The Boroondara Community Plan 2021–31 (the Plan) builds on the first Boroondara Community Plan we developed with our community in 2017. We renewed the Plan to make sure it still reflected our community’s values, aspirations and priorities for the next 10 years. We started this process in 2020 by engaging with our community over 2 stages. This was the same consultation approach we used to develop our first plan. Using the same process helped us see any shifts in community priorities since 2017. It also showed us new trends and issues.
Stage 1 – Seeking ideas
In the first stage of consultation, we asked our community, ‘What’s important to you in Boroondara?’ Between December 2020 and January 2021, we received 4,723 responses.
We used an open-ended question to make sure we heard about all the issues the community thought were important.
We also asked the community to tell us:
- which priority themes from the original plan were most important to them
- what they thought we should focus on over the next 10 years.
Stage 2 – Prioritise resources
In the second stage of consultation we ran 10 workshops, including:
- 7 Boroondara Conversations workshops
- a youth workshop
- a trader workshop
- a health and wellbeing workshop.
In total, 149 residents participated in the Boroondara Conversations workshops. They learned about the things which affect Council’s decision-making. Then they weighed up short-term and long-term trade-offs and prioritised where they thought we should focus our resources over the next 10 years. In these sessions, participants also explored the community’s aspirations and reflected on the community vision statement.
The other workshops made sure we heard from:
- younger community members
- local traders and business operators
- key health and wellbeing agencies and service providers.
Stage 3 – Identify health and wellbeing priorities
To work out the health priorities of the Plan, we looked at:
- data about the health and wellbeing of the Boroondara community
- the Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Plan 2019–23.
We heard from 347 community members through an online survey. They told us their concerns and how they thought we could support our community’s health and wellbeing.
We were also guided by:
- local health and wellbeing agency partners and stakeholders
- the Boroondara Public Health and Wellbeing Advisory Committee.
Stage 4 – Develop the Plan
Through the consultation process, we heard what our community values most about Boroondara. We heard about their:
- concerns
- hopes
- aspirations for the future.
We used this feedback to develop:
- our community’s vision
- our health priorities
- our Strategic Objectives
- how we will achieve our Strategic Objectives
- how we will measure our success.