The City of Ballarat is calling upon the community to help name a group of public parks.
A total of nine different parks, all located in Ballarat's west, do not currently have official names or are sometimes referred to by informal names.
In order to ensure compliance with Geographic Names Victoria, the City of Ballarat is now starting a process to formally name all nine spaces.
The formal naming of the reserves (parks) is important to properly align with emergency services, ensuring the fastest possible response times should an incident occur.
It also creates an opportunity to celebrate local history, reflect the Ballarat community, and increase representation in place naming.
The Victorian Government's Our Equal State: Victoria's gender equality strategy and action plan 2023-2027 sets a target for 70 percent of new commemorative naming of roads, place names and landmarks to be named after women by 2027, with this project to work towards supporting that goal.
Most of the parks included on the list currently feature playgrounds or open recreation areas and are located in Winter Valley and Alfredton.
The City of Ballarat has launched a MySay page where people can suggest names that give the reserves identity and meaning.
Consultation will also be available in-person at the upcoming Let's Chat Ballarat Community Expo on Thursday 26 March and Friday 27 March.
City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Tracey Hargreaves said the project was a great opportunity for the community to play a significant role in naming a reserve for future generations.
"This is a real chance for people to come forward with their ideas and help us name many of our parks that currently don't have an official name," she said.
"It's also important work to be undertaken - we need to make sure we officially register these reserves so emergency services can respond as quickly as possible if they need to."
Following the initial phase of accepting community suggestions, further engagement will take place later this year for the public to have a further say on shortlisted names.
Meanwhile, the City of Ballarat is also undertaking work to formally adopt at least 35 other currently unnamed reserves.
These reserves span across the entire municipality and are a mixture of:
- Small reserves that will be named by the City of Ballarat, likely with a simple, generic name (such as being named after an adjacent street).
- Reserves that have been identified as potentially culturally appropriate for naming in conjunction with the Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation.
- Legacy reserves that have been informally named for more than 10 years, but have never been officially gazzetted.
Visit the MySay page to learn more about what names might be considered and to submit proposed names for consideration.
