title: Moorabool Heritage Strategy 2024-2028 council: moorabool state: vic category: constraint classification: MINOR status: active last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:
- heritage-strategy-2024-2028-2.pdf
- heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf
- heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf
Moorabool Heritage Strategy 2024-2028
The Moorabool Heritage Strategy 2024-2028 is a four-year heritage work program rather than a single statutory control: its practical effect is to sequence heritage studies, citations, curtilage reviews, asset audits, owner guidance, Traditional Owner engagement, interpretation, and future planning-scheme-amendments that can alter the Heritage Overlay over time (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.27-29). Its main planning importance is that it identifies the administrative and evidence gaps that sit behind day-to-day permit decisions, especially in Bacchus Marsh, Ballan, West Moorabool, and future growth areas where rural, built, landscape, and First Nations values intersect with development pressure (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.8, 21-23).
The strategy is concise, but its background report shows a larger implementation problem: the Shire has legacy heritage studies, incomplete citations, uncertain curtilages, HERMES data errors, a West Moorabool study backlog of about 500 unprogressed sites, and community concern that heritage is not sufficiently protected or promoted (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.25-28, 34-40). The strategy therefore functions like a repair list for the local heritage system: first identify and document what matters, then apply or correct controls, then help owners and Council asset managers understand how to manage places without losing significance (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-29).
Background
Moorabool frames the strategy around fast population growth and spatial change: the Shire states that its population is expected to increase from 40,339 people in 2024 to 65,693 by 2041, with most growth planned for Bacchus Marsh and Ballan under state and local policy (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.8). The same page records 195 places in the Heritage Overlay, 25 places on the Victorian Heritage Register, three Registered Aboriginal Parties with cultural knowledge, and 74 percent of the Shire comprising water catchments, state forests, state parks, and national parks (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.8).
The immediate trigger was a review of the Moorabool Heritage Strategy 2016-2020, updated legislative and policy settings, and consultation undertaken in 2022 and 2023 with the community, internal Council departments, historical societies, the Heritage Advisory Committee, and Registered Aboriginal Parties (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.5, 16-17). The background report says the previous strategy had 18 actions, of which 14 were completed, two were in progress, and two were not yet commenced (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.14). Completed or progressed achievements included appointing a heritage advisor, establishing a one-day-per-week Heritage Advisory Service, increasing its budget, formalising a heritage check process for section 29 demolition applications, installing heritage street signs on 12 streets in Bacchus Marsh, Myrniong, and Ballan, refreshing the Bacchus Marsh Heritage Trail brochure, and commencing implementation of the West Moorabool Heritage Study Stage 2A through Amendment C85 (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.17; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.14).
Council describes four roles in heritage: as planning authority preparing heritage studies, local policies, and planning scheme amendments; as responsible authority deciding Heritage Overlay permit applications and enforcing the planning scheme; as owner or manager of heritage places; and as supporter, promoter, and communicator through advice, events, tourism, and information (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.13). The Heritage Advisory Committee has operated since 2007 and meets bi-monthly, with membership drawn from community groups including historical societies, the National Trust, the RSL, and community representatives (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.13).
Analysis
Statutory Mechanism and Planning Effect
The strategy does not itself apply an overlay, approve a development, or amend the Moorabool Planning Scheme; its effect is indirect because it tells Council what evidence and implementation steps are needed before statutory controls can be corrected or extended (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.27-29). The strongest statutory mechanism is Action 2, which requires citations for all 27 heritage places that do not currently have one, a curtilage review at the same time, and a planning scheme amendment to incorporate statements of significance and make curtilage changes (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.27). In plain terms, this is like relabelling items in a library before deciding where the boundaries of each shelf should be: without a clear citation and curtilage, owners, planners, and decision-makers have less certainty about what part of a place is significant and what change can occur (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.25-26).
The background report explains why this matters. Amendment VC148 made statements of significance part of the Heritage Overlay machinery for new heritage places, because the statement explains why the place is significant and must be considered when deciding an application (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.10). Moorabool’s audit found that, out of 182 Heritage Overlay sites reviewed at that time, 27 did not have a heritage citation, and many existing statements did not adequately identify the significant elements (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.25). The strategy records 195 places in the Heritage Overlay, which means the source set contains different point-in-time counts and does not provide a reconciled schedule of current HO places (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.8; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.25).
