By Richard Bell
The province is moving ahead with a long-needed plan at the western end of Lawrencetown Beach to shift Highway 207 away from the ocean. The combination of rising sea levels and increasingly intense storms have already resulted in damages and highway closures, with the waves heaving rocks and debris onto the roadway. The plan calls for shifting the highway away from the ocean in a more-or-less straight line from the McDonnel House down the hill, eliminating the existing curve. HRM Councillor David Hendsbee and MLA Kent Smith both support the change.
A new community association, the Lawrencetown Headland Project Group (LHPG), has brought together major stakeholders from the surfing and business community. Headed by Vic Ruzgys, the LHPG has come up with a list of 6 projects based around having a small parking lot next to the new road. “At the top of our list is a trail from the new parking out to the headland, and up to the McDonald House,” Ruzgys said. “We need more parking, and better access for emergency vehicles. We want a small recreation area for picnics, and to use for staging our annual surfing contest, with a stairway leading down to the beach itself. And we want a basic washroom; the nearest washroom is a half-mile away.”
Ruzgys said there is no money for any of these projects in the provincial budget for moving the road. “We’ll have to raise the funds,” Ruzgys said. “What we’re working on with the province is making sure that when they move the road, they make accommodations so that we can build these projects when we have the money.”
