The body of work started when we sought your feedback on our Homes for Our Future Discussion Paper, which asked if you supported future housing growth, and if so, then where should it be located and what should it look like?

Your feedback was considered and used to create our shire's draft Local Housing Strategy and council's Planning Services team embarked on a series of information sessions across our shire to demonstrate how your feedback had been incorporated into the draft strategy.

During this public exhibition phase, our community made 235 submissions which contained more than 1800 comments that helped to identify where we should provide housing and the volume, type and style of housing that you felt would meet the needs of our shire.

As a community you have all played a key role in shaping our Local Housing Strategy, which reflects our priorities for future planning and ideas on how to address the complex opportunities and challenges facing our shire.

For example, we want to see more homes built within our existing neighbourhoods to protect our rural character and be able to provide a variety of affordable housing choices and types to cater for a wide range of people and households, including people with a disability and our ageing population.

So I'd personally like to thank our community for coming together and working with us to create this shared vision that will guide housing growth in our shire for the next 20 years and ensure our future housing needs are affordable, sustainable and maintain the existing character of this special place we all call home.

The approved Local Housing Strategy can be found here.