Community Facilities Infrastructure Strategy

Research, best practice, local knowledge and our community’s experience have been brought together to create the following vision:

The Mornington Peninsula Shire community will have access to affordable community facilities that support a mix of services, activities and programs. The facilities will be safe, accessible and meet the changing needs of communities over time. Community facilities will enhance health and wellbeing, resilience and social connectedness across the Mornington Peninsula.

Community facilities are an essential part of society and our community. They provide spaces to meet, learn, play sport, participate in arts and improve our overall health and wellbeing.

A community facility can be used as a meeting space, for delivering services, to create social opportunities, and to provide emergency relief in a crisis. Community facilities create connected, vibrant communities that encourage diversity and inclusion. They increase resilience and contribute to a sense of place and belonging.

The Local Government Act 2020, outlines that Council will plan and provide services and facilities for the local community through service performance principles. These principles are to ensure services are provided in an equitable manner, are accessible, provide good value and are responsive to the diverse needs of the community.

The Shire does this in a range of ways, such as:

• Owner and manager of facilities
• Service provider, and therefore a facility user
• Provider of space for community activities
• Planner to ensure the supply of community facilities meet community needs
• Advocate for new or improved facilities
• Facilitator to support good outcomes for our community
• Partner with other agencies to provide services and facilities for our community

For the purpose of this Strategy, community facilities refer to the physical infrastructure in the form of buildings, places and public spaces through which community services are provided by Council and other providers.

Included in the scope of this Strategy are the following:

Community spaces:

•  Halls
• Meeting rooms
• Multipurpose community rooms
• Men’s Sheds
• Neighbourhood Houses
• Scouts and Guides
• Senior Citizens Centres
• Historical Societies
• Youth spaces
• Libraries
• Arts and culture spaces

Children and early years:

• Kindergartens
• Community Childcare 
• Toy libraries
• Maternal and Child Health Centres

Sport and recreation:

• Sports halls and indoor courts
• Pavilions
• Boating, sailing and lifesaving
• Aquatic centres and swimming pools

Click here to see a full list of community facilities in the Community Facilities Infrastructure Strategy.(PDF, 7MB)

The following objectives have been developed to achieve the vision for our community facilities. We want to:

• Apply a collaborative, people first, integrated whole-of-organisation approach to the planning, delivery and management of community facilities 
• Ensure decisions are transparent, evidence based and are responsive to community and service delivery needs
• Achieve a balance between social, financial, and environmental sustainability
• Apply innovation to explore partnerships, alternative funding streams, management models, activation and access to get the most out of our facilities
• Manage our community facilities as a network of complementary community facilities within reasonable journey times
• Create multipurpose and adaptable facilities that are shared by multiple user groups, services, programs and activities
• Ensure community facilities are planned, designed, managed and maintained to be equitable, safe and accessible for all.

The Strategy objectives will be delivered through the implementation of a series of tasks across all areas of planning, design and operation of community facilities.

The Strategy will be delivered through the implementation of a series of tasks across all areas of planning, design and operation of community facilities. All the tasks identified through this Strategy have been developed to achieve specific strategic objectives and will work together to improve our community facilities.

A key outcome of the Strategy will be the development of Infrastructure Action Plans (Action Plans) for each township. Through the development of the Action Plans we will assess existing community facility provision against benchmarking standards, current and future community need and will identify how to best meet this need. This may include different management models, different ways of delivering services, improvements to our community’s experience using facilities, consolidation of existing facilities and, where appropriate, disposal.