City of Darwin Bagot Park Master Plan
True North Strategic Communication was engaged in partnership with Clouston Associates to design and lead a detailed community consultation program for the development of a 10 year master plan for Bagot Park.
Bagot Park is located on the corner of two of Darwin’s busiest roads, McMillans Road and Bagot Road in Millner, and caters to a range of recreation activity in three key areas – the oval, velodrome and open space/park land.
Consultation on the master plan was divided into two stages. Stage one was open for 5 weeks and focused on communicating with key stakeholders, existing users of Bagot Park, industry and community groups and the wider community to understand ideas, views and aspirations for the future of Bagot Park. A range of tools were used to gather feedback including a fact sheet, letter box drop, stakeholder visioning workshop, online survey and one-on-one meetings.
Stage two ran for 2 weeks and involved presenting the 70 per cent completed draft master plan, based on feedback from Stage one consultation, to stakeholders and the community for review. Following Stage two consultation, True North developed a comprehensive consultation report outlining the process, feedback and outcomes from both stages of consultation to inform the final master plan.
Council endorsed the Bagot Park Master Plan which can be viewed here.
Challenges
City of Darwin identified the need for a master plan for the whole of Bagot Park following community feedback during previous consultation in 2018 and 2019. The project had a long history with varying stakeholder needs and views that needed to be considered and balanced when gathering feedback and developing the master plan.
Proposed master plan
Outcomes
- more than 190 forms of feedback via the online survey, meetings, phone and email submissions and visioning workshop
- effective community and stakeholder consultation
- recorded a high level of support for the draft master plan with community and stakeholders providing constructive feedback and praise for the overall consultation process
- endorsement of the 10 year master plan by Council.