By Michael Doran
Acknowledging the effectiveness of a committed group of locals, Yarra Ranges council has awarded a Certificate of Recognition to the Badger Creek Community Planning Group in the 2019 Australia Day Awards.
The community plan was presented to council in July 2018 and launched in October. In making the award, the council highlighted the efforts of the group to ensure widespread community engagement.
Group Chair, Doris Pozzi said that right from the start it was clear that getting as many residents as possible to have their say would make or break the final plan.
“I think we have been really fortunate that there a lot of people on the committee who have been involved in community groups and know how important it is to get engagement,” she said. “We recognised we had a community of around 1600 people in Badger Creek, with quite a bit of diversity, so we wanted to make sure there were different ways people could be involved.”
Through this process the group engaged with more than 700 locals and has contributed in excess of 1000 volunteer hours to the project so far. The plan has now moved into implementation with a number of individual elements underway, such as the Don Road footpath development.
“Now we are putting our money where our mouths are, we’ve come up with this plan and now we have a lot of work ahead of us to implement it. We need to keep the locals and the the council informed informed to make sure everyone stays positive.
“Parks Victoria have advised that Badger Weir Park will reopen in March and there are half a dozen projects we have to personally get underway, like the Sustainable Skills Directory.
“We are beholden back to the council to show that by the end of this year we have actually achieved everything we said we would in the plan.”
