STEPHEN RICCIO
MANSFIELD ET PONTEFRACT July 8, 2020
A public beach is set to open in Mansfield de Pontefract this August, as the municipality has been in collaboration with Fort Coulonge and the Aventure Hélianthe cooperative to put together a summertime activity solution for residents.
The beach will be situated in front of . . .
J & A Bowers restaurant, right next to the ‘White Bridge’, along the Coulonge River. The properties being used were formerly flooded out over the last several years of spring flooding, making them invalid for other infrastructure development. The municipality owns three of the four properties involved, while the fourth belongs to Councillor Sandra Armstrong. Armstrong is offering the property on a rental basis to the cooperative so that they can combine the four properties into one cohesive beach.
“So all four properties have a beach front,” said Guillaume Lavoie-Harvey, the individual in charge of the cooperative. “But her [Armstrong] property is kind of opened up grass where we’re gonna be setting up volleyball nets, we’re gonna be setting up a beach lounging area and a lifeguard chair and a swimming buoy.”
Lavoie-Harvey said that the project came to the Mansfield-based cooperative at the perfect time. The cooperative was planning to run a biking program throughout the summer for their members, but COVID-19 rendered their program-style undoable.
“Essentially, the story is kind of funny, it’s kind of like, out of two negatives, we got a positive,” Lavoie-Harvey said.
As part of the agreement with the collective, the municipalities are directing funding to get the building process going this month. The sponsorship will come with added benefits to users who reside within either Mansfield or Fort Coulonge, although others shouldn’t worry, said Lavoie-Harvey, access to the property will be free to people who do not reside locally.
“We are going to be providing free leisure services for the citizens of Mansfield and the citizens of Fort Coulonge,” Lavoie-Harvey explained, “such as sport gear rental and activity discounts and that kind of stuff just to honour the investment of Mansfield and Fort Coulonge.”
Mansfield Mayor Gilles Dionne said that the two municipalities were previously considering other waterfront possibilities, Bryson Point being one of them, but they opted with the newly emerged opportunity that sits on the river that separates them.
“We’re very excited about it because we’ve been looking for a solution for years to have a public beach at Mansfield and Fort Coulonge for our population,” Dionne said.
The expectations are that the beach will be ready for August, and from there the cooperative will run that month as a four-weekend test, with services and lifeguards being present from Friday to Sunday.
If all goes well, the beach will be fully open next summer with lifeguards present throughout the week during the afternoon hours, Lavoie-Harvey explained. Residents can still go to the beach and swim during non-lifeguard hours, but it will be at their own risk.
Lavoie-Harvey said that this is the exact kind of challenge that the cooperative seeks out: a local opportunity with the potential to enrich the outdoor lives of residents.
“This is a project that’s really important to us because essentially, our biggest mission is to create these local opportunities and develop these projects that give our services to municipalities,” Lavoie-Harvey said eagerly. “So this is like the core of what we do, we try to find ways that we won’t necessarily make money with what we build, but we’ll be able to get infrastructure going and lasting through time in our community.”
