Strategic Plan 2025–2028

• Walk with Kaurna community.
• Foster community connection, health and wellbeing, creativity and capacity.
• Foster increased housing choice including aged care, small lot and specialised disability.
• Plan ahead for population growth.
• Provide a range of recreation, sports and community facilities and events.

• Improve accessibility to markets and workers.
• Facilitate energy, water and communications infrastructure to match planned growth.
• Encourage on farm value-add employment generating activities.
• Activation of our townships through increasing the diversity of businesses.
• Enhance our region’s visitor appeal and experience.
• Collaborate with key partners on identifying and delivering suitable services and advocacy.

• Walk with Kaurna community. Progress research and protection measures for cultural heritage.
• Work responsibly and with partners on landscape conservation measures.
• Increase township greening and water capture and use.
• Preventative planning and emergency management.
• Divert 55% of residential waste from landfill, based on the Northern and Yorke Local Government Association’s 2021–2026 Waste & Resource Recovery Strategy and Action Plan.

• Informed decision making and policy setting.
• Proactively engage in local government reform and continuous improvement.
• Organisational change and management provides resources to deliver the Strategic Plan.
• Work with partners to seek funding to deliver initiatives.
• Prudentially leveraging funding sources in long term financial planning.

The document is presented in 6 parts:

1. Our vision (page 5–8)
   Our vision and an opening message from the Mayor and CEO.
2. Overview (page 10–15)
   Information about Adelaide Plains Council and our region. We provide information on what has influenced the strategic plan, including growth statistics, climate, infrastructure and economic information. We also define what role we play to achieve the outcomes.
3. How we will get there (page 16–31)
   Each theme includes our:
   Outcomes: the results we will see if we are successful.
   Strategies: how we plan to make this happen.
   Actions: how we will do this.
   Role: what we can do.
4. Major infrastructure
   Significant projects we will plan to work towards by delivering certain actions over 2025 - 2028deliver by 2028.
5. Implementing, reporting and strategic indicators
   What we will monitor to track our progress.
6. How we made this plan
   Information on how the document was created and its relationship to other plans and strategies.

Councils are required to have strategic management plans stating their objectives for the area over the next 4 years, under the Local Government Act 1999 (the Local Government Act). A strategic plan must identify the economic, social, physical and environmental aspects of the region, amongst other aspects outlined in section 122 of the Local Government Act.
Councils need to consider:

• Demographic and development trends.
• Input from government regionally, SA and nationally. This includes ‘particular reference’ to State Planning Policies and Greater Adelaide Regional planning.
• Council’s role in services, infrastructure and financial sustainability.

Over 2024, the State Planning Commission will engage the community about a draft Greater Adelaide Regional Plan (GARP). The 2023 GARP Discussion Paper flagged further population and employment growth in the longer term at Two Wells, as well as some growth at Dublin and Mallala.

Councils also need to identify:

• Objectives for the area over a period of at least 4 years.
• Principal activities to achieve its objectives.
• Measures (financial and non-financial) to monitor the performance of the council against its objectives over the relevant period.
• The means by which its activities are to be carried out (including clarity about regulatory/non-regulatory activities).

Adelaide Plains' rural areas, coast and towns provide places where our growing number of residents and business look to thrive in. These places are changing. Preparing a strategic plan with our growing and changing community enables us to identify the priority actions that Council — in particular through annual business planning and asset management planning, as well as advocacy — should focus on over 2025–2028.

We are consulting in 2 stages.

Stage 1 involved discussion with key stakeholders and community members to put together a draft plan. This happened between April and May 2024.

Stage 2 involves the opportunity to read the Draft Strategic Plan. We are asking for your feedback to make sure we got it right.

Consulting in 2 stages, as well as Council Member and staff input, helps refine our Strategic Plan to have consensus about the outcomes to be achieved and the actions to help get there.

The Strategic Plan 2025–2028 is the primary document that guides strategic decision making, sets a vision for the future and goals to achieve this and how we will review and monitor this. It is referred to when we are developing our annual business plans and asset management plans, in advocacy and in considering grant opportunities.

The Strategic Plan does not allocate funding. Our Annual Business Plan and Budget allocates money to our services and facilities over the next financial year. It takes into consideration our strategic plan and asset management plans.

Your priorities, suggestions and other comments will be used to refine the draft document into a final Strategic Plan 2025–2028.

You may like to comment on areas that are important to you for the region in general — like economic, social, physical or environmental aspects. Or, you may like to comment on proposed  actions to be undertaken over the next 4 years.

Your feedback may also be used to inform other decisions, projects, services and plans.

A variety of detailed comments helped inform the over 70 actions, the outcome statements, and the vision in the Draft Strategic Plan.

When considered together, the main themes heard were the challenge around planning for and delivering a variety of services and infrastructure across 3 major towns, 11 settlements and extensive rural areas that are experiencing business growth and sizeable population growth. This includes services and infrastructure by Council itself (in part or in full), as well as services and infrastructure provided by others (in part or in full).

The other consistent theme was to live, work and play locally. The benefits for local business growth, workforce, residential living and community relationships (be it recreation, sport or community groups) of living, working and playing locally were heard in the consultation.

Our Discussion Paper reviewed the goals we outlined in our Strategic Plan 2020–2024.

To ensure we are providing appropriate services to meet our region’s present and future needs, we periodically conduct community surveys. Results can help us understand what services are working well, what we need to improve and what we might need to consider for the future. This information has been reviewed in order to create the Draft Strategic Plan.

Background preparation towards the review and drafting of a Strategic Plan 2025–2028 began.

Council Members adopted a Discussion Paper for consultation to inform the preparation of a draft Strategic Plan in February. This decision was preceded by a Council Member Workshop about statutory obligations, review of current Strategic Plan, and proposed approach to preparing new Plan and to an augmented strategic planning framework.

Stage 1 of consultation involved discussion with key stakeholders and community members to put together a Draft Strategic Plan. This happened between April and May 2024.