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.

• Raising community awareness: Your Say Charles Sturt rated strongly, along with direct emails and CCS eNewsletters. Community members also valued information in letterboxes, social media, libraries, community centres and direct outreach through existing community groups and community leaders.
• Community participation: Online engagement tools through Your Say Charles Sturt were the preferred way to provide feedback, while face-to-face engagement was also valued because it builds trust and supports deeper conversations.
• Barriers to engagement: The main barriers identified were lack of awareness, complexity of topics and timing.
• Closing the loop: Community members preferred to receive project updates and decisions by email and Your Say Charles Sturt news updates. They suggested using impact stories, videos, testimonials and ongoing updates to show how community have informed projects.
• Policy feedback: More than half of survey respondents supported the draft Community Engagement Policy and the proposed discretionary engagement category, while others indicated they did not know enough to comment.

Overall, feedback showed strong support for community engagement in the City of Charles Sturt. Participants valued the opportunity to have a say and provided practical ideas to improve awareness raising, access, participation and follow-up communication.

The Community Engagement Policy will be presented at the Council meeting on Monday, 24 August 2026.