Community Engagement?

It's so easy for a detached and ill informed person to argue that the community have been given every opportunity to engage with the shire in the decision making process. Such a view breeds the opinion that it is merely the lack of interest from the community that makes it impossible for the Councillors and professional planners to enagage adequately with those they claim to represent or work for - right?

Not necessarily. Consider the following.


First there is the important matter of drawing attention to the fact that community involvement is being sought.
Take a look at the typical single line of text within a list of items; which is how the shire communicates with this rural community about the development of their environment.

Does this really suggest that community views are wanted?
















You might think that possibly the shire was unable to think of any more visually appealling way to attract attention to the forthcoming development. But you would be wrong, because this is how the shire announces the development to the communnity once submission have closed and all the local decision making has ended;

Residents see something very different about the single line invitation to engage in the decision making process and the quarter page announcement post-endorsement when the decisions are all completed?
They might be forgiven for thinking that maybe their input wasn't really wanted at all.

But worse was to come.

The image below is the picture the shire didn't advertise at all.
What the approved development really looks like;

Absolutely not the design that was advertised as "some linited future growth"
 In fact this design, a housing estate either side of the Bussell Highway, with the junction of the Brockman and Bussell Highways as the heart of the hamlet, is what the Council decided on. Something that never went out for public comment.
Ask why?
Were the community so dis-engaged and lax, showing no interest?
Hardly, there were over 81 submissions made on the 2007 Karridale Plan and 97 submissions made in 2009
For such a small community that was a great effort; but totally a waste of our time.