The Community Engagement Strategy is our commitment to our community on how we will communicate and engage with them and outlines our goals and objectives to improve these interactions over the life of the strategy.

It tells our community what they can expect from us, outlines the principles guiding our engagement, our key objectives, how we interact with stakeholder groups, how we identify engagement opportunities and the tools we use.

It also talks about our mandatory timeframes for public exhibition periods so you know what to expect from us.

We know our community wants to be more involved in decision making and that you want to be informed about what we do and how it impacts on you.

We want to improve how we connect with you, and make sure we do it in a way that works for you.

It’s also important to us that the community has confidence we are taking your views into account in our decision making.

The Community Engagement Strategy provides a framework to ensure we communicate and engage with our community in a consistent way.

This framework is based on the scale and importance of the issue or project, its potential impact on the community and how much influence the community can have on our decision making.

This framework aligns with the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum model and the NSW Government’s Social Justice Principles.

The Local Government Act, the NSW Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, and other legislation, sets minimum requirements for consultations on a range of things and we have a responsibility to make sure we follow these requirements.