Thanks for having your say on the draft Catchment and Waterways Strategic Plan, which was adopted by Council at the 25 March 2025 Ordinary Meeting.

The draft plan was exhibited on the Have Your Say site from 3-24 July 2024 and we received 12 submissions.

Overall, there was a strong level of support for the draft plan and for Council to undertake this work. The key themes emerging from the submissions included:

• A desire to see Council consider the impact of climate change through activities to support resilience, in particular considerations around sea level rise and the changing nature of storm events
• Support for the integration of water sensitive urban design initiatives into Council projects
• Support for initiatives that improve waterway health and water quality
• Opportunities for Council to work across different levels of government to resolve issues around waterway asset ownership, such as the Cooks River sheet metal piling
• Opportunities for Council to work with the local community, including the Wolli Creek Preservation Society and the Cooks River Alliance
• Support for environmental initiatives more broadly, including protecting riparian corridors, restoring habitats, increasing tree canopy and sustainability programs

After considering all feedback, the plan was updated with the following changes:

• Administrative changes including typographic error corrections, reference corrections, grammar and clarifications
• Updated prioritisation of a number of the existing actions
• New actions related to incorporating climate change and sea level rise into future flood studies, referencing the guidelines for controlled activities in riparian corridors, updating environmental overlays mapping across the local government area, and conducting a gross pollutant trap audit to develop a comprehensive maintenance program

See the document library below for a copy of the final plan and the 25 March 2025 council meeting agenda and minutes (item 8.3), discussing the plan’s adoption.