The other statutory pathway is Action 11, which requires a program for protecting places of heritage significance identified through the gaps analysis and ongoing research, implemented through planning scheme amendments (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.28). This means the strategy is likely to generate multiple future amendments rather than a single completed control change, particularly because the West Moorabool Heritage Study has about 500 sites not progressed within Stage 2A and the background report says those sites will need to be advanced through future study stages and amendments (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.21, 25).
Growth Areas, Township Change, and Heritage Risk
The strategy treats growth as a heritage management issue because the Shire expects most population growth to occur in Bacchus Marsh and Ballan, and it says heritage values need to remain front of mind as development moves into previously rural areas (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.8). That does not mean heritage blocks growth by default; it means the planning system needs earlier identification, clearer significance statements, mapped curtilages, and design guidance so heritage is addressed before subdivision layouts, road alignments, streetscape upgrades, or building envelopes become difficult to change (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-23, 27-29).
The background report ties the strategy to existing growth documents. The Bacchus Marsh Urban Growth Framework identifies cultural and geological heritage and built heritage as issues, including state or national significance places such as the Parwan Lava Caves on private land, and includes strategies to protect Aboriginal cultural heritage and other Bacchus Marsh heritage assets through Heritage Overlays (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.13-14). Housing Bacchus Marsh to 2041 identifies heritage streetscapes, historic buildings, the Avenue of Honour, and character precincts, including Lerderderg Street as an intact Bacchus Marsh precinct with heritage and character values (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.13-14). Ballan Strategic Directions identifies historic buildings, built form, streetscapes, and two proposed heritage precincts from the West Moorabool Heritage Study as part of Ballan’s character management framework (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.12).
The unresolved mechanism is guidance for integrating heritage into new development. The strategy lists a lack of guidance on adaptive reuse in new developments as a protecting challenge, and it identifies sensitive integration of heritage sites and features into new development and growth areas as an opportunity (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-23). Action 9 responds by requiring heritage guidelines, but the source documents do not define their scope, statutory status, or relationship to existing urban design guidance (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.28). Until those guidelines exist, heritage issues in growth areas are likely to be handled case-by-case through permit referrals, advisory input, and amendment processes rather than through a single clear development standard (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.14, 30-32).
Knowledge Backlog and Evidence Quality
The strategy’s first theme, Knowing, is the foundation for the rest of the program because Council cannot protect, manage, or interpret places reliably if they are not identified, mapped, cited, and explained (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21, 27). The evidence backlog has four separate layers: about 500 West Moorabool Heritage Study sites outside Stage 2A, 27 existing Heritage Overlay places without citations, HERMES entries with errors or omissions, and the absence of a thematic environmental history covering the whole Shire (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.27; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.21, 25-26, 31).
The West Moorabool backlog is the most material because it can eventually change the planning controls that apply to land. The background report says Stage 2A has been completed, but about 500 identified sites were not progressed within Stage 2A and will need to be progressed through future amendments or studies (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.21, 25). The strategy does not identify the location, significance level, land area, ownership, or likely overlay outcome for those 500 sites, so the current source set cannot quantify how many properties may receive new controls or how much land might be affected (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.21).
The thematic environmental history is the other important missing piece. Action 5 seeks funding to complete a thematic environmental history to inform the gaps analysis and increase knowledge of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal cultural heritage across the Shire (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.27). Mechanically, this matters because a thematic history is the map of topics before individual places are assessed; without it, some types of heritage may be over-represented because they are well known, while other places may remain invisible because their story has not yet been systematically researched (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.18-20).
First Nations Cultural Heritage and Shared Values
The strategy recognises Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Wadawurrung, and Dja Dja Wurrung as Traditional Owner groups connected to Moorabool Shire, and it lists three Registered Aboriginal Parties with cultural knowledge (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.2, 4, 8). It also records that First Peoples forged connections with the area deep in time and that the Kulin Nation moved seasonally across approximately two million hectares of land, creating relationships among clans, landscapes, sites, and resources (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.4). The background report uses 40,000 years for the time depth while the strategy uses at least 60,000 years, so the source set contains a discrepancy on this historical framing (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.2; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.4).
