Key themes identified by our Focus Group:

• Housing and Development.
• Transport and Infrastructure.
• Environment and Sustainability.
• Connection and People.
• Business and Culture.
• Council Services and Promotion.

Big Ideas

• Free green waste dumps.
• More wildlife corridors through the Council area.
• Green up Council buildings and structures.
• Obtain stories of the past from local residents and share through signage etc around the neighbourhood.

Big Themes

• Sustainable Transport and Development.
• Greening our City.
• Protecting and Promoting our Heritage.
• Maintaining our Lifestyles.
• Strengthening Relationships.

Opportunities

• Additional promotion of club - Kaleidoscope, banners, signage.
• Additional support and training from Council - eg social media.
• Can we change parking time limits to reduce fines when people are playing?

Challenges

• Community expectations of assets has grown.
• Struggle to fit club members in existing clubroom.
• Need to co-exist with other site tenants.
• Assets need to be maintained.
• Infill development concerns.
• Street tree species, especially old plantings, are not always suitable.

Opportunities

• Woodville Road upgrade should support business investment.
• Co-working spaces could be explored and encouraged. Need a business hub.
• Activate dead spaces to improve community connection (food trucks, pop-up shops).
• More local precincts with cafes, small businesses, and sense of community.

Challenges

• St Clair toilets require investment and cleaning.
• Vandalism and theft around St Clair.
• Library & community centres should support co-working.
• Local businesses find it hard to establish.

Opportunities

• Cultural awareness training by Council to help us connect with our community.
• More cultural events and food trucks. Use sites that don’t have a lot happening on weekends/evenings.
• Display our club history and feel like our home.

Challenges

• Clubs at St Clair don’t have their own space to promote sponsors, have clubrooms, display club history.
• Storage and parking.
• Knowing the nuances of all the different cultures.
• Families can’t afford sport – registration, clothing and gear.

Opportunities

• Invest in low socio-economic areas.
• Promote Council's care services.
• Promote sport, advertise affordable options.
• Partner with indigenous schools.
• Raise community centre profiles.
• Upgrade Hanson Rd.
• Use of school open space.
• Improve tree canopy.
• Electric bikes.
• Use community bus to get new migrants to jobs/training.

Challenges

• Cost to participate in sport.
• Ageing in place.
• Drug & alcohol, homelessness, food, social anxiety, domestic violence.
• Raise profile of volunteering.
• Infill & parking.

Opportunities

• Support club in skilled areas e.g. event management/risk management/legislation and compliance.
• Council promotion of healthy and active living.
• Better beach access for disabled people.
• Upgrade West Beach Road - local hub, grassed area, outdoor gym.
• Improve cycling safety along Esplanade.
• Promote cycling & more bike storage, racks and repair stations.

Challenges

• Recruiting volunteers.
• Risk, compliance & legislation demands.
• Sand loss & beach erosion.
• Safe paths & access to patrol.

Opportunities

• Council support for most vulnerable in our community, better equity across the council area, Athol Park is high need.
• Support our First Nations & migrant community.
• Kitchen upgrade for clubrooms.
• Continue to support the club.
• Hanson Road upgrade.

Challenges

• Cultural diversity, appropriate behaviour, challenge for different cultures to connect.
• Drug abuse, homelessness & crime, worse in recent years, impacts club directly.
• People struggle to afford sport and pay fees.
• Recruiting volunteers.

Opportunities

• Increased interest in sport and recreation.
• Parents seeking low contact sport options.
• Interest from migrants with gymnastics background, can help integrate into community.
• Council to advocate, partner, negotiate agreements, grant applications, training, business analytics, strategic planning, facilitator.
• Connect with other community groups, share learnings & plans.

Challenges

• Increasing operating costs.
• Connecting with others.
• Recruiting volunteers.
• Upgrading to accommodate accessibility.

Opportunities

• First Nations cultural tourism, training & employment.
• Tailor facilities to each community, support diverse community groups.
• Trial community batteries.
• Link Pines Reserve to corridor.
• Re-wilding of places.
• Partner with sporting clubs to plant vegetation.
• Strategic infill and better open space outcomes.
• Increase tree canopy targets.

Challenges

• Climate change.
• Sand loss & sea level rise.
• Biodiversity & habitat loss.
• Improve transparency of Council decision making.
• General infill not working.

Opportunities

• Encourage schools to participate in Feast program.
• Council could provide additional support - funding, transport for meal delivery, planning new site renovation.
• Connect with Council networks.
• Promote Oz Harvest services & “Ripe Near Me”.
• Support the social supermarket planned for Manton Street.

Challenges

• The need for meals is huge, crisis response situation.
• We can’t transport all our meals, need additional truck & drivers.
• Long waitlist of agencies wanting Oz Harvest support.

Opportunities

• New indoor facility.
• Look at open space as sport is growing and we are competing with other groups.
• Partner with/advocate to the Office of Sport and Recreation.
• Discuss the decline in school sports with Education Department - schools and sporting grounds collaboration.
• Sports tourism opportunities.

