People with disability are a vital part of Greater Geelong’s community as residents, employees, business owners, artists, volunteers, tourists and visitors.

The City of Greater Geelong is developing its new Access and Inclusion Action Plan 2024-28. The plan will outline our actions to create a city that is more accessible, inclusive, welcoming and supports the full participation of people with disability.

We are committed to working with people with disability, their carers and supporters to develop the new Action Plan.

We also recognise that people with disability are diverse in culture, race, identity and sexuality, and will ensure that planned actions account for, address and respect this diversity.

Through the community engagement, we heard from people with disability, family, friends, carers and service providers, along with the broader community.

This feedback is helping to share the City's next Access and Inclusion Action Plan 2024-2028.

What We Heard

To read about who we heard from and more detail on the community feedback, download the Community Engagement Summary Report.

Six Community Priorities

Through the engagement the community shared many ideas about how the City can increase and access and inclusion and reduce barriers for people with disability. These can be grouped under six main themes.

1. Physical Access

Continue work to remove physical barriers and consider the different types of disability to improve accessibility of buildings, public spaces, facilities, and signage in both the city and outer areas of Greater Geelong.

2. Inclusion and Participation

Improve participation by people with disability in the City of Greater Geelong’s events, activities, sport, services and employment by improving physical access and creating environments where they feel welcomed, supported and that they belong.

3. Employment

The City of Greater Geelong to become a leader in employing people with disability in the region. Then advocate to, and educate local businesses, by promoting the strengths of people with disability as employees. Provide support to people with disability to find and do their job.

4. Lived Experience Engagement (‘Nothing about us without us’)

People with a diverse range of disabilities should be engaged in the planning and design of infrastructure, facilities, services, and programs to ensure they are functional, appropriate and avoid segregation from the broader community.

5. Communication

Establish accessible* communication between the City of Greater Geelong and people with disability for information about services and timely notification of activities or events (including how they are accessible). Establish a central point of contact to report accessibility issues.

*Easy English, Easy Read, Auslan, live and closed captioning, braille, audio description.

6. Respect and Understanding

Educate the broader community to accept diversity, understand and recognise different types of disability. Grow community understanding of how they can support people with disability to participate in the community. Promote the rights of people with disability and their contribution as valued members of the community through their stories and achievements.

Community Aspirations for 2028

People held a vision for Greater Geelong as a place where people with disability feel:

What will we do with your feedback?

We will value and consider all feedback received. We will report back on what we heard and what we learnt during the engagement process. This will be in the form of an engagement findings report.

When we draft the Access and Inclusion Action Plan, we will highlight how community and stakeholder feedback has influenced the development of the draft.

You will have another opportunity to provide feedback when we release the draft plan for public exhibition in early 2024.