The Great Ocean Road (GOR) Action Plan released by the state government this month gives the GOR a future, Warrnambool City Council chief executive Bruce Anson says.
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Mr Anson, who was a member of the GOR Taskforce that prepared the action plan, said the complexity of management bodies for the GOR had meant it was poorly managed.
It did not provide a satisfactory visitor experience during peak times such as Easter, Chinese New Year and most long weekends, he said.
That was not good enough for an international tourist attraction visited by up to six million people a year with two million people visiting the 12 Apostles, Mr Anson said.
He said the GOR contributed about $1.3 billion a year to Victoria’s economy but there were still communities along the route that did not want toilet blocks built because they did not want tourists stopping.
Warrnambool mayor Robert Anderson said there was also a need to get more tourists to the western end of the GOR and take them on to local attractions such as Tower Hill, Port Fairy and Budj Bim near Macarthur and Tyrendarra.
The GOR Action Plan has called for the establishment of a Great Ocean Road Coast & Parks Authority to take over the road’s management from the 30 different bodies that currently have control of parts of the route’s landscape.
It also called for legislation to protect the GOR landscape “as the one integrated and living entity” and for a new overarching planning framework.
Speaking in Warrnambool on Thursday, GOR Taskforce project manager Libby Sampson said the GOR’s reputation to tourists was at “tipping point” of being damaged because of the GOR’s poor management.
Ms Sampson, from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) said the GOR was one of Australia’s top three visitor icons, which were “the Rock, the Reef and the Road.”
But the GOR got more visitors than the other two icons because it was more accessible, she said.
Ms Sampson said the road’s fragmented management meant there was also no long-term strategy on how to protect the GOR, which was highly vulnerable to erosion and land slippage after fires and floods.
She said there was widespread agreement among those the taskforce consulted that the GOR’s management “could not continue the way it has been.”
Ms Sampson said it was likely to take two years to prepare legislation to create the Great Ocean Road Coast & Parks Authority and other legislation that would recognise the GOR as one entity.
