Community input
Council’s engagement team worked collaboratively with a technical consultant to share the draft Study with the community and key stakeholders. During the public exhibition period, 26 August to 23 September 2019, Council sent letters to more than 800 residents and property owners in the catchment area inviting them to learn more about the Study. Customer service information was included in the three most commonly-spoken languages in this area other than English; Macedonian, Italian and Arabic. The additional information let the community know that Council and the National Relay Service could provide language assistance if needed. Emails with this information were sent to community, education, Register of Interest (flood), business, government and emergency services’ stakeholders. The information was also available at Council’s Customer Service Centre. Copies of the draft report, a Frequently Asked Questions sheet and Feedback Form were made available at Warrawong Library, and at the information session at Warrawong Community Centre on 7 September 2019. They were also included on this project webpage, which also includes a Google Translate feature to assist with online translation. Notices of the exhibition were published in the Advertiser on 28 August and 4 September 2019. The community were invited to provide feedback via this webpage, Customer Service Centre and at the community information session.
There were no submissions, however some comments were provided at the drop-in information session which was attended by a total of 9 community members, including NSW State Emergency Service volunteers and a floodplain committee member.
Feedback themes related to general interest about flood risk in the catchment. There was interest in the flood gates at the entrance of Warrawong Mall and in Council’s proposal to manage erosion of the creek at Denise St, Lake Heights. Photos were provided of this creek area. There was some understanding of the risk of flooding to people’s properties, with an interest in finding out further details specific to individual properties and what Council might do to reduce the risk. There was discussion on the next steps of the floodplain management process, which was to look at possible options to alleviate flooding e.g. creek modification and Voluntary House Raising or Voluntary Purchase in some cases where properties were quite severely flood-affected and where nominated criteria were met. Experiences of historical flooding were shared.
Consultation has concluded