North Coast Regional Water Strategy engagement

The first draft North Coast Regional Water Strategy, which considers water supply, reliability and security for over 300,000 people, was on public exhibition from 3 March – 16 May 2021.

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

We had strong stakeholder attendance for the engagement sessions and we received dozens of submissions. Key themes that emerged during this consultation include water quality, river health and ecosystems, climate change, Aboriginal people’s water rights, interests and access to water, managing increasing demand from different users, water conservation, reuse and recycling new and existing infrastructure and data collections for compliance and enforcement.

Submissions

Permission was received to publish several of the submissions. These are available via the Water Publications Library. 

After incorporating the feedback from the community and doing further analysis, a second draft North Coast Regional Water Strategy was on a second public exhibition from 23 May to Sunday, 19 June 2022.

The second draft was a set of two documents:

What we heard

In the second round of the public exhibition of the draft North Coast Regional Water Strategy, 49 stakeholders participated, and we received 23 formal submissions. Stakeholders raised broadly consistent themes across public consultation phases 1 and 2, with the exception of an additional theme relating to how the strategy would be finalised, implemented and monitored.

Submissions

Permission was received to publish several of the submissions. These are available via the Water Publications Library. 

Additional information