Renewal of the Merri Creek and Environs Strategy

                                          
Drawings by Polly Bastow

The Merri Creek Management Committee (MCMC) has begun a review and update to the Merri Creek and Environs Strategy c.2009. MCMC is an environmental coordination and management agency, formed in 1989, to achieve a shared vision for the waterway corridors of the Merri catchment. Its members include all municipalities in the catchment, plus the Friends of Merri Creek, the Wallan Environment Group and Melbourne Water.

The Merri Creek and Environs Strategy is a document intended to give direction to managers of the waterway corridors of the Merri catchment. The executive summary of the 2009 strategy can be read here.

MCMC is undertaking a series of workshops to shape the approach to the new strategy, encapsulating the heritage, current issues and future development of the Merri Creek.

Attended by council planners, water authorities, statutory planners, members of MCMC and FoMC, intensive days of brainstorming and critique are being undertaken to discuss the existing strategy plan. It will identify what information is clear and still relevant and what isn’t. It will also consider what new strategies and initiatives could be incorporated.

Working in groups of 3-5, with copious amounts of butcher paper, participants are encouraged to imagine the Merri Creek 50 years hence and consider issues of vegetation, habitat, people, transport, storm water and dog walking, amongst others. These ideas, insights and criticisms are then shared and discussed with the group as a whole.

It is hoped this communal information can help shape the new strategy, to produce a vital document that will guide both state and local governments, management contractors and local volunteers, in future Merri Creek developments.