What we heard from our community

Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate in the Community Engagement Policy consultation. Your feedback helped us better understand how we can support our community through community engagement. Across the engagement period, Council received 90 contributions from the community, including 25 quick poll responses, 20 survey responses, and 45 participants at community drop-in and focus group sessions. Key themes from community engagement are summarised below.

  • Best ways to hear about engagement

    Your Say Charles Sturt, direct emails and CCS eNewsletters

  • Preferred ways to participate

    Your Say Charles Sturt online tools and face-to-face engagement

  • Barriers to successful engagement

    Lack of awareness, complexity of topics and timing

  • Suggested ways to close the loop

    Your Say Charles Sturt news updates, emails, impact stories, videos and testimonials

  • Feedback on draft engagement policy

    Support for draft Community Engagement Policy and discretionary engagement category

  • Ideas of continuous improvement

    Continue to look at practical ideas to improve community participation

Help shape your neighbourhood by participating in our projects

A fruitful story - During a recent community engagement project, we invited West Hindmarsh residents to help prioritise nine project ideas for their neighbourhood.

One idea that stemmed from discussions with residents was seeing the citrus street trees along McDonnell Avenue better maintained and enjoyed by the community.

Demonstrating how community engagement can help shape an outcome, we partnered with Fruit Share Adelaide - a charity that harvests excess fruit and redistributes it to people in need. In August 2025, a team of volunteers came together to harvest an incredible 230kg of fruit from the McDonnell Avenue trees:

🍋116kg of lemons

🍊47kg of oranges

🥭65kg of mandarins

🍈2kg of kumquats

Thank you to everyone involved in achieving this outcome!

Start today by sharing your views on community engagement

We invite your feedback on our Draft Community Engagement Policy, and engagement more broadly.

  • What do you think of our new draft policy?
  • What are the best ways to engage with you?

Read more about the Draft Policy and Community Engagement Charter here.

Complete our quick poll and survey by 13 July 2026.

  • Have 5 minutes?

    Tell us more about how we can engage with you, and your thoughts on our draft policy?

    Complete our survey 

  • Chat with our team

    Chat with our Community Engagement team about what is important to you, and your ideas.

    Where and when to find us 

We learn a lot from you

Each year we seek community ideas and feedback on about 40 projects. Projects cover a wide range of topics including, but not limited to, streetscape upgrades, tree planting, biodiversity, public art, annual business plans, dog parks, sport and recreation planning, and whole neighbourhood planning. Click on the dots to read more.

Did you know...