The City of Canterbury Bankstown (Council) is preparing a flood risk management study and plan for the City’s four sub-catchments of Prospect Creek. The purpose of the Flood Risk Management Study is to identify ways to manage the flood risk in a way that benefits the community and the environment.

Council is required to develop Flood Risk Management in accordance with the process outlined by the NSW Government’s Flood Risk Management Manual as illustrated in the following flowchart.

Council’s available information identifies that stormwater and riverine flooding has occurred in this area. The objective of this flood risk management Study and Plan (Step 3 and 4 of the Flood risk management process) is to help the community to protect their lives and properties by better planning, improving emergency management and identifying flood mitigation infrastructures.

Council has previously completed data collection and prepared Flood Studies (Steps 1 and 2) for these catchments, which provided a description of flood behaviour in the catchment and defines the flood extents for a range of storm events.

The Flood Studies for the four sub-catchments are available here.

The Study Area includes the suburbs of Georges Hall, Lansdowne, Bass Hill, Villawood, and Chester Hill as detailed in the project map by boundary and including a 100-year flooding levels overlay.

This Study and Plan (Steps 3 and 4) will build upon previous flood studies for the four catchments. The feedback received from the community will be considered for options that seek to:

• Modify flood behaviour (e.g. levees, upgrade of stormwater systems);
• Mitigate the impact of flooding on existing properties (e.g. via floor raising);
• Control future development in the floodplain; and
• Guide emergency management when a flood occurs.

At this time residents, property owners and business operators within the study area are invited to share their recent and historical experiences with storm events in their respective area and, provide their ideas for improved flood risks management.

Community consultation will be a key component of the study process and we will be seeking input from residents, land owners and business operators at key stages throughout this study.

For this initial phase, we encourage you to provide feedback and comments by completing the online survey which has been set-up to gather views and suggestions for flood risk management options. This survey was be facilitated by our project partners Stantec.

The online survey (for this initial phase) will be open until 5pm on Friday 26 August 2022.