Locals have a say on community engagement

By Jess Carrascalao Heard

The City of Melbourne sought the voices of locals in January to help shape their new Community Engagement Policy, created in line with the new Local Governments Act 2020.

Residents, business owners, visitors and workers were invited to provide their feedback to the council’s community engagement team online, in person, via email and even over the phone.

Lord Mayor Sally Capp said, “the City of Melbourne is developing a new Community Engagement Policy to encourage greater public participation and improve decision-making.”

Methods the council used to gather feedback included the Participate Melbourne website, which provided locals with an online survey, as well as an ideas board and the opportunity to sign up for virtual workshops.

Pop-up kiosks across the City of Melbourne throughout January also gave the community a chance to give their feedback in person, and they could also call or email the council with their input.

Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) president Tony Penna expressed his support for the initiative.

“SRA as a residents’ association and lobby group will always support all, or any, attempts at engaging the community for feedback,” he said.

The new Community Engagement Policy for the City of Melbourne is one of a suite of changes for councils required by the new Local Government Act 2020.

The new Act requires councils to adopt “deliberative engagement practices” in order to involve the community more and give more transparency to decision-making processes.

It stipulates that not only must a council adopt and maintain a community engagement policy, but the policy itself must be developed in consultation with the community.

Mr Penna believes that in the current day, community engagement must be done in a way that the community “connects with and understands”.

“What it comes down to is, community engagement, by definition, is a broad concept. It shouldn’t be any single medium. It should be a collection of mediums,” he said.

The draft policy is now in its development stages, with the Future Melbourne Committee due to consider it on February 16.

Further updates will be provided in the March edition of Southbank News •

Caption: Engaging the community - The City of Melbourne established pop-up kiosks to get feedback from locals in person.