Following extensive community consultation a Draft Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) was developed and placed on exhibition.

The Draft Plan sets out what Council will do over the next four years to make the Central Coast more accessible and inclusive. This Plan will assist in ensuring that people with a disability can access the same services and supports that the rest of the community can access.

The vision for the Plan is “An accessible and inclusive place to live, visit, work and play” and it has 4 focus areas:

1. Increasing positive attitudes and behaviours towards people with disability
2. Making the Coast more accessible, liveable and inclusive
3. Increasing meaningful employment for people with disability
4. Improving access to Council services through better systems and processes

The draft Plan is based on what people with disabilities, their families and carers told us, as well as people who work in the disability sector and Council’s Access and Inclusion Reference Group. It is still important to ensure that we have got in right.

Submissions were to be addressed to the Chief Executive Officer, Mr David Farmer between 16 August and 13 September 2021 via email, post or by completing the online submission form.

There were a number of ways you could view the draft DIAP including:

• Reading the full draft document available in the document library
• Viewing the easy read version
• Watching the Auslan video summary prepared for the draft DIAP:

The Disability Inclusion Action Plan was adopted at the meeting of Council on the 26 October 2021, visit Councils main website to view the adopted plan.

Something you need to know: Under the Government Information (Public Access) Act, 2009 (GIPA ACT), members of the public can seek access to the submissions and council cannot give assurance that the document will remain confidential.

Council are developing a new Disability Inclusion Action Plan for the Central Coast.

The purpose of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan is to outline the actions Council will take to remove barriers and improve access for people with disability so they can participate in all areas of community life.

Councils existing plan expired in July 2021.

Between 7 August and 30 September 2020 Council undertook community consultation to find out what the priorities of the DIAP should be and what Council can do to make life easier for people with disabilities on the Central Coast.

During the consultation, the community were invited to:

• Complete the online survey as either a community member or person working in the disability sector
• Participate in an online forum

All of the information collected during the consultation has been used to inform the development of the new Disability Inclusion Action Plan.