What's your vision for Ballarat?
Help shape the direction and priority areas for the next four years and go in the draw to win a $250 food or fuel voucher* Ts & Cs apply
From 31 October to 29 November, we connected with our community through 27 unique engagement events across 19 locations, spending over 100 hours in face-to-face conversations.
Thank you to everyone who participated! We received:
- 1728 survey responses
- Engaged with over 2271 people overall
- Valuable insights gathered from the Children’s Advisory Committee workshop and various other forums.
An Engagement Summary Report will be published in February 2025.
Community input is being sought to assist the incoming Ballarat City Council group in creating the Council Plan 2025-2029.
Every four years the Ballarat City Council develops a new Council plan to provide the direction of work that Council undertakes for the next council term.
The direction, focus and priority areas, including all of our core services are shaped by the demands of the population and the needs of the community.
Information gathered from the community engagement will be provided to Councillors as they set the direction, focus and priority areas for their Council term.
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 we meet out legislative requirements.
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.
As well as consulting on the Council Plan, information we collect will also help us review and update other key strategic documents including:
The Community Vision is a document which was developed in collaboration with the Ballarat community in 2021. It has an outlook of up to 10 years and describes the community’s aspirations for the future of Ballarat.
The Vision feeds directly into the Council Plan and is reflected in its goals and actions to that will enable the City of Ballarat to achieve the Community Vision.
The development of the Annual Budget is heavily influenced by the goals and objectives set out in the Council Plan and other strategies and plans Council have adopted.
Although councils have a legal obligation to provide services — such as animal management, local roads, food safety and statutory planning — most council services are not legally mandated. This includes some services closely associated with councils, such as libraries, building permits and sporting facilities.
Over time, the needs and expectations of communities can change. This engagement opportunity helps us to ensure all services continue to provide value for money and are in line with community expectations.
How does the City of Ballarat pay for delivering services?
The City of Ballarat faces the same inflationary pressures as experienced by the general public — the cost to deliver services and build and maintain assets across the municipality continues to increase each year. If we can’t increase our revenue, we would be unable to keep up with the growth within our region and maintain service quality.
We are responsible for managing over $2 billion of community assets and delivering more than 80 different services and 120 different projects. The 10 year Financial Plan provides long-term strategic guidance to achieve this.
This engagement helps us set the goals in the Council Plan which in turn helps prioritise our spending.
The City of Ballarat Health and Wellbeing Plan 2021-2031 sets out the health priorities for the municipality, outlines strategies to prevent or reduce public health issues and supports the community to achieve optimum health and wellbeing.
With many different environmental, societal and individual factors influencing a community’s health and wellbeing, it can take a long time to achieve small improvements in health outcomes. The City of Ballarat focuses on six health priority areas that are measured by long-term indicators.
These six health priorities are:
> Tackling climate change and its impact on health
> Preventing all forms of violence
> Increasing active living
> Increasing healthy eating
> Improving mental wellbeing
> Reducing harm from smoking, gambling, alcohol and other drugs
We recognise that not everyone has the same opportunities, knowledge, skills and resources to achieve and maintain good health and wellbeing. We are committed to working towards greater health equity - one of the key principles of this plan - with a focus on strategies and actions that will benefit the health and wellbeing of all community members.
This includes specific projects, programs and services targeted to priority groups which require extra support to achieve the same level of health and wellbeing and to targeted groups at key life stages and transition points.
These priority groups are:
> Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
> Culturally diverse communities
> LGBTIQA+ communities
> People with disability
> Gender
> Early years and children
> Young people
> Older people
> Financially vulnerable
The City of Ballarat is responsible for more than $2 billion in public assets. These exist to benefit our community.
With more people attracted to our great city, our population is growing fast. This causes greater usage of our existing assets and more demand for new assets. In deciding what we can and can’t afford, we need to understand the impact that population growth along with other challenges such as climate change have on what it costs to manage our assets.
Operating with a finite budget, we need to balance economic, social, cultural and environmental considerations to make sure our assets support the services and public amenity that our community needs and expects, now and into the future.
The Asset Plan provides clear direction about how the City of Ballarat proposes to manage the portfolio of public assets we control over the next 10 years and beyond to ensure responsible and sustainable stewardship for the benefit of current and future generations.
What are City of Ballarat's "assets"?
>Transport Infrastructure
Includes sealed roads and streets, gravel roads, bridges, kerb and channel, footpaths, trails, signs, roundabouts, speed humps
>Storm Water and Drainage
Includes open drains, underground drains and pipes, drainage pits, other drainage infrastructure, wetlands, gross pollutant traps
>Parks and Recreation
Includes parks and gardens (trees, flower beds, fences, gates), playgrounds, waterways, sports fields, public furniture and amenity assets (seats, barbecues, lighting, rubbish bins)
>Buildings and Facilities
Includes town halls, leisure and aquatic centres, sports pavilions, libraries, community centres and other buildings that house community services, public toilets, etc
Since 2021 the City of Ballarat has achieved some major goals in providing new and upgraded community infrastructure projects such as the Central Library upgrade and the new Djila-tjarriu Community Hub in Alfredton. Work to preserve the heritage character of Ballarat also received significant support through the upgrade works at Her Majesty's Theatre Ballarat and the start of a multi-year project to review the gaps in our heritage register and policy. Significant progress has also been made in planning for a growing population including the adoption of the Housing Strategy 2041, the Social and Affordable Housing Plan and the Biodiversity Strategy.
There is also much in the pipeline for the next four years to look forward to including the implementation of the Footpath Strategy, the completion of the Open Spaces Strategy, sporting facilities upgrades, and Ballarat Airport upgrades.
You can see some of what we have achieved against the six goals from the Council Plan 2021-2025 by clicking on the images below, but if you wish to see a more comprehensive overview, we encourage you to head to the Council website and take a look through the Annual Reports.
The Community Vision is the overarching vision that Ballarat residents would like the City of Ballarat and community to aspire to over the course of ten years. It feeds directly into the priorities that shape the Council Plan.
The aspirations of the Ballarat community were developed in 2021, so this year we are reviewing the Community Vision to ensure that it still fits and resonates with the Ballarat community today. The review will also ensure that it is also is reflected in the Council Plan which sets out the specific goals outlined in this Vision.
The engagement and consultation for a new Council Plan seeks to capture the thoughts and ideas of staff, Councillors and a wide range of community members.
As well as the survey, which is available below, the City of Ballarat will also be out and about with a number of pop up and drop-in sessions where you can come and talk to staff directly.
An independent consultant will recruit 45 representative community members to come together over two and a half days to undertake a deeper form of engagement called 'deliberative engagement' in order to involve community on some of the key challenges for the City of Ballarat going forward over the next four years.
This Community Panel will have an opportunity to directly report their recommendations to Councillors after this deliberation period.
Contact Us
Have questions or want to learn more about the project, contact us below:
| Name | Nicky Davidge |
|---|---|
| nickydavidge@ballarat.vic.gov.au |