The fourth plan for the Community of Buchan and District.
Collaboration for this plan was completed by conducting a series of community workshops based on the following areas of interest
- Parks Vic, business and tourism
- Special interest groups and religion
- Sporting Groups and facilities
- W Tree, Gelantipy and Wulgulmerang
Updated Action Plans were developed after the community forums for this plan.
As the community had reviewed its previous two community plans together with East Gippsland Shire, the Community Planning Group undertook the review to develop this plan without Shire assistance.
The Community Planning Committee requested a community meeting with the EGSC Mayor and Councillors in Buchan to present our plan, have it adopted by the Shire and advise the Shire of the priorities and gain their support in achieving them.
The request was changed to a meeting with Mayor Joe Rattino and Shire officers, Director Community & Strategic Development, Kate Nelson and Manager Community Programs, Wayne Richards in May 2017.
The planning committee were advised at this meeting, that EGSC was reviewing its operations and adopting “Place-Based Planning” principals with the objective to better identify and understand the delivery of resources, services, information and communications to a very large geographical area.
The Shire was starting to allocate budget items to the 12 regions that had been identified (by the Shire) to get a better understanding of expenditure in each of these areas.
Buchan is one of the regions and the township is a service town that provides services to all the surrounding hamlets as identified in the Buchan Community Plan map of our district.
“When this process was completed the adoption of community plans can be achieved with a better understanding of what is currently provided and what is best to be provided by the Shire in the future.”(EGSC)
This had an effect on our current plan and we were unable to get our plan ratified by EGSC. It was agreed that the community and EGSC still continue working together to achieve our priorities.
The Shire began work with Cann River Community, Errinundra to Snowy Sub District and the Twin Rivers communities using the new Action Planning Process. Their plans were endorsed in December 2019 and can be found at the EGSC website.
The community planning committee continued their work in supporting the 2017 to 2021 Plan that was developed by the community.
The plan was reviewed in April 2018 Buchan and District Community Plan… one year on and the information communicated to the community via the Community Newsletter.
The review covers achievements for the 6 first months for the following projects
- Our meeting with the Shire to adopt our plan
- Septics and Sewerage
- Communications
- Community Buildings
- Dump Point
- RV Camping
- Signage
- The Footpath and Shared Pathway Infrastructure
- Flood Mitigation
- Community Safety
2017 TO 2021 Community Plan Outcomes Review
The growing projects being identified and added to the Community Action Plans have made these documents cumbersome, difficult to manage and confusing when identifying our priorities.
New DRAFT Action Plans were then developed throughout the community planning process to provide some referencing for reviewing and developing the 2022 to 2026 Community Plan and include all ACTION Plan ideas.
They included referencing on whether the projects had been on previous plans or were new ideas. These were only working documents for the committee to prepare to the next planning phase and were never presented to the community for consideration.
To create a document that reflects a five-year action plan, but does not lose all the valuable ideas and projects identified over the years, it has become apparent that an IDEAS BANK needs to be created for reference and provide archival community information and that an agreed action plan reflecting only those projects that can be achieved in the time frame be added to the community five-year action plans.
The review of the next Community Plan was to take place in 2020 with the East Gippsland Shire using their new “Placed Based Planning Process”.
In 2019 the Community of Buchan, Gelantipy and District were severely impacted by fires and a Community Recovery Committee, Buchan Gelantipy and District Renewal Committee were formed in March 2020 and decided to create a Community Renewal Plan instead.
Please provide feedback regarding the 2017 to 2021 Buchan Community Plan in the comments.
