Community Strategic Plan Vision

One vital feature of a Community Strategic Plan is its community Vision statement, an expression of where the community agrees they would like to journey together. The Vision for Your Vision | Your Future 2028 consists of a Value statement, an Action statement and a statement of External impacts:

VISION

Value statement Action statement External impacts

Our Bushland Shire is a place for people. It has impressive places and wonderful environments and offers a great lifestyle for all members of our community. We are committed to collaboratively implementing infrastructure, sustainability, liveability, productivity and affordability initiatives to ensure our Bushland Shire thrives now and into the future. Our Bushland Shire is shaped by our natural environment, population growth, housing and employment opportunities.

Impacts of COVID-19 on Council

As with every other aspect of life across the globe, COVID-19 impacted our Community Strategic Plan. The pandemic has changed the focus and introduced new priorities for our community since March 2020. This document seeks to report on the achievements of the whole term of Council while acknowledging the many changes occurring since March 2020. Many of these changes will influence the next version of the Community Strategic Plan that is now in development and will be considered early in the next term of Council. Resources and focus have been directed towards keeping people safe and ensuring that appropriate communication pathways are in place. Our community’s ability to adapt demonstrates its resilience as does Council’s success in adjusting to new ways of doing business very quickly. Some consequences to service delivery of COVID-19 include: „ our great range of open spaces became even more important to people and more highly used „ many services shifted to online delivery. The long term impacts on service delivery will be one of the challenges for the future „ adverse impact on Council’s financial position. Although some projects were deferred, Council’s financial recovery has occurred faster than expected during 2020/21 and is forecast to fully return to a pre COVID-19 position in 2021/22. Council undertook a range of measures to help residents, community organisations and local businesses during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these continue to be made available as resources, such as the ‘Hornsby Localised’ social network for businesses, a free resource connecting businesses and residents across the Shire, and a dedicated section on Council’s website with the latest updates and information on community and business support available, as well as the current status of Council’s facilities and services.