Your Kingston Your Future

Kingston has been working closely with our community to develop a new Community Vision and key guiding plans. Over 3,500 people got involved, including an independently selected Community Panel.

Introducing our new Community Vision:

Kingston is a resilient, inclusive and diverse community. We are building the most liveable and sustainable city in Victoria.

We champion and nurture our green and open spaces creating a safe, healthy environment.

Our shared legacy connects our community, embracing innovation, making Kingston the place to live.

Watch our short video to find out more about the journey!

The Community Vision sets out the long-term aspirations of the community. The vision is incredibly important and will help guide decision making by Council and the community by articulating what we want Kingston to be.

The Community Vision also shapes our next four-year Council Plan, and 10-year plans for how we manage the city’s finances and assets.

To develop the vision and make recommendations for the guiding plans, Council joined forces with an independently selected Community Panel. The panel is representative of our community and used feedback from the community along with trends and other data to tackle this project.

Read our Community Vision Report to find out more about the journey to developing the Vision.

To develop the vision and make recommendations for the guiding plans, Council joined forces with an independently selected Community Panel. The panel is representative of our community and used feedback from the community along with trends and other data to tackle this project.

In this video, our panel takes you 'under the hood' and provides insight into the discussions that took place to develop the new vision.

The Your Kingston Your Future Community Panel has been working hard, using feedback from the community and lots of other data to develop a new Community Vision.

They are also putting together some recommendations on how we get there.

We can't wait until we can show you everything they've been up to...but until then, here's a sneak peek of how it's all going.

Council has joined forces with a representative panel of community members who are using feedback from the community, along with other data to develop a new Community Vision and provide key advice on strategic guiding plans, including our Council Plan.

Check out our highlight video for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the panel is going after Day 1 of their deliberations.

Earlier this year invites were sent to a random sample of 11,000 residents and businesses in Kingston asking for expressions of interest to be part of the Community Panel that will develop our brand new Community Vision and help influence the guiding plans.

Panel members were randomly selected by an external consultant (Sortition Foundation) to ensure a representative sample of the Kingston community. People who registered their expression of interest were randomly stratified through an online stratification tool, based on age, home suburb and gender, to form a descriptively representative sample of our community. Neither Council, nor our expert facilitators MosaicLab, were involved in the selection of panel representatives.

Community panels that are selected randomly bring together a diverse group of people who reflect the broader community. These panels usually include people who Council don’t usually hear from but who are impacted by Council decisions.

The graphic below provides more information on the makeup of the Your Kingston Your Future Community Panel.

The results are in and the Phase One Consultation Report is now available to download! The report summarises all of the findings from our first stage of community engagement – where we asked our community about their aspirations for the future of Kingston.

What happens next?

We have enlisted a representative panel of community members to use this feedback, along with other data to develop a new Community Vision and provide key advice on strategic guiding plans, including our Council Plan.

The panel is meeting over the next 6 weeks to deep dive into your feedback and tackle this challenging task.

When they are done, the Community Panel will present the new Community Vision to Councillors for adoption.

We will provide you with updates on how the Community Panel is going and you’ll also have the opportunity to comment on the draft guiding plans before they are adopted.

Background

This year we are working closely with our community to develop a brand new Community Vision and key guiding plans.

Over 3,500 people got involved to help us make Kingston the best place to live, work and play now and into the future.

Watch our short explainer-video below to find out more.


How are we going to do it?
An independently selected Community Panel of people just like you, have used your feedback and other data to create our new Community Vision (read all about our Community Vision in this update). They have also made recommendations for Council's strategic plans.

We will use these recommendations to draft the four-year Council Plan, Public Health and Wellbeing Plan and 10-year plans for how we manage the city’s finances and assets. The community will have the opportunity to provide feedback on these plans before they are adopted.

Want more detailed information? You can view our full Strategic Engagement Plan here.


What the community has already told us
In Kingston’s Liveability Survey last year, you told us what you value most in your neighbourhood. You can view a snapshot of the results here or the full Executive Summary here.

In the 2020 Health and Wellbeing Survey a representative sample of Kingston told us their views on health, wellbeing and safety in Kingston. Read our health and wellbeing snapshot for background information.

In our Phase One consultation activities you told us your aspirations for the future of Kingston - thank-you to everyone that provided feedback via our survey or at one of our face-to-face or online drop-in sessions. You can read the consultation report here.