A list of current Golden Plain Shire Council Strategies. To access Council's Policies, click here.
Golden Plains Shire Council adopted the Asset Plan 2025-2035 (the Plan) at its meeting on 28 October 2025.
The Plan details the extent of the Shire’s assets, from roads and buildings to drainage and community facilities. It also sets out how Council plans to invest in and maintain these assets to meet the current and future needs of the community.
The Plan is designed to align with the Council Plan 2025-2029 and Council’s Community Vision, ensuring that long-term investment decisions support local liveability, safety, and sustainability.
Council adopted the Bannockburn Integrated Water Management (IWM) Plan at its meeting on Tuesday 25 February 2025. The IWM Plan outlines a series of opportunities to improve and manage the water cycle in Bannockburn to deliver a greener and more liveable township.
Read the Bannockburn IWM Plan.
A key component in the Council Plan 2021-2025 is to: 'improve the customer experience and build
commitment and accountability to service standards and timely responsiveness.’
The Strategy will give Council an overarching philosophy as well as an explicit action plan to improve the
way Council’s customers are served. The central aim of the Strategy is to strengthen consistency and ensure staff are all ‘on the same page’ when it comes to the experiences delivered to customers.
Golden Plains Shire Council adopted the Domestic Animal Management Plan 2026-2029 (DAMP) at its Council meeting on Tuesday 25 November 2025.
Under the Victorian Government’s Domestic Animals Act 1994, every Council in Victoria must prepare a domestic animal management plan every four years. The plan outlines the services, programs, and policies in place to administer the Act and manage dog and cat issues within the community.
The DAMP promotes responsible pet ownership and animal welfare, outlines actions that Council will take to address impact of nuisance pets on the community and the environment and also establishes a framework to assess the adequacy of animal management services which are funded by registration fees from cats and dogs.
The Golden Plains Shire Environment Strategy guides the management of the Shire's environment. This dynamic and broad ranging document identifies a series of actions to address a range of environmental issues.
The strategy was developed in consultation with the community.
Click on the link below to download a copy of the current strategy.
Golden Plains Shire Council adopted the Financial Plan 2025-2035 (the Plan) at its meeting on 28 October 2025.
This important document outlines how Council plans to manage its finances over the next decade, ensuring the responsible use of funds for operations, services and infrastructure projects.
The plan acts as a roadmap, forecasting revenues, expenditures, and capital investments, to ensure financial decisions align with both community priorities and legislative requirements.
From January to March 2024, Golden Plains Shire Council undertook a community engagement process seeking feedback on the current Community Vision 2040. Through the engagement, we heard from more than 400 residents with 85% of respondents having not contributed to the development of the Vision in 2019/2020.
The following amendments to the Community Vision document have been made in reflection of the feedback community provided;
- A brief summary on the refresh conducted in 2024 has been included.
- All current information has been reviewed and now has less strategic wording.
- The current priority ‘Services, Facilities and Activities’ has been split into two priorities: ‘Services and Facilities’ and ‘Activities and Events’.
- The Vision statement under the Community theme has been amended to “We want to be inclusive and value all people, including women, LGBTIQA+ people, young people, and culturally and linguistically diverse people”.
The refreshed Community Vision 2040 will guide the development of the Council Plan 2025-2029.
Click on the link below to download a copy of the current strategy.
Golden Plains Shire Social Housing Plan 2021-2024
As part of Council's participation in a regional Social Housing Planning project facilitated by the G21 - Geelong Region Alliance, the Golden Plains Social Housing Plan has been developed to sit alongside similar plans for each G21 council and a combined regional plan. The Plan outlines the need for more subsidised social housing properties and provides local information and perspectives to help shape the Government’s $15 million commitment, and support Council work constructively with the Government, developers and housing providers to increase access to local social housing.
Council has endorsed a plan called the Growing Places Strategy (GPS) which sets out the overall direction for how Golden Plains Shire should grow to 2050 and beyond.
Golden Plains Shire has an obligation to contribute towards community fire safety. Council recognises the potential threat fire poses to the community and aims to reduce this threat by developing and implementing the Municipal Fire Management Plan.
The Municipal Early Years and Children's Plan will serve as a strategic roadmap for Council's approach to early childhood development and family support over the next four years. This initiative underscores Council's commitment to creating a nurturing environment where our children can thrive, and families can access the support they need.
Golden Plains Shire Council Reconciliation Action Plan
The Reflect RAP is the first Reconciliation Action Plan developed by Golden Plains Shire Council, under the Reconciliation Australia framework, and it outlines actions targeting the four strategic focus areas of Relationships, Respect, Opportunities and Governance.
