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A Community Vision 

Planning with and by the community

The community influences decision making at the local level by democratically identifying its local priorities with the aim of improving its quality of life.

Community members sometimes see government as highly centralised, remote, opaque, slow to respond, rigid, inflexible and difficult to navigate with individual agencies often unwilling or unable to engage except through their narrow view. This has led to a marked decline in people’s trust in government.

Community planning is a process that acknowledges:

• The importance of distributed leadership;
• The need to focus first on people and places, not just programs and outputs; and
• The value of local information and networks.

While local government has engaged with communities for many years, the current methodologies used to determine allocation of resources often do not meet real community priorities. Community Planning processes help communities identify priorities and assist councils in their identification of strategic issues as well as increasing community participation and engagement.

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