The Draft Open Space Strategy for Warrnambool is now available for comment.
We want your feedback on the draft Strategy including your vision for our open spaces and any opportunities for improvement.
Open spaces make Warrnambool a great place to live and visit. Our parks, gardens, sporting reserves, playgrounds and walking trails are important for recreation, leisure and our environment. We want these spaces to meet the needs of our community, now and into the future. As Warrnambool continues to grow over the next 20 years, open space must cater to the city's current and future population, ensuring accessibility, inclusivity, and equitable distribution across the city.
Over the past decade, public open space planning has been guided by the Warrnambool Open Space Strategy 2014. With the 2014 Strategy approaching end-of-life, in 2025 we embarked on a process to review the Strategy. Council engaged SGS Economics and Planning to undertake this review.
What we heard
In October and November 2025 we asked for your open space ideas through workshops, surveys and submissions.
Overall, the community felt that although the City of Warrnambool has a large amount of open space, some spaces are underutilised and are of low quality. Areas of high value to the community are Warrnambool’s natural assets; particularly Warrnambool’s various rivers, creeks, and coastal areas, the Botanic Gardens and Lake Pertobe.
The community felt there were opportunities to:
- Prioritise quality, diversity and design
- Increase accessibility, connectivity and walkability
- Increase weather protected areas, seating and amenity
- Increase tree canopy cover in open spaces
We have used this feedback to help prepare the draft Open Space Strategy. You can read the draft Strategy here. A hard copy is also available for viewing at the Civic Centre, 25 Liebig Street Warrnambool.
How can you be involved?
- Fill in the survey at the bottom of this page to provide your feedback on the draft Strategy. A hard copy survey can also be filled in at the Civic Centre 25 Liebig Street Warrnambool.
- Make a written submission and email it to [email protected] or post it to PO Box 198, 25 Liebig Street, Warrnambool Victoria 3280. Please add “Draft Open Space Strategy” to the subject line.
How will your feedback be used?
Your feedback will be considered when finalising the Open Space Strategy for Council endorsement.
The updated Strategy will enable us to develop an Open Space Contributions Policy for inclusion in the Warrnambool Planning Scheme. We will come back to the community about this Policy once the Strategy is finalised.
Survey Privacy
The personal information requested in the survey is being collected by Warrnambool City Council and our consultants for the purpose of verifying the source of feedback for this survey. The personal information will not be disclosed to any other external party unless permitted under the Information Privacy Principles. If you wish to alter any of the personal information you have supplied to Warrnambool City Council, please contact Council via telephone 5559 4800 or email [email protected]
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