A masterplan for upgrading Marine Parade, the 140-year-old coastal walk that winds around Cabbage Tree Bay from Manly to Shelly Beach, is set to be included in the draft Delivery Plan for Northern Beaches’ next financial year, after five years of planning and a failed attempt to secure a co-contribution from Sydney Water.
The 1.5-kilometre promenade, which attracts around one million visitors each year, has faced repeated storm damage over its long history, with powerful surges and high winds ripping up concrete slabs and forcing temporary closures. The planned masterplan would address both the aesthetic condition of the walk and its structural resilience against storm events and tidal damage. It would also better protect a major sewer main that runs beneath the promenade and behind the seawall, infrastructure that has complicated efforts to improve the path given its ownership by Sydney Water.
The walkway was first completed in 1891. The Daily Telegraph reported at the time that Manly had secured one of the most beautiful promenades to be found in the environs of the metropolis. More than 130 years later, the path remains one of Sydney’s most visited coastal routes, and the case for a comprehensive upgrade has been building steadily as storm damage has accumulated and the original infrastructure has aged.
Five Years in the Making
The push for a masterplan has been a long one. Since 2021, the authority responsible for the walk has repeatedly sought a financial contribution of at least $50,000 from Sydney Water toward the cost of drawing up the masterplan, given the utility’s significant infrastructure interests beneath the path. Sydney Water declined the request, advising that the project was not a priority and that it was unable to provide a financial contribution.
With that avenue exhausted, the decision has been made to proceed independently and include the Marine Parade improvements in the next draft Delivery Plan. A staff report has also been requested on the potential financial implications of the masterplan, ensuring the full scope and cost of the project is understood before commitments are made.
What an Upgrade Could Include
While the masterplan itself has not yet been drawn up, the broad goals for the upgrade cover three interconnected areas. Structural reinforcement to protect the path from future storm damage is the primary focus, given the walk’s history of closures following surge events. Better protection of the sewer main running beneath the promenade is also a priority. Beyond those structural concerns, the masterplan is expected to address the visual and amenity condition of the walk, beautifying a promenade that has served visitors and locals for well over a century but whose surface and fittings reflect that age.
The coastal environment along Cabbage Tree Bay is ecologically significant as well as scenic. The bay is a designated aquatic reserve, home to grey nurse sharks, wobbegong sharks, eagle rays, blue groper and an abundance of marine life that draws snorkellers and divers from across Sydney. Any masterplan for the promenade will need to account for that environmental context, ensuring that improvement works do not disturb the bay’s protected status.
Why This Matters to the Manly Community
For Manly residents, Marine Parade is not just a tourist attraction. It is a daily walking route, a morning run circuit, a place to take visiting family and a pathway that connects the main beach to the quieter, rockier world of Shelly Beach. One million visits a year on a 1.5-kilometre stretch of path gives some measure of how intensively it is used, and every closure following storm damage is a disruption felt across the local community as well as by visitors.
The age of the promenade, built in an era before the sea-level and storm intensity projections that now shape coastal infrastructure design, means that incremental repairs are no longer sufficient. A masterplan that thinks about the walk as a whole, addressing its structural vulnerabilities, its environmental obligations and its role as one of Sydney’s great public spaces, is the right response to what has been a slow accumulation of damage and deferred maintenance.
More information on the draft Delivery Plan and the Marine Parade upgrade will be available at northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au as the planning process progresses.
Published 20-March-2026.