The Revenue and Rating Plan (the Plan) outlines how Council generates revenue, primarily through rates and charges, to ensure sufficient funding for activities. The Plan forms a critical part of Council’s integrated planning framework.
At its meeting on 23 September 2025, Council adopted its Road Management Plan 2025-2029.
The Road Management Plan establishes a clear framework for maintaining the Shire’s roads. The Plan outlines specific responsibilities, maintenance standards and inspection regimes for all road assets under Council’s control.
The Plan focuses on road assets, intervention standards, heavy vehicle usage, roadside use and responsibilities, road grading, and the hierarchy of roads in line with State-wide regulations.
Golden Plains Shire Sport and Active Recreation Strategy 2020-2030
Council partnered with Sport and Recreation Victoria to develop a new Sport and Active Recreation Strategy to inform its policy, planning and delivery of sport and active recreation programs, infrastructure and services from 2020 to 2030.
The aim of this strategy is to:
- Inform Council’s policy and planning frameworks
- Develop the delivery of sport and active recreation infrastructure, programming and services for the period 2020 to 2030
- Improve liveability, and health and wellbeing outcomes for all residents
- Reflect the needs of the community
Golden Plains Shire Sport and Active Recreation Strategy 2020-2030 (2.73 Mb)
The Tracks and Trails Strategy was adopted at the February 2024 Council meeting.
Following extensive community engagement in January and February 2023 through a series of workshops, surveys, and consultations, approximately 200 responses from the community helped to shape the Tracks and Trails Strategy.
The Tracks and Trails Strategy aims to embrace the region’s recreational tracks and trails network; identify recommendations for addressing new trails, missing links and realignments; improve liveability and health and wellbeing outcomes for all residents; promote safe, active transport and commuting options to reducing reliance on motor vehicles; improve environmental outcomes and reflect the needs of the community.
The $60,000 Golden Plains Shire Tracks and Trails Strategy Project was funded by $30,000 from the Victorian Government’s Local Sports Infrastructure Fund’s Planning Category and $30,000 from Council.
Tracks and Trails Strategy
The Tracks and Trails Strategy is a strategic document that provides the Vision, Planning Principles, Goals and Actions to guide the planning, delivery, activation and management of trails throughout Golden Plains Shire.
View the Tracks and Trails Strategy
Tracks and Trails Strategy Detailed Action Plan
The Tracks and Trails Strategy Detailed Action Plan supports the Strategy by providing in-depth information on individual actions. It includes detail on stages for delivery, key partners, maps, priorities and costings to implement deliverables both across the network and at specific locations.
View the Draft Detailed Action Plan
There is also an Issues and Opportunities Paper which showcases background and context work completed for informing the Tracks and Trails Strategy. This paper includes a literature review, trends analysis, trails standards, community consultation data and an audit of the existing Golden Plains Shire Council network. This paper can be viewed here.
Golden Plains Shire Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy 2020-2030 Council’s Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy is a 10-year strategic plan for several service areas including garbage, recycling and organic waste collections, transfer station, waste education, litter and illegal dumping, and closed landfills and rehabilitation.
The Strategy has a range of interim targets and goals to be met over the next five years, as well as aspirational goals to work towards by 2030. The actions that are presented in the Strategy have been tailored through the results of the community engagement, analysis of waste data, the Victorian Government’s recycling reforms, including its four bin policy, and the state of current waste processing infrastructure.
Golden Plains Shire Waste and Resource Recovery Strategy 2020-2030 (1.5 Mb)
Golden Plains Shire Council adopted the Woady Yaloak Recreation Reserve Master Plan (the Master Plan) at its meeting on 28 October 2025.
The Draft Master Plan was placed on a period of public exhibition in June following consultation in early 2025 with the community and key user groups. 16 submissions were received during this time which were carefully considered in the adoption of the final Master Plan.
Priority actions and recommendations identified in the Master Plan include: delivering upgrades to player and umpire changerooms, kitchen and internal toilets, a new facility building design, netball pavilion building design, development of a multi-purpose active recreation space on the former asphalt netball courts and the installation of a shade structure behind the recreation facility.
The purpose of the Youth Development Strategy is to guide Golden Plains Shire Council's Youth Development team over the next four years to achieve our vision: "That young people in Golden Plains Shire are healthy, resilient, empowered and actively contribute to building a better world."
The Strategy is in two parts:
Youth Development Strategy Part A (2901 kb)
Youth Development Strategy Part B (2515 kb)