Perth Voice Interactive

THE City of Bayswater is gearing up to overhaul of its Strategic Community Plan.

The review, mandated every four years, aims to realign the city’s long-term vision with evolving community needs.

With community engagement scheduled to run from this coming week through to  July, the review aims to chart the city’s development from 2025 to 2035. 

The current plan is scheduled to run until 2031 and emerged from a previous major review in May 2021, but delays caused by the Covid meant community engagement efforts were hampered, leading to a misalignment between the Community Perception Survey and the strategic plan’s review timeline. 

Consequently, no minor review was conducted as mandated.

To kickstart the review, the City quietly used the 2023 Community Perception Survey to glean some early insights into community sentiment, incorporating two visioning questions as precursors to the major review. 

Pillars

The responses helped gauge the relevance of existing strategic pillars and shape the community engagement strategy.

The City of Bayswater will ensure its First Nations community is consulted during the review.

As part of the review process, staff have earmarked $40,000 in the 2023/24 annual budget for community engagement, covering consultancy fees, additional staffing, printing materials, and catering. An additional $20,000 will be requested in the 2024/25 budget to finalise this stage of the review.

Consultants Learning Horizons have been appointed to run the plan post-community engagement.

The review was scheduled to kick off after the 2023 elections, giving mayor Filomena Piffaretti her full term to see it out – and prevent any newcomer from coming in and starting the whole process again.

If the council adopts the review timeline, the engagement will kick off in the next few months with business interviews, focus groups, and surveys, and the overall review is scheduled to be finished and adopted mid-next year.