Challenges

• Maintaining pitches is a large cost.
• Difficult to get ovals to play at. Open space in high demand.
• Accommodating the level of interest from new members.
• Red tape’ for volunteers.

Opportunities

• More strategic infill (eg WEST) instead of poor quality general infill.
• Incentivise business.
• Build a trader network to incentivise transport across the Western suburbs (eg coastal shuttle bus).
• Improve accessibility to beaches & disability programs.

Challenges

• Beach sand & sea level rise.
• Traffic issues & parking.
• Don’t displace industry & business, we want people working in our city.
• Hard to attract volunteers.
• Grange Line is great, but underutilised.
• Need affordable housing.

Opportunities

• Public Art along Grange Lakes corridor.
• Improve maintenance of Council property.
• Continue to work on bike and pedestrian paths.

Challenges

• Parking in new developments has reduced (eg Henley Sq)
• Our facility in need of maintenance and repair.
• Open space in high demand from multiple different groups, need to coordinate interests.
• Volunteers are getting harder to find.
• Rubbish and waste collection – more bins are needed.

Opportunities

• Arts officer to support creative community.
• Community battery.
• Promote community driven initiatives.
• Tree planting.
• Leverage network to support community & local initiatives.
• Explore coastal bus service.
• Improve First Nations engagement.

Challenges

• Climate change.
• Sand loss & sea level rise.
• Henley Beach transport is chaos.
• Nowhere to promote community initiatives. No Messenger, Kaleidoscope?
• Urban planning & infill.
• Social & affordable housing.
• Community cohesion.

Opportunities

• Assistance with grant applications & accessing financial support.
• Sports tourism opportunities. Bowling event to generate income & support local economy.
• Improve investment in sporting clubs – buildings and infrastructure.

Challenges

• Want to keep bowling greens as grass, not artificial turf but costs more.
• Asset ownership - renewal and maintenance.
• Generating profit under community club banner.
• Cost of living increase - challenge for people to pay for sport.
• Attracting sponsorship.

Opportunities

• Provide recycling bins at sporting grounds.
• Acquisition strategy for open space to ensure strategic purchases.
• Partner with schools to grow saplings and plant them at sporting grounds.
• Forward plan for population growth & sporting club growth.
• Better utilise & look after existing open space.

Challenges

• Urban infill, tiny backyards & narrow streets.
• Enough green space.
• Tree canopy.
• Traffic speed & parking especially St Clair.
• Inadequate toilet facilities at St Clair.
• Volunteering.

Opportunities facing our City

• More childrens programs & inclusive library layouts.
• Keep trees.
• Neighbours becoming friends.
• Bring back local paper/local stories/expand Kaleidoscope.
• Bike repair station along River Torrens.
• Place houses close to streets so bigger backyards.
• More electric car charging.
• Friendly environments.
• Reduce speed in local streets.
• Inter-generational living.

Challenges facing our City

• Climate/heat resilience.
• Too many cars parked in streets.
• Homelessness.
• Dumping rubbish.
• Over development.

Future Thinking

• Look after our environment, heal our land.
• Look after our neighbours, people in our street.
• Connect to our environment, our economy, our people.
• Connect through stories, food, art, dance, music.
• Have places where people can gather such as community centres, shops, schools, & meeting places.
• Create and maintain a sense of community.
• Teach, share, celebrate, heal.
• Tell stories about looking after environment & animals.
• Pass on knowledge.
• River Torrens Spirit Ceremony idea.

Future Thinking

• Tram from city to beach.
• Technology hub in the centre.
• Socialising through community centres.
• Inclusive community.
• Multicultural food hubs where people gather together.
• Multicultural workforce for City of Charles Sturt.
• Capacity building training for new migrants.
• More social housing.
• Free transport for events.
• Disability friendly.
• Connection across cultures, all working together.
• Great schools in local area.
• More trees.
• Inflation controlled.
• Equality: no discrimination.
• Low unemployment.

Future Thinking

• Build communities with focus on walking, cycling, safe bikeways, local services.
• Effective public transport network, taxi, shuttle services in local area.
• Streets returned for community use.
• Strong connections to our past.
• Recycling & sustainability initiatives.
• Circular economy.
• Multi-storey carparks at key park & ride locations.
• Good community support systems around people.
• Understand the value of nature & being in nature.
• Support ageing in place.
• Plan for disability & aged persons.

What makes a great city?

• Engaged, opportunities to connect.
• Vibrant and colourful.
• Arts and culture.

What are the opportunities?

• Collaboration with the city – festivals, activities, arts and culture.
• Build connection between businesses.
• Boost programs, services, experiences, and events through collaboration.
• More co-working spaces – Wi-Fi, collaborations, support.

What are the challenges?

• Renown Park – needs status and opportunity.
• Balancing services and safety.
• Spaces and services for WFH.

Opportunities that are important to focus on:

• More green spaces, particularly areas of high heat.
• Improving biodiversity with better plantings.
• Better transport options including public transport, parking options, cycling and walking.
• Improving development – preserving character areas with higher density along major roads.
• Building greater connections with and across our community and cultural groups.
• Designing for and supporting our ageing communities.
• Better partnerships to ‘unlock’ opportunities.