Colac Otway Shire hosted a community meeting on November 24 that brought together the G21 Health & Wellbeing Pillar, the G21 Education & Training Pillar and the G21 Transport Pillar. Each pillar presented information and opinion about major challenges in the Colac region, and discussed ways in which a cross pillar approach could help address these issues.

The idea for the cross-pillar meeting came about during the development of the G21 Health & Wellbeing Community Profile (2009), when the Health & Wellbeing Pillar and Education and Training Pillar recognised that they faced similar challenges to plan regionally and action locally. Initial discussions with Surf Coast and Golden Plains Shires provided the opportunity to promote the benefits of bringing together the two pillars to form integrated responses and actions in these areas. Colac Otway Shire then took the initiative further and invited three G21 pillars to share their experience and expertise in health, education and transport issues with the local Colac communities.

As the cross-pillar meeting was at the instigation of the municipality, any consultation response will be tailored to meet their goals in community planning and development. This approach will strengthen the regional appreciation of issues and challenges that communities continue to have in common, and will also help to develop locally relevant and appropriate strategies to address the issues.

Integrated planning frameworks increase efficiencies and improve outcomes across all pillar areas of interest and help them to understand local needs and support local strategies, particularly for more outlying communities in the G21 Region. G21 aims to further strengthen its capacity to support a cross-pillar approach to addressing regional issues in 2010.