The key planning mechanism is that Aboriginal cultural heritage is not limited to buildings or visible objects. The background report says the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation advised that cultural heritage includes tangible and intangible heritage, that heritage did not begin with European settlement, and that First Nations values should be represented through Cultural Values Assessments or Cultural Values Statements in areas with many heritage listings (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.32-33). Wurundjeri Aboriginal Corporation advised that Aboriginal and European history should not be segregated and that early engagement, storytelling, and interpretive signage are important, including in precinct structure planning contexts (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.32).
The strategy responds through engagement, storytelling, internal capacity building, links to First Peoples State Relations information, and place naming or interpretation in growth areas with cultural approval (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-23, 27-29). The gap is that the action plan does not commit to a Reconciliation Action Plan, a formal Cultural Values Assessment policy for large-scale development, or a funded program of Country Plan implementation, even though those matters were raised in consultation (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.17, 32-33). This does not mean those actions cannot occur elsewhere; it means they are not fully specified in the strategy documents available for this page (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.18-20).
Council Assets, Maintenance, and Demolition by Neglect
Council’s role as owner and manager is a separate risk from its role as regulator. The background report says Council manages three sites on the Victorian Heritage Register, owns two of those sites, and none of those sites has a Conservation Management Plan (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.22). The strategy responds through Action 10, which requires an audit of all Council-owned or managed heritage assets to identify physical condition and develop a conservation maintenance program consistent with the Victorian Government heritage asset audit toolkit (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.28).
This is important because heritage risk is often created by slow deterioration rather than a single permit application. Community survey respondents identified demolition by neglect as a concern at 88 percent, and they identified retention of existing heritage buildings and places as a major challenge at 64 percent (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.35, 39). The legislative context has also changed: the Planning and Environment Act Amendment 2021 introduced powers related to heritage buildings that have been unlawfully demolished or fallen into disrepair, including provisions that can prevent development benefit from unlawful demolition or disrepair (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.8-9). The strategy does not identify a local enforcement protocol, resourcing model, or priority list for at-risk privately owned heritage places, so demolition-by-neglect risk remains more clearly diagnosed than operationally resolved in the available source documents (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-29).
Community Evidence and Service Demand
The consultation evidence shows a strong gap between community expectations and current awareness of Council support. The community survey ran from 11 October to 11 November 2022 and received 86 completed responses, with 57 percent of respondents having lived in the Shire for more than 20 years, 92 percent being property owners, 75 percent living in a town or suburb, and 45 percent aged 50 to 65 (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.33). This sample is useful for understanding engaged residents and heritage property owners, but it is not a statistically balanced Shire-wide population survey because the source does not provide sampling controls or demographic weighting (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.33).
The responses still identify clear service problems. Sixty-five percent of respondents were unaware of the 2016-2020 Heritage Strategy, 73 percent said Council did not provide adequate heritage protection, 91 percent said heritage was not well promoted in the Shire, 75 percent were unaware of the free Heritage Advisory Service, and zero percent said Council provided adequate support and education for owners of heritage places (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.33-36). The strategy’s communications actions respond directly to those numbers: Action 20 requires a communications plan for the Heritage Advisory Service, Action 22 requires an information kit for heritage property owners, and Action 23 requires local heritage documentation to be available in physical and digital form, including an interactive map portal (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.29).
The service-capacity issue remains open. The background report says the Heritage Advisory Service was established in February 2020 and is available one day per week, and consultation identified future demand and lack of a dedicated heritage staff resource as ongoing challenges (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.14; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.21). If the strategy succeeds in increasing awareness of the service, demand may rise before staff capacity or funding is increased, so Council may need to manage expectations through triage, published guidance, and clearer online information (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21, 29).
Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Bid
The Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Bid is the main cross-council heritage dependency in the strategy. The strategy says 15 local governments, including Moorabool, have partnered under leadership from the Cities of Ballarat and Greater Bendigo to progress the bid, and it says Moorabool may contain one or more individual places that could form part of a serial listing of representative sites (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.24). The source says those places are likely to be confirmed during the 2024-2028 strategy period, but it does not identify the sites, statutory consequences, nomination timetable, or land management obligations (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.24).
