Council releases its detailed plans and priorities for the next 12 months, four years and 10 years

A new Annual Plan to increase accountability and transparency headlines the release of key strategic planning documents for public feedback, following an ordinary meeting of City of Ballarat Council on Wednesday (23/6).  

The City of Ballarat’s Draft Council Plan 2021 –2025, Draft Community Vision 2021-2031, and Draft Health and Wellbeing Plan 2021 –2031 were developed following extensive community consultation in February, March and April this year.  

The documents, which form part of the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework, will be available via the City of Ballarat mysay page.

Written public submissions will be accepted for 26 days ending 9:00am Monday 19 July 2021. 

Any person requesting that they be heard in support of a submission is entitled to appear before a meeting of the Council either personally or by a person acting on their behalf at a Council meeting scheduled for Wednesday 21 July at 6.30pm. 

Members of the public are invited to provide feedback on each of the documents during this time.  

The draft documents will then be considered for formal adoption at an ordinary meeting of Council in August.  

The Draft Community Vision, which was developed from extensive community input through the Ballarat: Our Future engagement, outlines the Ballarat community’s priorities for our city until 2031.  

The Draft Council Plan describes Council’s high–level strategic goals for its four-year term, and informs an Annual Plan, which lists the projects, services, events and other initiatives that will be delivered and funded in 2021-22 .  

The Draft Health and Wellbeing Plan sets out how the City of Ballarat can best advocate for and contribute to residents’ health and wellbeing in the next decade.  

Ballarat Mayor Cr Daniel Moloney said the introduction of an Annual Plan would provide a new way for the City of Ballarat to be accountable to the community about the delivery of key projects and initiatives within the Council Plan.  

 “The Council Plan necessarily captures Council’s broad goals for our four-year term, but sometimes it can be difficult for our community to connect that with the projects we deliver each year.”  

“The Annual Plan will provide a clear summary of what we intend to do from the Council Plan in the next 12 months, so our community can more easily track our progress on these items.” 

Cr Moloney said the three draft documents had been informed by an extensive and in-depth process of community consultation. 

“The Ballarat: Our Future engagement included some 1,981 responses from individuals and groups across our community. We then undertook an additional process to refine those priorities with a community panel of 50 people who represented the diversity of our community.” 

“We’re enormously grateful to all of those people, from a broad range of age groups, cultural backgrounds and locations in our community. Your ideas and thinking at both stages of community engagement have substantially shaped these key documents for the future our city.” 

Cr Moloney said the documents showed Council was committed to both the delivery of immediate priorities as well as considering long term future challenges for the city.  

Two other key documents within the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework, the City of Ballarat Budget 2021/22, and the Revenue and Rating Plan 2021-2025 were also adopted at Wednesday’s ordinary meeting of Council.