Community input is being sought to assist the incoming Ballarat City Council group in creating the Council Plan 2025-2029.
Information gathered from the community engagement, which opens today, will be provided to Councillors as they set the direction, focus and priority areas for their Council term.
Every four years the Ballarat City Council develops a new Council Plan to provide the direction of work for the next council term. The new plan will also become the roadmap for how we are working towards achieving our Community Vision 2021-2031.
The development of the Council Plan has mandated timeframes for completion. This consultation is one form of feedback that contributes to the Council Plan process and ensures legislative requirements are met.
Upon being sworn-in in November, the new Council will set about developing the Council Plan as a high priority. The new Council Plan will detail the vision, goals and strategies to guide service delivery, activities and decision making over the next four-year period.
Initial public consultation is now open, with community members asked to fill out a brief survey and answer some multiple-choice questions.
The questions relate to growth, community wellbeing, advocacy, the environment, and budgeting, while there is also the option for expanded responses.
The survey is hosted on the City of Ballarat MySay page and is expected to take about three-to-five minutes to complete. Those who complete the survey have the option to go into the draw to win a $250 food or fuel voucher.
Further consultation into creating the Council Plan will also occur in the coming months, with multiple pop-up sessions to be held throughout Ballarat for people to ask questions and provide in-person feedback. The details of these sessions are also available on the MySay page.
City of Ballarat Chief Executive Officer, Evan King said early feedback from the public will be highly beneficial to helping the new Council develop its plan.
"The Council Plan is an extremely important strategic document that will help direct our next four years and we truly value input from the community," he said.
"We are committed to delivering a better Ballarat and we encourage community members to help contribute to one of the key tools that will help us achieve that."
Additionally, community members also have the opportunity to apply to be part of a community panel to help guide the Council Plan.
The community panel will be made up of up to 45 people and is designed to represent a broad cross-section of the Ballarat community. The panel will work with the Council group to help guide the Council Plan in a holistic manner. It will meet three times in February 2025.
The 45 people will be compiled from 10,000 randomly selected addresses within the municipality that are contacted by community engagement consultants MosaicLab.
Residents who are contacted will have the opportunity to fill out an expression of interest document to be considered to join the community panel. People can expect to be contacted early in November.
A draft version of the Council Plan 2025-29 is expected to be released for final public review in April 2025, with the final version to be adopted by Council at a later date.
