Environment Minister Dammika Patabendi has ordered work stopped on a gabion sea barrier along the Pamunugama–Wahatiyagoda coastline in Wattala after officials found it had been built past the limits the state approved, Hiru News reported.
The suspension is temporary and runs until a formal investigation into the alleged boundary violations is complete.
What the inspection found
The order followed site visits on Friday (12) along the affected coastal belt and at Taldiyawatta in Dikkowita, Wattala. The minister was accompanied by senior officials of the Department of Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management, including its Director General.
The barrier — a stacked wire-cage structure of the kind used to absorb wave energy and slow erosion — had reportedly been put up beyond the boundaries the department approved, extending into ground designated as beach.
Patabendi instructed officers to halt further work until further notice, and said all development inside the coastal conservation zone must comply with the law and hold the department’s mandatory approvals. He ordered a formal inquiry into four questions: what approvals were granted, what boundaries were specified, what construction methods were used, and whether the officials responsible for oversight did their jobs.
That last point is the unusual one. The inquiry is not confined to whoever built the barrier; it extends to the regulators who were supposed to be watching.
Erosion on the same stretch
The visit also took in a house at Taldiyawatta damaged by heavy seas during the current monsoon. Patabendi said he was concerned about seawater pushing inland and told officials to work with other agencies on urgent technical assessments and on short- and long-term measures to protect residents.
The two findings sit awkwardly together: a structure built to stop erosion has been stopped for overreaching, on a coast where erosion is actively taking houses.
A wider enforcement drive
The order is the latest in a run of coastal enforcement actions by the same ministry. Patabendi announced in early September that unauthorised structures along the Colombo District coast would be removed from Galle Face to the Bolgoda River, with the stretch split into five zones. Fish stalls at Dewata beach in Galle were cleared the same week, and the Court of Appeal halted the demolition of a Wellawatte restaurant a day before a clearance deadline.
Construction inside the coastal zone requires a permit under the Coast Conservation and Coastal Resource Management Act No. 57 of 1981.
Not reported
Hiru does not say who is building the barrier — whether it is a state agency, a local authority, a private developer or a hotel — or who is paying for it. It gives no length, cost or start date for the works, and does not say how far beyond the approved line the structure is said to extend.
It does not say whether the original permit was issued and exceeded or never obtained, whether anyone has been suspended or interdicted pending the inquiry, who will conduct the inquiry, or when it must report. No response from the builder or from the Coast Conservation department’s officers appears in the report.
Ada Derana carried the same story on Sunday under the headline “Wattala coastal barrier work halted over construction concerns,” but its site returned a CloudFront error and the report could not be verified directly, so it is not cited here. No other verified newsroom had filed on it at the time of writing.
