Consultants are in the process of preparing the plan, which assesses coastal hazards, such as coastal erosion, sea-level rise, dune migration and other threats to biodiversity, heritage and access.

It will detail how the council will manage its responsibilities to achieve community wants and needs along the coast.

Meetings were held this week in Broulee, Tuross Head, Moruya and two in Batemans Bay to help the consultants preparing the plan “understand the community’s needs”.

They included a PowerPoint presentation about why the plan was needed and what had been done to date, and residents had the opportunity to speak with council staff about how it might affect them.

Umwelt’s Pam Dean-Jones said the company started planning for Batemans Bay beach hazards in 2011, but when the state government announced councils should determine their own sea-level benchmarks, it was put on hold.

Eurobodalla Shire Council last year formally adopted sea-level rise benchmarks and the project resumed in January.

Ms Dean-Jones said this week’s meetings followed an online survey and on-site talks with beach-goers earlier this year.

She said the importance of meeting tourism needs while maintaining those of permanent residents was raised by residents, and there was discussion about the way the coast is used.

Ms Dean-Jones said there was a relatively high level of satisfaction with the services provided on local beaches.

However, residents were keen to ask questions about coastal hazards and long-term trends, particularly regarding erosion, recession and inundation.

“They’re quite concerned about impacts on private property,” Ms Dean-Jones said.

Sea-level rise was a hot topic.

“What we’re saying to everyone is that council has actually adopted the (sea-level) benchmarks that it’s going to use for sea-level rise through a project that was done last year so in some respects it’s not really an issue for discussion here,” she said.

“Council has already made that decision.”

Ms Dean-Jones said the next community consultation would take place in August once results of hazard studies, conducted by the University of NSW’s Water Research Laboratory, were released.

“One of the key pieces of information for the plan is the results of the hazards studies, we don’t have that at the moment for most of this coast,” she said.

“We’ve got some very preliminary ones, but this will be detailed analysis for 29 beaches along the coast (including several in Batemans Bay).

“With that information you can look at what really is impacted in the immediate term and what is likely to be impacted in the longer term. That gives us something to work with in terms of where the real priorities are, so we will be back to talk to people when we have that information before we start to write the full plan.”

Related coverage: Councillor expresses concerns about meetings