Community, connection and a strong local voice

From the interpretive plaque

Drummond Cove: A Brief History of the Reserve

In 1979, Walter John Batten, known as John, prepared a concise history of the Drummond Cove Recreation Reserve. His long involvement in local government (19 years on the Upper Chapman Road Board and later the Chapman Valley Shire Council), along with 15 years as President of the Drummond Cove Progress Association, gave him detailed knowledge of the area's development.

John's association with Drummond Cove began in 1947, when he and his wife Evelyn camped there with their children. They chose the spot because their former Yuna neighbour, George Barker, operated a fishing boat from the Cove. Access then was by a sandy track through the White Peak property, past the original Drummond Cove Cottage. The cottage is entwined with the lives of John and Mary Drummond, and was restored in 1994 by property developers as a fitting statement to the Bayside Estate.

When John joined the Road Board in 1949, he was appointed to a committee to investigate health conditions at the Cove. The anchorage was used by cray fishermen and summer visitors were increasing, so basic facilities were needed. But the land was privately owned: the northern portion belonged to Mr Carey of White Peak and was leased by Eric Smart, while the southern section was leased by Arthur 'Snuggy' Hall. After two years of negotiation, the Road Board bought 30 acres and returned it to the Lands Department to be dedicated as a Recreation Reserve under the Board's control.

By the mid-1950s holiday use had grown, and by 1960 twenty-four foreshore cottage blocks had been surveyed and made available for annual rent from the Upper Chapman Road Board. A proposed loan to build ablution facilities was rejected by ratepayers, but road access improved when the entrance to the settlement moved to the northern boundary of White Peak, later named Whitehill Road. During the 1960s, concerns from Waggrakine ratepayers and the condition of the roads led to Drummond Cove being transferred from the Chapman Valley Shire to the Greenough Shire.

In 1964 the Drummond Cove Progress Association was formed. At its inaugural meeting John Batten was elected President and Clarice Murphy Secretary. Two years later Ken Cant was elected Secretary, a role he held for ten years. In July 1967, residents were granted a 10-year lease gazetted through the Greenough Shire.

Significant years

• 1969State Electricity Contributory Extension Scheme to cottages.
• 1977Residents offered a 21-year lease through the Greenough Shire.
• 1982Greenough Shire changed the west side of Whitehill Road to a recreational reserve.
• 1983The Minister for Planning and Minister for Lands requested Greenough Shire surrender the current vesting order.
• 1985All leaseholders asked to surrender their original lease and offered a new 30-year lease.
• 1986New lease, and water supply connected to Drummond Cove.
• 1989The hall at Drummond Cove completed and officially opened by Hon Graham Edwards MLC, Minister for Sport and Recreation. Named in honour of John Batten.
• 2006–09Unrest among residents on the west side of Whitehill Road over termination of leases and the availability to purchase land.
• 2017By April, all residences along this beachfront had been removed. Plaques on the limestone blocks along the foreshore walkway name the families who holidayed and lived on the Drummond Cove Recreation Reserve between 1960 and 2016.

The last 15 years

A community voice, a community partnership

John Batten's generation secured the reserve. The work of the past fifteen years has been about giving the community a voice in what happens to it. Most of that work is quiet: surveys, workshops and forums, submissions, letters and meetings with every level of government, and grant applications written by volunteers at kitchen tables. It has kept Drummond Cove at the table as the coast has changed and the old cottages have gone.

Three threads run through it: engagement, asking residents what they want and bringing them together; advocacy, carrying that voice to the City and the State; and action, turning grants and partnerships into plants in the ground.

• 2013Listening first. A City community grant of $5,250 funded an independent community survey and workshops. Residents named coastal erosion, foreshore planning, footpaths and cycle paths, and off-road vehicles as their top concerns, and around 80% were confident the DCPA would represent their views fairly.
• 2014Designing the foreshore together. A week-long community design week with CoDesign Studio and the City produced the Drummond Cove Beach Front Design Guidelines, accepted by Council. A $10,000 “Preserving the Past” heritage grant made sure the stories of the beach-cottage families shaped the design.
• 2014Educating on coastal erosion. On 23 October, with the Sunset Beach Community Group and the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council (NACC), we hosted the Coastal Adaptation Information Forum at John Batten Hall, bringing State planning, engineering and climate adaptation experts to residents.
• 2016Restoring the dunes. A NACC Quickstep grant funded a dune restoration plan for the Glenfield–Drummond Cove beaches, built with the City and Central Earthmoving. When erosion closed Whitehill Road, the DCPA pressed for proper community consultation rather than a rushed response.
• 2017$50,000 for the foreshore. Lara Dalton's election pledge delivered $50,000, through the State's Local Projects Local Jobs program and the Mid West Development Commission, for the former leasehold site as the last cottages were removed: half to turn the community's design guidelines into a master plan, half for on-ground works.
• 2018Working with the City. The City supplied 200 coastal seedlings for a community planting day and agreed the DCPA would take on care of the reserve. Our submissions to the coastal hazard planning process (CHRMAP) helped steer its recommendations towards protecting the coast, and sand-container groynes were built north of the hall.
• 2019The Everlasting Partnership. On 15 October, Council voted 12–0 to establish an Everlasting Partnership with the DCPA and to adopt the Drummond Cove Foreshore Master Plan we commissioned from Eastman Poletti Sherwood Architects. North of the hall, fences gave way to bollards and rails, reopening the reserve.
• 2020Community in a crisis. As COVID-19 hit, the DCPA helped re-home and support a vulnerable group of backpackers camped at the hall.
• 2021Planting the reserve. Community and school planting days brought out around 50 volunteers and put roughly 1,350 coastal plants into the foreshore. A $3 million State election commitment to manage erosion at Drummond Cove followed years of advocacy.
• 2022Your say on $3.2 million. We partnered with the City on the Coastal Recreation Facilities Survey, letterbox-dropping every home; 447 residents responded. The shade dome over the foreshore deck completed the grant-funded works.
• 2024Recommitting. After a period of debate about handing the reserve back to the City, members voted in April to re-engage and rewrite the partnership. Local support followed: IGA Glenfield Fresh gave $2,000 to repaint the hall, and a grant through Lara Dalton MLA funded new air conditioners, with the City covering their running costs.
• 2025Partnership renewed. A Neighbour Day event in February thanked Lara Dalton for the pledge that made the first stage of the foreshore possible. After standing firm that ratepayers, not volunteers, should fund the public beach showers, the DCPA signed the renewed partnership: the City covers water to the reserve, and members can plant, weed and care for the foreshore under our insurance. Sunset barbecues (one funded by a City Better Communities grant), a September clean-up day and a freshly painted hall rounded out the year.
• 2026Trees, art and heritage. The Drummond Cove Tree Festival and a community mural on the hall in May, 40 new trees on the reserve, a Heritage Trail, and our 60th Anniversary with the unveiling of the interpretive plaque.