The four pieces of planning work, under the banner of "Transforming Horsham", in my view, are critical and overdue. Council has received generous support from the state government to do this work and now it's happening. The intentional effort to engage the community in recent weeks has included a wide age and experience range - from the Wimmera Mobility Group to the students at some of our schools; from the walkers and joggers at ParkRun to the shoppers at the plaza and Haven Market.

Community consultation is more than a numbers process. It includes collecting opinions and ideas. Thank you to the hundreds of people, so far, who have had their say on the draft, concept master plan. It is not a schematic drawing, it is not a detailed plan; it is a collection of ideas. The need for this work is captured in the 2018-22 Council Plan, adopted by council, and was reinforced by including the actioning of this work as a Key Performance Indicator, adopted by council, for the chief executive officer.

The city to river can be summed up in a few principle goals:

The support of the state government has, and will continue to be, critical. Four state government representatives sit on the project control group. Our reliance on government support was a lesson learned with the Horsham Town Hall project - of the $19.6m cost of the project, $11.5m came from government grants. The current rate capping restriction reinforces this reliance.

Along with the many services and community facilities that council provides, ratepayers will also contribute towards these projects. Every year the councillors and staff plan the annual Budget and allocate funds to action the priorities of council, guided by the Council Plan.

For those people who have visited Mildura recently and observed the amazing improvements to their riverside precinct, Horsham council is proud to be using the same consultant team, along with state and local sporting groups, business and community groups. The next steps include refining the feedback, adjusting the concept master plan, coming up with priorities for funding and action and more opportunities for public consultation and involvement.

I would encourage everyone who has in interest in the future of Horsham to have your say.

Mark Radford, mayor, Horsham Rural City

PRIOR TO the construction of the Horsham Aquatic Centre I warned Horsham council, in writing, of a flaw I found in the geotechnical report prepared by a large Melbourne-based geotechnical company. The council chose to ignore my warning and when the first pier was drilled my warning was found to be well founded, resulting in a huge increase in costs when the number of piers under the building had to be doubled.

I expressed a similar warning for the piers on the Anzac footbridge, which were realised when failed attempts were made to bore the first pier - once again resulting in costly delays and a redesign of the pier installation method.

In February 2018 I wrote to editors of both Horsham papers with a message to the community and councillors expressing serious concerns about the siting of the multi-purpose sports complex near the basketball stadium due to the deep seated soil moisture variations over the site. I had a number of discussions with a senior council officer who, I understood, took my concerns seriously and the project seemed to have died. It has now re-appeared as a part of the city to river master plan.

Last Wednesday I had a meeting with chief executive Sunil Bhalla and we discussed this issue of the soil moisture problems. Mr Bhalla said he felt the problems could be managed and suggested one method this could be achieved. This suggestion very clearly indicated to me that the council really do not have an understanding of the deep seated nature of the soil moisture variations over this site, nor other sporting sites proposed for major changes.

It appears history is about to repeat itself - only on a monumental scale this time, if you take into account similar problems in the showground and with the rotating of the oval. These projects will most likely proceed unchanged unless the community express their views in large numbers directly to the council, that will convince the council that the community wants these concerns taken seriously. It seems the council is determined to go ahead with these plans at any cost. I strongly recommend that the council explore the option of locating all these sporting facilities in a purpose created area to the north-west of Horsham where these soil moisture problems do not exist to the same degree.

I firmly agree with Mr Bhalla on the need to revitalise the city to river precinct and also the need to attract professional people to Horsham, but many parts of this proposal do not support those goals. My submission to council, which I will share on social media along with the full version of my questions to the community, contains many positive ideas on using these areas to create a family friendly city. I believe this will be attractive for people to move to Horsham and also be attractive for local families and tourists to get out and enjoy themselves together.

Leigh Davies, FIEAust, CPEng. NER, Horsham

I HAVE been in panic mode since June 24.

This is when the council moved that the City to River Precinct and Central Activity District (CAD) Vision and Master Plan plus the Horsham Rural City Council's Municipal Open Space Strategy - and all of their associated reports - were put out to be exhibited to the community for 28 days to comment. For the community to be only given 28 days - including 14 of those in school holidays - to try to absorb the hundreds of pages of information, and what impacts they would have, was absurd. Especially when there has been limited consultation, if any, with many of the sports, clubs, groups and businesses that were to be affected.

Fortunately the councillors listened to the community and at least extended time to August 30. But in reality much more time needs to be taken to work with the clubs, businesses and groups to make sure that the best outcomes are achieved for everyone. Currently, once the surveys close on August 31, the information goes back to the consultants to amend their strategies and it is then presented to the council for adoption.

We are told there may be some more consultation with some of the groups, but why not back to the community as well before any final decisions are made?

Expecting the community to read, understand and then make informed comments on this huge amount of information in the strategies and reports is totally unrealistic. The plans certainly might look lovely, but realistically when explained and looked at in more detail, some of the ideas are totally unachievable and impractical.

Surely for any projects to be successful, you need to take the community with their valued expertise and grassroots experiences along with you, not allow consultants to tell the community what they think Horsham needs. An example from the CAD strategy is: "For Horsham to become the world's most walkable city." This would achieved by introducing parallel parking, if any parking, in the shopping areas. Unbelievable.

There is a major risk here - where we can get these strategies right or we can get them wrong. When approved, the strategies become a road-map for the future and for the council to start delivering the projects that are in them as funding becomes available. My concern is that some are trying to rush this through with the risk of getting this majorly wrong. These plans should not be about KPIs or completed projects for staff and councillors, not about providing for just a limited number of sports, businesses and groups. We need an outcome that is, "What is the best vision for Horsham to grow" - and this is a huge opportunity to set our sports and community up for the future.

These strategies are really important but the city to river plan, if approved as is, will have devastating effects on some of our sporting and other groups, as well as for the central activity district in general.

One of the major issues that I can see is that there has been a lot of top-level discussion by the council with sporting associations and funding departments - which has its merits - but nowhere near enough discussion, if any in some cases, has been done locally with the individual clubs, businesses and groups.

Our clubs have so many passionate volunteers that put their hearts, souls and money into driving their groups and to be told by "unknown consultants" that their club is going to be moved or completely merged somewhere else is the ultimate insult to our much-loved and needed volunteers. Not working with the grassroots clubs, groups and community, tapping into their wealth of knowledge and experiences is a recipe for the strategies to fail - and another expensive strategy destined for the council archives.

These strategies need to be driven from the bottom up, and not from the top down - all working together with one big vision.

One of the huge opportunities is for a large multi-use indoor and/or outdoor sporting hub to be built in the west, allowing for about 2000 students to easily walk to the facility so that it can be used all day, every day by both the schools and the community.

Some big questions to be further investigated are:

I totally support councillors David Grimble and John Robinson in their efforts to have an independent audit of this process. Slow it down, take time to absorb all of the information and data and further consult with the community before any final decisions are made.

I have confidence that we can end up with an outstanding vision for Horsham that the whole community, the region and its visitors can enjoy - but it is so important that we take our time and get it right.

Sue Exell, Haven

WITH the arrival of springtime, I'm looking forward to the Wimmera league finals series and cheering on the mighty Burras. I am also reminded of a letter to the editor (Wimmera Mail-Times of October 5, 2018) following the A Grade netball grand final.

The writer was "totally shocked and extremely disappointed in the behaviour of ... supporters..." and added that they had "never witnessed such bad sportsmanship".

I was in total agreement with the comments and in coming weeks, urge all supporters to play fair with their passion.

Tony Logan, Horsham