would be a challenge but if you were also to try and keep the ambience of the area so you didn’t have ugly coastal works there would be an absolute challenge.”
Mr Fotheringham said any further works to prevent the obelisk from wasting away could potentially damage the coastline surrounding the structure.
“I can’t see how they could do it without destroying the ambience of the area, then you also have the issue of the coastline to the south of the cliffs there is also eroding,” he said.
“Over time, the defences around the obelisks are going to be outflanked by other erosion which is occurring so it’s a really difficult problem.”
Mr Fotheringham suggested there could be a way to preserve the obelisk’s unique history by using the structure’s collapse to demonstrate the effects of coastal erosion in the south-east region.
“I think it is going to be gut-wrenching for the locals and it does have an economic value as a tourist attraction, but there are clever ways to interpret what has happened so you might be able to make a tourist attraction out of the loss of it and still attract people to the area,” he said.
“The obelisk itself has been a fantastic marker of coastal erosion because it’s a major landmark, so I think you could use it as an example for an interpretation of coastal erosion and what is happening all along this south-east coastline.
“I think if the obelisk goes, it will need to be replaced to maintain that area as a tourist attraction.”
The obelisk’s final community consultation session will take place on July 11 at 7pm in the Robe Institute.
