I am delighted to be supporting the recommendation to place these draft community precinct master plans for Tarneit North and Truganina on public exhibition for 28 days.

People know that I am a strong supporter of Council looking at ways we can do things not only differently but also creatively to bridge the infrastructure gap we have for community facilities in Wyndham.

I note that as well as the proposed outcomes which I think should receive strong community support, it is the process of how we’ve come to where we are that is just as important as the outcomes.

This community precinct master planning process has broken with the traditional way of doing things where open space and community facilities including family services are planned separately.

This master planning process brings together the planning of active and passive open space with our planning for integrated family centres.

Given the very young demographics in Wyndham and particularly young families moving to our new growth areas, the common sense of this approach is clear.

I fully support the strong Principles we’ve used to guide this new planning process as outlined on pages 29 and 30 of the agenda.

Our recent budget decisions for 2018 to 2019 means we can move quickly on further planning for these precincts, following community feedback.

We will also need to lock in the final funding mix for these Integrated Family Centre, Open Space Reserves and Pavilion Projects. And I hope the State Government will also come to the party in funding these projects from grants as contributions and levies will not cover the full costs.

Before I close Mr Mayor, I acknowledge that not every community facility can include all the uses that are needed due to limited land sizes and other factors.

However, I do need to represent the many people who speak to me about our sports, meeting and festival spaces to say that I sincerely hope that we continue to look at unmet demand in our city for highball sports, for example: badminton and table tennis, as well as more community meeting and festival spaces.