Elgin beaches won’t re-open this weekend, possibly longer

Central Elgin Administrator Don Leitch said Monday night, June 8, that Port Stanley beaches wouldn’t be opening this coming weekend, and neither would other municipal beaches in Elgin County.

He told Central Elgin councillors that a joint task force involving the four Elgin municipalities that had public Lake Erie beaches, along with Southwestern Public Health and in consultation with Lambton Shores, which includes Grand Bend, were examining how beaches could be safely opened given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The task force had met that very morning, and wanted if possible to set a joint date for all beaches in Elgin and Lambton Shores to open, so that no one beach would be overwhelmed by visitors.

The conditions at beaches wouldn’t be the same as in the past, he warned, because of the pandemic. Distancing between beach-goers would still have to be maintained.

“There’s still lots of issues to work out,” he said. “It has taken and will take a considerable amount of time, but we are getting there.”