Recognition, retention, enhancement and preservation of historic assets - dating back to indigenous cultural heritage - has been confirmed as a priority for Brimbank City Council with the recent endorsement of the Heritage Strategy 2013-2015.

Specific sites like 19th century cottages, Edwardian villas and pieces of Sunshine’s industrial heritage are identified; along with larger areas including unique subdivision designs, housing estates built for ICI, HV McKay, Commonwealth Munitions and the railways, dry stone walls, St Albans ‘half-houses’, trees and gardens.

The three-year action plan, informed by public consultation and advice from Heritage Victoria, identifies 17 measurable objectives within four guiding principles:

  1. Knowing: identifying, assessing and documenting heritage places, sites and objects.
  2. Protecting: securing statutory protection for significant places and developing policy to assist decision making and management.
  3. Supporting: providing incentives, advisory services and financial assistance for heritage projects, and
  4. Community and promoting: identifying and implementing measures to raise awareness, education and appreciation of heritage in the municipality.

The strategy also confirms Council’s current heritage initiatives including heritage design guidelines, free heritage advisory service and heritage assistance fund.

The strategy proposes a revision of the Brimbank Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Strategy which identifies more than 400 cultural places, and the Post-Contact Heritage Study which since 2007 has been the basis for protecting hundreds of significant individual sites and precincts.

The full report is available on our Council's Policies, Strategies and Plans page.