Feature

Shire of Lake Grace

In August 2005 the Shire of Lake Grace embarked on an exciting cultural planning process in partnership with CAN WA. Through this partnership it was recognised that there was a need for the community to be involved with cultural mapping - that is, identifying and documenting local cultural resources. With funding from CAN WA’s Community Culture fund, the Shire was able to employ a consultant to guide the mapping process. These are some of the comments made about the project:

“This project is about culture in the broader sense. How we live, why we live here, what is it that keeps us here. How to find and map a community’s story without using managerial language, and use that story to inform policy”.

“It was terrific to hear everyone’s stories and share hopes and dreams for the future. The project brought communities together to talk and address whole-of-Shire issues, some of which are not normally explored in the wider public domain”.

The cultural planning process developed a Cultural Framework which will now feed into the Shire’s strategic plan. As a direct result the Shire will now include ‘cultural implications’ as a filter in all its decision-making processes.