Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy

Public consultation 1

The first draft Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy 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 90 stakeholders participated in the engagement program and 56 formal submissions were received. Key themes that emerged during this consultation include water security, groundwater, climate and modelling, Aboriginal knowledge and cultural heritage, entitlement reliability and risk management, new and existing infrastructure, and environmental and ecosystem health.

Submissions

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

Submissions - Consultation 1

Public consultation 2

After incorporating the feedback from the community and doing further analysis, the second draft Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy was on a second public exhibition from 5 October to 18 November 2022.

The second draft strategy was a set of two documents:

What we heard

In the second round of the public exhibition of Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy, 137 stakeholders participated, and we received 64 formal submissions.

In response to this feedback we have published two additional technical documents and will undertake further targeted discussions before releasing the final Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy in 2023.

Submissions

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

Submissions - Consultation 2

Next steps

The department will undertake further targeted discussions before we publish final Macquarie-Castlereagh Regional Water Strategy and supporting implementation plan in 2023.