The Parks and Open Space Strategy 2024-2034 determines the investment and operation of key spaces like parks, sportsgrounds, cemeteries, drainage reserves, road reserves and general open spaces.
Council has categorised sites in the strategy; sportsgrounds and courts, parks and open spaces, and public access operational land. These categories each operate in a hierarchy to allocate funding and management.
The strategy also identifies and provides solutions for challenges in their management of parks and open spaces.
Challenges include how to maintain their sites while in a deficit, ensuring support is fair in villages compared to bigger towns, a declining volunteer population, and pleasing the largest section of the community.
“Whilst there’s no single solution to addressing the increasing maintenance requirements of our large asset base, these draft strategies go a long way to help us to manage our facilities and spaces more sustainably moving forward,” Mayor Cr Frank Crawley said.
“These park hierarchies will now guide the minimum service level to be carried out at each location, based on land area available, population that the space will service and characteristics of the land, among other things.”
There are 12 sportsgrounds and courts in Murray River Council; 85 parks and open spaces including community, neighbourhood and ornamental or passive spaces; and 61 public access operation land sites including road reserves, drainage basins and cemeteries.
To guide the strategy, council ran an Open Spaces Needs and Demands Survey in 2022. A QR code was placed at local park spaces, and directed residents to answer questions about their use of these sites.
In total, there were 1,095 visitors to the survey website and 689 respondents.
Residents are encouraged to view and provide feedback on the Parks and Open Space Strategy through the council website. Entries close on June 28.
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