The Bonny Hills community was the first cab off the rank for the development of a community plan.

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council is now embarking on about 17 community plans over the next two years.

The council endorsed the draft Bonny Hills Community Plan at its September meeting.

The next step will be to establish a Community-Council Action Team to drive the plan’s development.

Bonny Hills Progress Association secretary John Drinan recognised the significant effort the council had devoted to engaging with the community in developing the plan.

He said they believed it had been a mutually beneficial exercise.

The progress association is pleased with where things stand and hopes any remaining issues can be resolved through the action team.

“We’ve had an experience from which everyone has learnt and we think coming out of that will be a more robust and more effective process,” Mr Drinan said.

The council developed a revised community plan framework as a result of the pilot project.

The draft Bonny Hills Community Plan was developed following extensive community consultation including a community-wide postcard campaign, a series of community workshops, a family fun day and a 28-day exhibition period.

The council deferred consideration of the draft plan at the August meeting to allow further engagement with the Bonny Hills Progress Association on the draft plan and improvements to the community plan process.

It endorsed the draft plan at the next council meeting.

The plan’s vision is to conserve the surrounding natural environment and wildlife, maintain the village character, promote safe roads, ensure clean water and sustain the community’s quality of lifestyle by ensuring well-planned and environmentally sensitive development.

Goals support the vision with a series of actions.

The council report said these actions would form the basis of council-community collaboration around the community plan. 

Cr Lee Dixon said Bonny Hills was the guinea pig for the first community plan and all the community help and assistance had been fascinating during the process.

He said it was imperative that the council worked collaboratively with its communities.

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