We're thrilled to share the outcomes of our recent Meander Valley Voices: Our People, Our Place, Our Future Community Consultation workshops and engagement activities in our Community Strategic Plan Community Consultation Report.

The Report is packed with insights from residents like you, and it will help shape our renewed Meander Valley Community Strategic Plan 2024-2034.

Read the full report here.

How will it shape our future?

Our Community Strategic Plan is a roadmap for all of us, both Council and the wider community, to guide our decisions and actions over the next decade. It's renewed every ten years (you can read our previous 2014-2024 Community Strategic Plan here), and the process always includes comprehensive community consultation activities in order to align where our community wants to go with how we'll get there.

Everyday, whether it's in local business, community groups, recreation, in planning new developments, and so much more, we all make decisions that are pivotal to creating a thriving future for our region. So, while this plan and its consultation activities are an endeavour of Meander Valley Council, it's important to note Council can't achieve the goals of our Community Strategic Plan alone.

The engagement of all parts of our community will bring our shared vision to life.

Together, using our renewed Community Strategic Plan, we can continue to shape a bright, thriving future for Meander Valley.

Who did we speak to?

We went all out to make sure everyone in our community had a chance to be heard during this consultation period. We talked to local businesses, service providers, First Nations residents, religious groups, and culturally and linguistically diverse new Australian residents. We also chatted with aged care residents over morning tea, conducted tailored youth surveys, and interviewed students. From every corner of Meander Valley, we gathered your thoughts, ideas, and visions for our future. Here's a snapshot of the ways we engaged with you:

What did we ask?

Participants were asked to consider four themes to identify priority focus areas for the strategy: Our people, our place, our future, and communication. By making sure we spoke to the length and breadth of voices, while asking a depth of questions on all facets of community life, we ensured we captured a wide range of perspectives and insights from every corner of our community.

What did we hear?

The report, which you can read here, covers a vast range of invaluable information and feedback we received from our community, including word for word quotes we heard on a wide range of topics.

In order to capture and present these ideas, the recurring themes that emerged from the consultation workshops were referenced against those presenting their feedback and insights through surveys, interviews and focus groups. These have been grouped into five broad proposed 'Strategic Priorities', informed by this community feedback, that'll guide us all in decision-making and providing a clear direction for our community’s future.

These proposed Strategic Priorities are:

1. Growing a diverse, unified and empowered community.

2. Honouring our natural environment.

3. Creating a well-developed built environment.

4. Investing in infrastructure that facilitate connection.

5. Providing responsible governance and valuing our local economy.

What's next?

Meander Valley Council staff will continue to workshop and prepare a draft our renewed Community Strategic Plan 2024-2034, and it'll be available for public comment later in the year.

This will be developed using the contributions of the Meander Valley Voices engagement findings, feedback received on the Consultation Report (you can add your thoughts using the form below), as well as referencing our findings against a range of other information such as previous strategic plans and area strategies, census data, sector plans and a variety of other recent consultation findings.

As the development of the plan progresses, so too does the influence of the insights gained from Meander Valley Voices. We’ve been excited to share insights across Council as an organisation and within specific work teams, and we're just as excited to share them with our wider community later this year.

We look forward to working together as we continue the journey of empowering our people, nurturing our place and securing our future of our beautiful Meander Valley.

Thank you to those that have attended workshops, shared in interviews and taken the time to write down your feedback. Thank you for getting your hands dirty as we continue to write the story of this patch of ours.