Culture and Creativity Strategy
Feedback closes Friday 10 January 2025
How to get involved:
Review our Culture and Creativity Strategy
Complete our Community Survey
Background
Culture and creativity are vital to our community, enhancing social cohesion, driving economic development, and supporting civic identity. By celebrating our diverse heritage through the arts, festivals and community events, we foster connection and understanding amongst the residents, students and workers of our unique local government area.
In May-June 2024 Council launched its most extensive consultation to date: the ‘Have your say on North Sydney’s next ten years’ campaign. Through this engagement we asked the community what their priorities and aspirations were for culture and creativity in the LGA. Council has listened to the feedback and combined it with research to develop the draft Culture and Creativity Strategy.
We now invite the community to continue sharing their thoughts as we plan to implement the strategy.
For more information on the research that underpins this strategy, please refer to the Culture and Creativity Study.
Key strategic directions
This strategy aims to build on existing strengths within our cultural and creative ecosystem and foster greater participation, ultimately leading to a vibrant local government area where culture and creativity are enjoyed by all.
To achieve this outcome, the strategy includes the following strategic directions:
Respect and acknowledge First Nations culture and history.
Preserve and celebrate North Sydney’s heritage,
Provide and promote a diverse range of affordable and accessible cultural and creative events, experiences and opportunities.
Increase the number of places and spaces available for cultural and creative participation and production.
The Culture and Creativity Strategy is one of eight draft informing strategies that articulate the needs and priorities of North Sydney over the next ten years. Once adopted, these strategies will form the basis of our new 2025-2035 Community Strategic Plan (CSP).
Cost of delivering the Culture and Creative Strategy
Timing and delivery of new projects and initiatives will be dependent on availability of funding from a variety of sources, including but not limited to grants, developer contributions, and rates.
A detailed breakdown of the estimated cost and funding sources for all capital works identified within the informing strategies is provided in the appendix at the end of the Long-Term Financial Plan (LTFP).
To deliver all expanded services and new and upgraded infrastructure detailed in the Culture and Creativity Strategy, the estimated additional funding required from rates income is detailed in the table below:
Council is currently engaging with the community on a proposed special rate variation that presents four potential rate increase options. Options 2a, 2b and 3 will all facilitate delivery of the new projects and initiatives detailed in this strategy.
Using option 2b as an example, the average percentage of rates income that will be spent on delivering the expanded services and new and upgraded infrastructure identified in the Culture and Creativity Strategy over the full ten year period is 1.4%.
This means that for every $100 of rates income received, an average of $1.40 would be spent on expanding and improving cultural and creative opportunities in the LGA.
Have your say
As detailed above, the valuable information provided during the ‘Have your say on North Sydney’s next ten years’ campaign has shaped this strategy. We are now seeking your feedback on the draft Strategy to ensure that it appropriately reflects identified needs and aspirations.
Please provide your feedback by:
completing the submission form below, or
emailing or writing to us. Please include 'Draft Culture and Creativity Strategy' in the subject line of all email or written feedback.
All submissions in their entirety are made publicly available in the Community Engagement Report. Personal identifying information, and content which is discriminatory, hateful or which may defame, offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate will be redacted.
If you need help accessing the Strategy or would like to view a hard copy version, please call 02 9936 8100.
