A FISHING Boat Harbour business owner has offered $100,000 to go towards public toilets at Bather’s Beach if it helps Fremantle council secure WA government funding for a shark net.

Nick Unmack, who runs Bathers Beach House, Cicerello’s, Twin Fin and Char Char Bull restaurants in the harbour, revealed the offer at Fremantle council’s monthly meeting on Wednesday.

“Over probably the last decade, I’ve made a number of attempts to sort of open the conversation about shark negation at Bathers Bay,” Mr Unmack said just before councillors started deliberations on a report into safe swimming areas which recommends the popular tourism destination as the preferred net location.

“Being a stakeholder there, I see the value in it from from the engineering perspective, but also the opportunity to not only provide a safe swimming space, but do so in a town beach setting that gets genuine bang for buck for the ratepayers,” Mr Unmack said.

• Fremantle mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge said Bathers Beach would benefit from the activation a shark net will bring, and give Sandgropers peace on mind. Photo by Steve Grant

Toilets offer

Mr Unmack said he’s prepared a memorandum of understanding he hopes the council will consider which includes paying an additional $50,000 a year through an extension of Bathers Beach House’s beachside alfresco area.

“The only thing I’ll say is I just don’t want concrete toilets there,” Mr Unmack said.

Fremantle council initiated a report into shark nets following the fatal mauling of student Stella Berry off North Fremantle in February last year, while UK father-of-two Paul Millachip was killed at Port Beach in November 2021.

Mayor Hannah Fitzhardinge, who’d been swimming in the Swan River just 500 metres away when Ms Berry was attacked, said the evening’s discussion was borne out of a sad event and her closeness to the events gave her an opportunity to speak to people about their attitudes to the beach and swimming.

“There are a lot of people who are not going to the beach,” Ms Fitzhardinge said.

“That’s really sad, given where we live and given how beautiful our beaches are.”

Ms Fitzhardinge said the discussions highlighted that a shark net would attract many people back to the water, which knocked out Port and Leighton beaches as possible sites because parking was already at capacity.

She said Bathers Beach would benefit from additional activation, and had a number of other attributes.

“The connection to public transport and to existing parking is really significant.

“Young people who maybe don’t feel safe swimming right now can jump on the train, walk through town and go for a swim at Bathers Beach; I think that’s fantastic for families and everyone.”

The council will also look into a shark net at Harvey Beach in North Fremantle after an appeal from councillor Doug Thompson, who said while the impact of Ms Berry’s death had dissipated at the state level, it was still felt very keenly in the suburb.

“Some of our people in North Fremantle knew the victim,” Cr Thompson said.

“The fact that it happened just up the river from a location… where essentially generations of North Fremantle children have learned to swim, has had, and is still having, an effect.

“There are people I know that used to swim every day in the river who do not do so now.

“There are children that I know, and parents who will not let their kids go down to Harvey Beach without very strong supervision and are still worried about that possibility.”

Ms Fitzhardinge said while she supported looking into a net for Harvey Beach in the future, she was concerned that if the council moved too soon, it might attract large crowds who’d turn up only to discover it was serviced by just five public car parking bays.

by STEVE GRANT