Over February and March 2022, we engaged with over 200 people at the Waterfront Festival and online.

We asked for your thoughts on how we can improve and enhance our Marine and Coastal environment. We welcomed your feedback by completing our questionnaire, mapping activity or colouring activity.

We received 157 survey responses and 253 interactive map contributions.

Three lucky winners also received a gift voucher to dine at one of our foreshore restaurants!

Thank you to those who participated!

The information captured from our community engagement in February - March 2022 has been reviewed, and is now assisting us to identify values, issues and opportunities. It is also guiding our conversations with Traditional Owners, internal Council departments, state agencies, community groups and our Foreshore Advisory Committee in Stage 2.

A snapshot of your quotes on what you want us to address:

What you love about our coastal and marine environment:

No matter what time of the year, rain hail or shine, many community members we engaged with use our foreshore on a daily basis with Frankston Waterfront, Oliver’s Hill and Long Island utilised the most.

Our community loves to keep active by walking and swimming along our coastline. Not to mention taking time out to relax on our beautiful beaches.

Having a healthy and biodiverse coastal ecosystem was the important factor to having a great coastal experience.

What you value most about our coastline:

Important to you are:

• A clean undisturbed natural environment.
• Beautiful clean sand and safe swimming spaces.
• Litter free environment.
• Recreational opportunities.
• Great facilities.
• Listening to birdlife.
• Ability to walk the dogs.
• Boardwalk
• Beautiful scenery.
• Nippers and Life Saving Clubs.

Key causes for concern were:

70% were satisfied whilst 30% were not satisfied with the management of our coastal and marine areas.

You are most concerned about:

• Degradation of the natural environment and ecology in the area is not improving.
• The impact of a safe boat habour on the surrounding environment.
• Stormwater pollution.
• Lack of parking.
• Rubbish management in high traffic areas.
• Jet skis close to the shore and pier.
• Dog poo and enforcement.
• Facility maintenance.
• Use of Oliver’s Hill space.

Opportunities we can work on:

• Accessibility and universal access for all.
• Action on the climate emergency.
• Tread lightly and minimise our carbon footprint.
• Coastal dune rehabilitation.
• Education on litter and dune protection.
• More bins at popular areas in peak times.
• Traditional owner walking tours.
• Balance of natural areas and restaurants.
• Upgrades to seating, shade and boardwalks.
• Upgrades to club facilities.
• Ensure the natural environment is protected for future generations.

Community Workshops - 30 August (online) and 1 September (in person)

We ran two workshops for our community to help us understand what is important to you for the future management of our coastal and marine areas.

Information captured in these workshops informed our values, issues and opportunities paper which will then feed into precinct planning and the larger Coastal and Marine Management Plan being developed by Council.

State Agency workshop - 30 August (online)

The purpose of this workshop was to introduce project / progress to date, understand representation of State interests, identify regional values, opportunities, and issues from State perspectives.

Foreshore Advisory Commitee - 1 September (online and in person)

The purpose of this workshop was to begin collaboration with FAC for the precinct planning component of CMMP development, and enquire about FAC’s perspectives on values, issues, and opportunities for precincts. egin collaboration with FAC for precinct planning component of CMMP development, reinforce TOR role of FAC in CMMP, and enquire FAC’s perspectives on values, issues, and opportunities for precincts.

Workshop participants were asked to list what they define as values, issues and opportunities for each precinct and place comments on precinct maps. These individual comments were read, tallied, and analysed to extract key themes and sentiments across stakeholder groups.

Following the workshops, comments were individually revised and categorised by stakeholder group and precinct. Thematic analysis was undertaken to identify key themes representative of comments, to group each individual comment into themes, and apportion comments with sentiments. These results were summarised into collective terms, and the number of individual comments relating to each sentiment were tallied (shown in Values, Issues, Opportunities Matrices).

We analysed the comments by stakeholder group, and by organising comments into values, issues and opportunities. This helped us find patterns and trends in the responses. This was completed using both physical sticky notes gathered during in-person workshops and virtual notes captured on MURAL board during online workshops.

A copy of the raw MURAL boards produced in online workshops, and comments from in-person workshops are detailed in the Engagement Report - Stage 2 consultation.

All inputs from Stage 1 and Stage 2 consultations are now consilidated into the Draft Values, Issues and Opportunities Paper.