Abstract: The extent to which coastal management policy promulgated by the Western Australian State Government has led to changes in coastal land use since formulation of the first coastal management guidelines in the 1970s is examined. Changes in coastal land use have been mapped from the annual metropolitan road directories from 1970 to 2006. The time series obtained has been interpreted in the context of declared changes in coastal policy initiatives by the State Government to establish the impact of policy on planning and management. The area under consideration is a 300 metre zone extending landwards from the shoreline identified on the State Coastal Planning maps. The mapped changes in land use indicate that coastal policy has influenced coastal land use, although the implementation of land use change has within both the eighties and current years been driven more by powerful externalities than the immediate policy process.