Drought had a big impact on local people in 2019/20. We want to hear your drought story. Perhaps it was the water restrictions, or seeing our region brown and dusty, or having less turnover in your business. Maybe you were on a farm.
We want to hear from each and every one of you. Every story is important and will help us work out what we need to do better. We won’t be asking who you work for. So even if you work for a business, a school, a service provider or a government agency, your response will be treated as a personal reflection. Your responses are confidential.
The information you provide will form part of the Regional Drought Resilience Plan, Singleton, Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Councils are preparing together. This project is jointly funded through the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund and the NSW Government.
If you choose to opt in to participate in future community engagement activities to inform this Drought Resilience Plan, we will ask for your name and contact details so we can get in touch with you. Your personal details will not be used for any other purpose, and your survey responses will still remain anonymous.
The survey will take a maximum of 5 minutes to complete.
The survey closes at 5pm on Friday 22nd March 2024.
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Singleton, Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Shire Councils are working together to develop a ground-breaking new drought resilience plan, which will deliver an integrated, evidence-based strategy to build resilience, and mitigate and adapt to future drought impacts across our Region. The experience of locals, including farmers and other businesses, is absolutely integral to help us shape this plan. By completing our short online survey, we are hoping our plan reflects how drought has affected residents and business owners in the Upper Hunter, which enables us to develop a prioritised list of actions to address the direct needs of our community.
The draft plan will be provided to the CSIRO for independent review, before being published on the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website.
Here is a copy of the Media Release which provides more information about the project.
It’s important for our business community to also contribute their thoughts – drought doesn’t only impact farmers.
Update: Tuesday 19 March 2024
We are getting in touch to provide an update on the Singleton, Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Regional Drought Resilience Plan Project. WSP is supporting Singleton, Muswellbrook and Upper Hunter Shire Councils in developing this Resilience Plan. Some of your contacts were provided by councils for the project consultation.
As part of the consultation program, we visited the region last week for the first round of engagement. We spent time in Singleton, Muswellbrook, Aberdeen, Scone, Merriwa, Denman and Jerrys Plains speaking to over 90 people from all walks of life including farmers, business owners, and staff at a diversity of local businesses. We also met with representatives from a diversity of government agencies who provide support and services in your region. We had a good week, learning from the community and stakeholders about how drought has impacted them and their communities in the past, and exploring their ideas for how they could be supported and build resilience through droughts in the future.
In late February 2024, we released a short Have Your Say survey, which we have received over 120 responses so far. There is still time to complete the survey if you haven’t already done so. It would be great if you can share the survey with your family and friends, as we want to hear more from as many different people as possible.
The survey is closing at 5pm this Friday 22 March.
Complete the survey in 5 minutes via this LINK
We will be coming back to the region after Easter, between the 2nd and 5th of April for the second engagement round. We will be holding in-person workshops to further explore potential actions with you and other stakeholders and Community to be included in the Resilience Plan. We are currently finalising the dates, times and venues for each workshop and will be providing this information shortly.
We look forward to continuing to engage with you.
Kind regards,
Sophie Drysdale
E: Sophie.Drysdale@wsp.com
Sally Bamber
E: Sally.Bamber@wsp.com