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Water
Draft strategies and what we heard

Lachlan Regional Water Strategy

To finalise the Lachlan Regional Water Strategy, the department is seeking input on the strategy through two public consultation periods.

Public consultation 1

The first draft Lachlan Regional Water Strategy, which considered water supply, reliability and security in flood and drought, was on public exhibition from 25 September – 13 December 2020.

The draft strategy was a set of 3 documents:

A comprehensive engagement and consultation program accompanied the release of the draft strategy. This included:

  • face-to-face meetings
  • online webinars
  • formal submissions.

What we heard

Over 60 stakeholders participated in the engagement program and 66 formal submissions were received. Key themes that emerged during this consultation include climate and modelling, new and existing water infrastructure, town water security and water-related amenities, Aboriginal water rights and connection to Country, entitlement reliability and risk management, environmental health and connectivity, and groundwater.

Submissions

We are sharing collected community and stakeholder submissions for the region along with cultural and general submissions.

Submissions - Consultation 1
Other

Public consultation 2

The draft Lachlan Regional Water Strategy, including a shortlist of proposed options to address regional challenges, was released for public exhibition from Wednesday 5 October until Friday 18 November 2022.

The second draft was a set of two documents:

Due to the extensive and ongoing flooding situation impacting communities across the Lachlan region at the time, a decision was made, in consultation with key stakeholders, to re-exhibit the draft Lachlan Regional Water Strategy in 2023.

What we heard

Any submissions that were made between Wednesday 5 October and Friday 18 November 2022 were reviewed, and a summary of feedback received so far has been published below.

All submissions will be further analysed after the public exhibition process in 2023, and a further What we heard report will be produced at that time to summarise the feedback received as part of that exhibition and respond to the feedback received during both exhibitions.

Submissions

We are sharing collected community and stakeholder submissions  we received between Wednesday 5 October and Friday 18 November 2022. We will continue to collect feedback and submissions when we re-exhibit the draft Lachlan Regional Water Strategy in 2023.

Submissions - Consultation 2