Community Vision to be presented to Council

Published on 25 July 2021

The Community’s Vision for Horsham Rural City will be presented to councillors for adoption at Monday’s 26 July Meeting.

The Community Vision reflects the community's hopes, aspirations and priorities for the next 20 years.

The long-term strategic document was developed by an independently selected Community Panel and was informed by extensive feedback from engagement with the broader community during the first 6 months of 2021.

Should the Community Vision be adopted on Monday night, it will directly inform Councils strategic documents including the Council Plan, Health and Wellbeing Plan, Asset Plan and Long-term Financial Plan.

Council sent an invite to every household across the municipality to participate in the Community Panel and received more than 90 expressions of interest.

From these 36 participants were selected by independent consultancy firm i.e. Community, which ensured the demographics were evenly represented. The number of participants reduced to 26 following Victoria’s June Covid lockdown which forced meetings to be rescheduled.

The panel nevertheless managed to hold its face-to-face sessions over three Sundays from 20 June to 4 July at Horsham Town Hall.

To inform the panel’s deliberations, wider public engagement was undertaken between February and May to gather feedback from the community under the banner of Horsham Talks.

This involved online engagement, face to face pop-up sessions, surveys and community conversations, with 937 responses received.

The proposed Community Vision was presented to all Councillors for their consideration at the final panel session on Sunday 4 July and will be presented unchanged to the Council Meeting for adoption.

Chief Executive Officer Sunil Bhalla thanked community members who had contributed to the Community Vision 2041.

“They are to be commended for taking a proactive role in building our shared future,” Mr Bhalla said.

“It’s vital that our residents have helped shape Council’s strategic direction. We thank them for the engagement, the feedback and the contribution,” he said.