The Hepburn Shire Council has unanimously adopted Township Structure Plans for Clunes, Creswick, Daylesford and Hepburn Springs, Glenlyon, and Trentham, and also a Rural Hepburn Strategy at a Special Council Meeting held last week.  

The Township Structure Plans and Rural Hepburn Strategy were developed after extensive consultation with community panels, community and stakeholder groups throughout 2023, along with specialist technical advice from consultants and council officers with expertise in planning, ecology, infrastructure, transport, recreation, and economic development. 

Mayor, Cr Brian Hood, said that this was a critical body of work for the shire’s future, and a key goal of the council plan.    

“The adoption of the Township Structure Plans and Rural Hepburn Strategy is the culmination of over two years work by our strategic planning team and others in the organisation and community, and is a once in a generation project,” Cr Hood said.

“We couldn’t have achieved this without the feedback, knowledge and expertise of our community.

“We listened and we acted on submissions thereby making community-informed changes to all the draft township plans and the Rural Hepburn Strategy.

“We believe our genuine engagement will put the next Councillor group in a strong position for the next phase of the project,” said Cr Hood. 

The final engagement period for the draft township structure plans and rural strategy ran between Wednesday 1 May to Wednesday 26 June 2024. 

Engagement included 32,441 page views of the Future Hepburn project page on Participate Hepburn, 12,971 letters and 8,016 text messages were sent to the community to encourage submissions.

There were also seven Community Information Sessions with 623 participants attending, a Future Hepburn webinar with 80 participants and 366 views, and a total of 577 submissions from community members and other stakeholders.  

“We thank community members and groups who provided feedback on these important strategic documents online or in-person. It played a vital role in arriving at the final documents,” Cr Hood said.

“Council is required to follow Victorian State Government planning policy mandates that all municipalities have sufficient land available to cater for projected population growth, and this was a significant driver for adopting these plans and strategy.

Strategic land use planning has been a major focus in this council term, embodied in the council Plan 2021-25.” 

“The adoption today does not mean any immediate changes to planning provisions. Changes will take some time and involve future planning scheme amendments, along with more formal community and stakeholder consultation. 

“There will also need to be future council decisions at key stages, independent expert scrutiny of council’s strategic work, and a decision from the Minister for Planning on whether to adopt or reject council’s proposed planning scheme amendments,” said Cr Hood. 

The council will now prioritise the administrative updating of the adopted documents incorporating changes, development of an implementation plan and advocacy to other tiers of government to assist with funding to proceed implementation of the plans.

Key elements of recommendations:

• Overarching settlement strategy – By planning the entire Shire as a whole, rather than in a piecemeal staged manner, we can better understand where growth should and should not go.
• Improved protection of prime agricultural land – Our precious agricultural land varies across the shire, and a more tailored approach will be achieved that better protects the vast majority of our land but also identifies that there are emerging and innovative new forms of agriculture that should be supported and encouraged. 
• Updated policies and controls will add clarity, consistency and certainty to all parties involved in Hepburn Shire’s planning processes. These include neighbours, landowners, public authorities, and council decision makers. VCAT decisions will also be better guided by our more specific, updated planning provisions that capture the diversity and uniqueness of the shire.
• Implement contemporary planning controls that will better protect township character, cultural heritage, and our environment.
• Community led visions for each town, which set out a future plan for housing, urban design, business, transport, environment and heritage, and community facilities
• Our structure plans and rural strategy can inform advocacy on future community facility and infrastructure grant funding, or advocacy on State led projects and infrastructure, for example lower speed limits or physical changes to main roads in our identified future pedestrian precincts.

The consultation period on Hepburn Shire Council’s draft Township Structure Plans and Rural Hepburn strategy has been extended to June 26.

The draft documents were released on May 1 with the original consultation period ending on June 12.
Mayor Cr Brian Hood thanked everyone who had already lodged their submissions.

“We know there is a lot of detail and so we’ve decided to extend the consultation period so we can gain more insights from the community.

“Though the deadline is extended by a fortnight, it will still give us time to fully consider that feedback and work to adopt the strategy in early September.

“I encourage every resident to access the information via council’s ‘Participate Hepburn’ page. This is a
once-in-a-generation planning strategy that will guide development for many years to come.”

Cr Hood said all the submissions would be considered by councillors and he assured the community
that all feedback was being taken into account “and (we) will continue to do so before we consider possible adoption”.

A council media release said the Rural Hepburn strategy provided a comprehensive planning and action framework for the use and development of private rural land.

“It will provide a safeguard for rural land. Initial community feedback reaffirms that agricultural land is
highly valued, contributes significant economic benefits, that conservation and biodiversity are important, and that rural tourism is a significant growth contributor,” the release said.

“The strategy proposes to introduce contemporary and clearer planning provisions, so getting feedback from community on these options is important.”

CEO Bradley Thomas said community engagement had been integral in providing further local knowledge.

“The small, but highly skilled strategic planning team have gathered great insights from the community and submissions to date, which they will review and provide recommendations to councillors.”

The council has held face-to-face meetings in each of its townships, which attracted many interested
individuals. Online there have been thousands of visits to the Participate Hepburn site, and almost 500 people have completed the survey.

“We have all these farms around us, a form of food security for the town, and that should never
be taken for granted. We have really good soil, really good water, and can just throw seeds on the
ground and food will grow for us. To destroy that is ludicrous.”

