15°C |
Wednesday September 9, 2026 
9 September 2026
When the weather heats up, there are many sites around Sydney Harbour where locals and visitors can take a dip to cool off. However, between the Harbour Bridge and Greenwich Baths, there is nowhere suitable for harbour swimming despite the abundance of shore line.
North Sydney Council hoped to change this by commissioning an Ecological Constraints Report to assess the suitability of a proposed harbour swimming site at Badangi Reserve, adjoining Berry Island Reserve, Wollstonecraft, in its Operational Plan 2025–26.
The freshly completed report has essentially eliminated any prospects for a local swimming site, identifying the area as one of the LGA’s most vital ecological sanctuaries. The findings highlight crucial habitats for threatened species, rare ecological communities, sensitive marine environments, and key wildlife migration routes.
The area includes nesting grounds for the white-bellied sea eagle, powerful owl, and southern myotis, alongside protected paddleweed seagrass beds in the surrounding waters.
While the report to Council acknowledged impacts associated with construction are likely to be minor, the increased visitation generated by a harbour swimming site “would result in moderate indirect impacts on terrestrial and marine ecological values”. These impacts include potential damage to vegetation, expansion of informal walking tracks, and disturbance to species both in the water and on land. They also flagged impacts on seagrass habitat, erosion, litter, and a reduction in water quality.
Ultimately, the report concluded that the impacts of any project would be at odds with the Council’s biodiversity protection and ecological values. It recommended no further investigations of a harbour swimming site at Badangi Reserve.
The report will be considered and voted on by Council at a meeting on Monday 14 September.