Energising Our Villages

APlace Strategyis a planning document developed by local or state governments to guide the future development and enhancement of specific areas, such as major business centres, town centres, or precincts. It sets out a long-term vision for how a place should evolve, ensuring it meets the needs of the community, businesses, and other stakeholders.

Council is working on a place strategy to enhance, improve and energise our local centres of Homebush, Homebush West and Strathfield South. These local centres provide important goods and services and to the local community and we want them to be great places to visit and enjoy.

The year 2024 was a significant time for Strathfield Council for community consultation and early phase preparation of a Master Plan for the Strathfield Town Centre. In 2025, Council has shifted its focus to our vital neighbourhood villages/centres within our LGA are also given the focus they deserve so as to remain vibrant and thriving employment and services hubs, where residents can easily access shops and other services without having to travel too far.

Developing a place strategy is an opportunity to ‘check-in’ with our community stakeholders and collectively work to identify public domain upgrade opportunities and refresh public spaces and strengthen the identity of the local centres.

Feedback from consultation activities will be used to understand what people like about our local centres as well as some of the challenges facing the community and local business. Online tools like the interactive map and community survey give us insight into the local community’s aspirations, and we can ensure that the strategy reflects these.

Additional feedback will be sought from the community once the draft Strategy has been prepared. Council will exhibit the Strategy, allowing the community to provide further feedback and input.

The aim of this Strategy is to understand the aspirations of local business operators and the community, foster the conditions for local business to thrive and create places that the community feel proud of.

The Strategy will improve the look and feel of the local centres by:

• Improve the quality of the public domain.

• Enhance open spaces and streetscape.

• Explore opportunities for new events in the area.

• Celebrate local character.

The Strategy will establish an agreed vision and guiding principles for the future of Homebush, Homebush West and Strathfield South village centres, which is the first step in a longer planning process. Subject to Council endorsement of the recommendations, the staff will follow a delivery plan to implement the Strategy. This may include various capital works projects, planning proposal, amendments to existing regulatory plans and community events.

The timeline on this page provides more detail on the next steps following the Strategy.

No. The early engagement/community consultation phase is now underway with the sole focus on gathering ideas from the community. This isto help develop the draft Strategy andidentifythe need for anyadditionalcommunity research and/or technical studies. The community will be notified in advance of each decision-making stage to invite feedback. See the timeline on this page to see where we are at in the process.