These are the words of Vasko Drogriski, one of the “very active” members of grassroots community group Pastures not Pavements.

The Daylesford and Hepburn Springs group’s aims are threefold. To stop plans to rezone land in East Street from farmland to residential, to stop extensions to Daylesford’s town boundary and also stop the rezoning of another parcel of farmland to industrial.

“The hopes of the group are that the extension of the town boundary gets dropped and the council also puts aside the rezoning of farmland to residential. There is not sufficient evidence for it to be warranted and these are very big modifications to the town.

“We are just saying if there is no urgent need for it, why do it now? Why not just step back, look at it again in 10 or 15 years’ time and if there is any such need, reassess then and have another discussion with the town.”

Mr Drogriski, a builder, said councillors were listening and understood it was an important issue for
the community but “we don’t know which way they are going to vote”.

“They are certainly hearing this is a serious thing for the town and people are quite unanimous about it. That message is getting through.”

If the plans do make it through council, despite opposition, Mr Drogriski said the group would continue to fight.

“The next stage would be the planning scheme amendment and we have been collecting evidence and
if we have to, we will take that to the minister.

There is evidence of improper consultation, flaws in the plans themselves and insufficient evidence for some of the changes they are proposing.

“The community, including our group have done a lot work in terms of fleshing out and exploring options and we think we have some very good viable options we want the council to look at and consider seriously.

“We have a lot of expertise and experience and some of us have been here 20, 30 or 40 years. I am a building designer myself so I have some insight into where housing is possible and it doesn’t need to go on a farm which is sitting on top of a spring that flows into one of our main tourist attractions, the Lake.

“There is a lot of space for housing within the town boundary and there are viable alternatives which will keep the town as it is and how people and tourists like it.”

Mr Drogriski said the shire’s councillors needed to leave a legacy of “retaining the beauty and structure of this town – why any councillor would want to leave a legacy of destroying a big heritage beats me. If you want to leave a legacy, leave a good one.”

He said farmer Ned Powell, whose East Street property is in the firing line for rezoning, was “probably
partly overwhelmed but also actively engaged in the fight”.

“It is not just Ned, it is his uncles and his aunty who own the property together, who have been dragged into something they don’t want. But Ned is in there batting for his whole family because he sees his future in farming, and he wants to be that next generation with his kids who want to farm that property.

“I think he is also inspired by the support he is getting from the community. It has been a fantastic community effort, and it shows me for the first time in the 20 years I have been here how supportive the community is of our farmers and the farmland around own town.

“I have seen how much people value the farmland, the open spaces, the rural edge. And that has been fantastic.”

Words: Donna Kelly | Image: Wayne Hammond

The Hepburn Shire Council has endorsed the release of draft Township Structure Plans (for Clunes, Creswick, Daylesford and Hepburn Springs, Glenlyon and Trentham) and Rural Hepburn: Agricultural Land & Rural Settlement Strategy to be open for feedback throughout a six-week community and stakeholder engagement period.

Mayor, Cr Brian Hood, said that the Future Hepburn project was the most important project the council would deliver for many years.

“Future Hepburn is a major, once-in-a- generation project. We’ve already heard from the community that they want council to protect and enhance the character of our townships and rural settlements.

The strategic planning controls proposed in these key documents will help us appropriately manage future growth and development,” he said.

“We have already undertaken extensive community consultation to reach this phase of the project, but it’s important that we hear from the community now that we have draft documents.

The draft Township Structure Plans and Rural Hepburn strategy have come about after feedback from community and stakeholder groups throughout 2023, along with specialist technical advice from consultants and council officers with expertise in planning, ecology, infrastructure, transport, recreation and economic development.

“Input from the community will help inform the final drafts of the five Township Structure Plans and Rural Strategy to be considered for adoption in the coming months.”

Community information sessions will be held at:

Creswick: Friday, May 17, from 5pm to 8pm at the Creswick RSL. The introduction presentation will start at 7pm.

Trentham: Friday, May 24, from 5pm to 8pm at the Trentham Neighbourhood Centre. The introduction presentation will start at 7pm.

Hepburn Springs: Saturday, May 25, from 9am to 12pm at the Bendigo Community Bank building, Hepburn Springs. The introduction presentation will start at 11am.

Glenlyon: Saturday, May 25 from 2pm to 5pm at the Glenlyon Shire Hall. The introduction presentation will start at 4pm.

Clunes: Saturday, June 1, from 9am to 12pm at the Clunes Town Hall. The introduction presentation will start at 11am.

Daylesford: Saturday, June 1, from 2pm to 5pm at the Daylesford Town Hall. The introduction presentation will start at 4pm.

The council’s Community Panels will also come together again to review the drafts and provide feedback. “Our community panels played an important role in providing direction and focus on the vision and objectives which, in turn, guided the development of the strategies and actions,” Cr Hood said.

“We look forward to working with these passionate community members again during this important phase of the project.”

The Local last week received an anonymous email regarding Future Hepburn.

“Please please investigate this. It has not been done with community consultation. What has been drafted is not a reflection of those ‘community engagement panels’ and it is not appropriate that council is using that process as a rationale for its outcome that’s been drafted. Please follow this through.”

Link: www.participate.hepburn.vic.gov.au/future-hepburn

What are your thoughts? Email news@tlnews.com.au

Words: Donna Kelly