Putting in place plans for the year ahead

On Monday 27 June, Wollongong City Council adopted a number of important strategic documents such as the Community Strategic Plan, Resourcing Strategy, Delivery Program and Operational Plan.

These foundational documents determine what we do, why we do it, and how much money we spend on projects. Everything Council does - from building new footpaths, planning major community events, managing flood and storm water assets, supporting local businesses with outdoor dining, and designing and building the new Warrawong Community Centre and Library down to the day-to-day delivery of the 33 unique services of Council – comes from these documents.

“The best way to think about it is that the Community Strategic Plan guides every action and decision Council makes. It doesn’t decide what or how much money we spend. Instead, it tells us what’s important to our community and our vision and goals for our city for the next ten years,’’ Wollongong City Lord Mayor Councillor Gordon Bradbery AM said.

“Next up is the Resourcing Strategy. This document shows what resources are available to Council to carry out all the projects we want to work on in our Delivery Program. Here you can read how Council allocates resources such as people, assets, finances and technology.

“Finally, the Delivery Program and Operational Plan. These act in tandem by explaining the work we’ll be doing over the next four years to achieve the goals laid out in the Community Strategic Plan. This includes specific projects and explains the actions, deliverable and proposed budget to achieve this over a four-year period.”

The Delivery Program and Operational Plan include three attachments – the Infrastructure Delivery Program, the Budget 2022-2023 and Revenue Policy, Fees and Charges.

Rates and Charges have been updated and will come into effect in the next financial year.

On Monday 20 June, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) approved Wollongong's application for an additional special rate variation of 1.8%. The rates and charges have now been adopted by Council and will apply to rates for the period 1 July 2022 to June 2023. This is outlined in the Revenue Policy, Fees and Charges document.

All of these documents received community feedback through our extensive engagement process, that began in July last year. The wide-ranging feedback from our community collated through this engagement process was used to determine the final versions.

“These documents outline the day-to-day delivery of things such as our 17 patrolled beaches, freshwater and saltwater pools, our rock pools, outdoor spaces, parks and gardens. It’s where we resource and fund books on our library shelves, maintain and take care of community facilities, and prioritise road works and footpath upgrades,” Cr Bradbery said.

“At the same time, these documents highlight some important projects such as the Helensburgh Community Centre and Library, the Warrawong Community Centre and Library, the implementation of a Masterplan for Hill 60, and continued investment in the expansion of West Dapto.”

We update our website with projects we’re working on each week. Find out more by visiting our Current Works and Projects webpage.

Here's some help to understand the difference between these documents:

• Our Wollongong Our Future 2032 Community Strategic Plan – an aspirational document that tells us what’s important to our community. It shares a vision and goals for our city for the next 10 years.
• Delivery Program 2022-2026 – explains the work we’ll be doing for the next four years to achieve the goals in our Community Strategic Plan.
• Operational Plan 2022-2023 – looks at exactly where and how we plan to spend money over the next year. It breaks down what we plan to do and what projects you can expect to see happening next year. This includes the roads we’ll be upgrading, footpaths we’ll be building and new playgrounds to be installed.
• Our Resourcing Strategy 2032 – shows how Council will manage and allocate resources (finances, assets, people, information management and technology) to carry out the Delivery Program.

Now that these documents have been adopted, we’ll add them to our website soon on the Plans and Reports webpage.