Despite immense variation in size, composition and character, local governments share one common responsibility – to act in the best interests of the community they are entrusted to represent. In pursuit of this goal, all local governments need to understand their community’s current and future needs to inform planning, monitor project delivery and identify areas for advocacy. The City of Ipswich is no different and, as such, decided it wanted to understand its residents on a deeper level to make certain that their 2021-26 Corporate Plan not only responded to the community’s needs of today, but that it was focussed on setting the course for a more prosperous longer term.
The critical questions without answers were…
1. What do our residents believe makes somewhere a good place to live, and how do they experience their local area in that regard?
2. How liveable is the City of Ipswich currently, and what needs to happen to advance quality of life?
3. What role does our residents’ demography, life-stage and location play inform their views, and how do we compare to others?
To assist with this process, the City engaged .id to deliver our new Living in Place offer. Living in Place is an independent, robust and repeatable community survey that aims to understand and advance the liveability of Australians’ local areas. It provides participating councils with a deep and representative understanding of their community’s values, experiences and needs and creates a resident centric evidence base to inform, monitor and evaluate strategic planning and advocacy.
In addition to asking about the community’s values and local area experiences, we sought information regarding residents’ health & wellbeing, financial circumstances, local area concerns and ideas for improving quality of life. The results were analysed and reported via our best-in-class online reporting platform, views.id, key findings were described in a narrative based views report and an insights workshop with council officers brought the results to life in the local policy context.
Living in Ipswich provided the City with a baseline understanding as to the community’s values, experiences, the City’s current overall liveability, and, most importantly, advice as to which specific attributes the residents believe need to be maintained and improved to advance quality of life. The top five key findings from Living in Ipswich 2021 were:
1. How safe the community feels in their local area is critical to informing the City’s overall liveability.
2. Improving local area transport experiences (reducing road congestion, the provision of reliable and efficient public transport) are crucial to advancing quality of life in the longer term.
3. Affordable decent housing is one of Ipswich’s absolute and relative strengths.
4. The community reported varying levels of mental health and social wellbeing.
5. While overall liveability was relatively consistent across Ipswich, local areas have different future needs.
The City will deploy Living in Ipswich annually to monitor how and where their community’s views are changing in response to council’s strategic policy agenda, advocacy efforts and external factors.
The City of Ipswich Corporate Plan 2021-26 can be found here.
Visit our dedicated Living in Place website to learn more about the offer, where you can take a guided video tour of our best-in-class online reporting and exploratory platform, views.id. Check out articles from our Community Views team here, or feel free to book a meeting if you would like to learn more.