As part of our ongoing commitment to make the City of Canterbury Bankstown a thriving and attractive place to live, work and visit, we have developed a draft Strategic Plan that will guide the future planning and management of the City's community infrastructure.

Many of our existing community infrastructure assets are ageing and were built for a different era. The community and their needs in 2023 are markedly different to the needs of the community when these facilities were established and these older facilities, do not meet the needs of future generations. For example, many facilities were built for single purpose use and these facilities are now proving inflexible for multiple and varied uses.

Continuing to invest and maintain older facilities also reduces the available funding for the replacement and development of new facilities which are, better suited to meet the needs of residents who now seek modern contemporary facilities that offer a broader range of opportunities.

To ensure we had a holistic understanding of community infrastructure in the City provided by both ourselves and private operators, when developing this draft plan we:

• Reviewed our existing strategies, studies and policies;
• Audited and mapped the provision of community infrastructure provided by ourselves and external providers to better understand local patterns;
• Collected and collated the perspectives of users and hirers of local community infrastructure including analysis of patterns and perceptions of Council-owned and external community infrastructure providers; and
• Undertook preliminary consultation with key stakeholders to identify and determine the current and future needs for community infrastructure by sector and demographic groups.

This Plan is the first of this type for us (Council) and will be used to inform planning, funding and prioritisation for the delivery of our community infrastructure. The draft Plan provides direction for 149 individual facilities representing an estimated asset value of $328M.

The draft Plan sets out the following key directions, which are to:

• Consolidate assets into multipurpose clusters targeting specific outcomes;
• Consolidate youth facilities with existing recreation facilities and open space;
• Consider planning controls to encourage/facilitate provision of community spaces in new developments in key town centres;
• Pursue partnerships with the Department of Education and other providers for the purpose of sharing use of facilities;
• Unlock divestment opportunities to assist in funding the delivery of improved community facilities; and
• Maintain a reduced number of standalone facilities for specific needs.

We are now seeking community comments and feedback to help us better understand how the community uses these facilities.

The Plan utilises catchment boundaries defined as part of the community needs analysis that informed the preparation of Council’s Local Strategic Planning Statement Connective City 2036. Six catchments were developed, considering several factors including:

• Demographics of existing and future population;
• Natural and built boundaries (e.g. waterways, arterial roads);
• Sense of place and character;
• Accessibility and likely travel patterns by various modes of transport; and
• Facilities in adjoining LGAs to Canterbury-Bankstown (users of facilities tend to use those located close to them and are not restricted to just using those within their LGAs).

Explore the map to see further details for each catchment.