For planning purposes, the bid is both a heritage recognition process and a future management uncertainty. Action 18 requires Council to contribute to and advocate for Moorabool’s inclusion in the bid, while Actions 15 and 19 require internal and external stakeholder work to plan for bid-related regional opportunities and experiences (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.28-29). Until the bid confirms whether any Moorabool places are included, the strategy can only prepare capacity, interpretation, and stakeholder coordination; it cannot yet define additional statutory controls or site-specific management requirements (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.24).
Current Status
The source strategy is dated August 2024 and covers the period 2024-2028 (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.1). The action plan sets short actions for the first year, medium actions for two years, long actions for three or more years, and ongoing actions across the life of the strategy (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.27). Short-term actions include correcting HERMES errors, undertaking a heritage gaps analysis, completing Amendment C85 West Moorabool Heritage Study 2A Review, and preparing a communications plan for the Heritage Advisory Service (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.27-29).
The documents available here do not include Council minutes confirming adoption, a budget allocation for each action, the current text of Amendment C85, or the current Heritage Overlay schedule (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.18-20, 25-28). The safest current status is therefore that the strategy is the published 2024-2028 work program, with implementation dependent on funding, staff capacity, further studies, and future planning scheme amendments (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-29).
Dependencies
- Blocks: The strategy blocks full certainty on future heritage control changes until the gaps analysis, citations, curtilage reviews, and future amendment program are completed (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.27-28).
- Blocks: It also delays full integration of heritage into growth-area design until guidelines, mapping, and owner or applicant information are prepared (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21-23, 28-29).
- Blocked by: Further heritage studies depend on funding, and the strategy repeatedly identifies funding as a constraint for West Moorabool study progression, conservation management plans, heritage projects, and promotion (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.21, 27-29).
- Blocked by: Statutory protection of newly identified places depends on future planning scheme amendments after evidence work is complete (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.28).
- Informed by: The strategy is informed by the 2016-2020 strategy review, legislative and policy review, consultation with community and internal teams, historical societies, the Heritage Advisory Committee, and Registered Aboriginal Parties (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.5, 16-17).
- Implements: It implements local further strategic work identified after Amendment C100, including heritage studies for areas not covered by the Bacchus Marsh or West Moorabool heritage studies and updating the Heritage Overlay to reflect the West Moorabool Heritage Study (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.11).
- Conflicts with: The source documents identify tension between population growth, new development in rural areas, and retention of heritage places, but they do not document a resolved hierarchy between growth delivery and heritage conservation in specific precincts (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.8, 21-23; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.39).
Cross-Jurisdictional Links
The strategy has cross-jurisdictional links through the Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Bid, which involves 15 councils and is led by Ballarat and Greater Bendigo (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.24). It also has regional cultural-route links because the Heritage Advisor identified opportunities to connect Moorabool heritage promotion with nearby municipalities including Ballarat, Melton, and Golden Plains (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, p.31). Traditional Owner governance is also cross-boundary because Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung, Wadawurrung, and Dja Dja Wurrung Country extends beyond Moorabool’s municipal boundary (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.2, 4).
Gaps in This Analysis
The available source set is sufficient to analyse the strategy’s mechanisms, but it is not sufficient to quantify property-level effects. The missing documents include the current Moorabool Heritage Overlay schedule, Amendment C85 documents, the West Moorabool Heritage Study Stage 2A and remaining-stage material, the Bacchus Marsh Heritage Study update material, current HERMES export data, and any Council adoption report or implementation budget (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.21, 25-28).
The largest analytical gap is the unidentified land and property footprint of the approximately 500 West Moorabool sites not progressed in Stage 2A, because the source documents do not provide their locations, significance levels, ownership pattern, or likely overlay controls (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.21, 25). A second gap is First Nations cultural heritage implementation: the sources record strong advice about Cultural Values Assessments, shared histories, dual naming, and a Reconciliation Action Plan, but the adopted action plan does not provide a funded or statutory pathway for all of those matters (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028-background-report.pdf, pp.32-33; Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, pp.27-29). A third gap is the Victorian Goldfields World Heritage Bid, because Moorabool’s possible serial-listing places had not been identified in these documents (Source: heritage-strategy-2024-2028.pdf, p.24). These should be recorded in _gaps before any property-level or site-level heritage constraint analysis is treated as complete.