Plan Harcourt

Plan Harcourt provides the overarching long term strategic plans for the town to set the scene for its future development. It builds on previous plans prepared for Harcourt in consultation with the community.

The Plan Harcourt project brings together Council’s town planning and economic development units to work closely with the community to establish the vision and objectives for the town. It also works in harmony with the other service delivery units of Council for a strong long-term partnership. The outputs of the project include:
- the Harcourt Framework Plan
- Shine Harcourt (an economic growth plan)
- Harcourt Development Contributions Plan

Harcourt has been identified as a small town that can accommodate planned growth in the region. This is recognised in the Loddon Mallee South Regional Growth Plan 2014 and in the Mount Alexander Planning Scheme.

Strategic planning is required to ensure that there is adequate land supply and infrastructure to accommodate growth, while also protecting the natural and cultural features of the area, as well as surrounding agribusiness and horticultural land uses and the irrigation network.

The project is being undertaken by Council’s Strategic Planning team and will be completed in three stages.

The first stage involves consolidating the current strategic plans for Harcourt and presenting them to the community, stakeholders and government agencies to test is they are still relevant and continue to represent the goals and aspirations for the growing town. Officers will collate all of the responses and present them to the community through a ‘What we heard’ paper.

The second stage involves the preparation of Plan Harcourt and supporting planning documents, which will be released for community discussion and feedback prior to finalisation. Once finalised, Plan Harcourt will be recommended to Council for adoption.

The final stage will be the preparation of a planning scheme amendment, which will bring the plans into the Planning Scheme.

Stage 1 started in August 2018 and was completed in March 2019. Stage 2 has commenced and is expected to take approximately 12 months. Stage 3 will take place in 2020-2021.

We have engaged with Harcourt residents, community groups and other stakeholders as part of the first stage of consultation on Plan Harcourt. We received a lot of feedback through 39 written submissions, 56 surveys and more than 40 big ideas on an online interactive map. The feedback we received has been included in a document titled Plan Harcourt: What We Heard.

The full paper and fact sheet can be downloaded from the link below. Alternatively pick up a copy from the Goldfields Track Café, Harcourt Post Office, Harcourt Service Station or the Civic Centre in Castlemaine.

We now move to the next stage of the project in preparing a draft of Plan Harcourt, which is expected to come back to the community for further feedback around the middle of the year.

Fact sheet - Plan Harcourt: What We Heard
Plan Harcourt: What We Heard paper

Public consultation for stage one closed on 30 January 2019. During this stage of the project Council held two information sessions to launch the project in Harcourt on 15 and 16 November 2018, held pop-up project offices at various locations in Harcourt, and asked the community to complete a survey or comment on an online interactive map.

The discussion paper is still available.

The draft Plan Harcourt will be released to the community for feedback in mid-2019.

For further information, please contact Council’s Strategic Planning team on (03) 5471 1700 or email info@mountalexander.vic.gov.au.