Patterson Britton & Partners was engaged by Maclean Shire Council to carry out an investigation into the structural and non-structural options available to resolve both the short term and long term community risks associated with progressive and severe riverbank erosion at Palmers Island Village, Clarence River. Palmers Island Village is situated some 15 kilometres from the mouth of the Clarence River on the outside of a sharp bend in the Clarence River. Geomorphological features in the floodplain point to the bend as having undergone downstream migration of more than 600 m in recent geological time (Uniquest, 1989). There is little doubt that the outside bank of the bend has displayed erosion tendencies from the time the Village was first subdivided and gazetted in 1867.