The Northwest Alliance has made its formal submission responding to the newly exhibited Geelong Strategic Assessment (Northern and Western Geelong Growth Areas – NWGGA) documentation, published in November 2025. This stage represents what is likely to be the final opportunity for public comment before the package proceeds to Council for approval, an important milestone for a landscape undergoing rapid ecological decline.
Our submission recognises that the current documentation is materially improved from previous iterations. However, it also sets out a clear and evidence-based case for why substantial further work is required to ensure that biodiversity values across the NWGGA are not further eroded. The Alliance is deeply concerned that, despite multiple rounds of feedback over several years, several core issues remain unresolved.
Drawing on the expertise of our member groups, including grassland specialists, local creek advocates, ecologists, and long-standing community landcare organisations, the submission identifies seven priority matters requiring urgent correction or strengthening. These include:
• the absence of a realistic acquisition timeline for conservation land,
• the lack of any provisions for interim management,
• insufficient protection and poorly justified boundaries for the Cowies Creek Conservation Area,
• weak safeguards for Conservation Area boundaries generally,
• inadequate survey requirements,
• the need for clarity and expansion of protection along the Moorabool River corridor, and
• critically weak commitments for the Gully Avoidance Area.
As the submission makes clear, deferring land acquisition, failing to secure interim management arrangements, and leaving ecological assets unmanaged for years is likely to result in ongoing biodiversity decline—and may ultimately compromise the objectives of the Geelong Strategic Assessment itself. Lessons from the Melbourne Strategic Assessment process demonstrate unequivocally that conservation land left unmanaged in private ownership suffers rapid deterioration and is vulnerable to avoidable risk. These issues are not abstract; they are operational, practical, and entirely foreseeable.
The Alliance also raises significant concerns about the scale of residual biodiversity loss still embedded in the proposal—over 760 hectares of habitat for Natural Temperate Grassland, Striped Legless Lizard, and Golden Sun Moth. While the opportunity has passed to reopen arguments about the overall offsetting framework, the submission emphasises the need for transparency, effective enforcement, and stronger long-term management to prevent further erosion of ecological values.
In preparing this response, the Northwest Alliance brings together a coalition of organisations with decades of combined experience in biodiversity conservation, landscape ecology, and urban growth planning. Our member groups include Batesford Fyansford and Stonehaven Landcare Group, Cool Geelong, Friends of Cowies Creek, Friends of the Bannockburn Bush, Geelong Field Naturalists Club, Grassy Plains Network, Koala Clancy Foundation, Parents for Climate Action (Geelong–Bellarine–Surfcoast), People for a Living Moorabool, the Victorian National Parks Association, and VVP Biosphere.
We invite community members, planners, councillors, and decision-makers to read the full submission and consider how these remaining issues can be resolved swiftly and decisively. With ecological values across the NWGGA continuing to decline, this is a crucial moment to ensure the Strategic Assessment delivers the environmental protections that Geelong’s future communities—and the region’s threatened species—depend upon.
You can read the full submission here: NWA Submission regarding the Documentation for the Geelong Strategic Assessment (NWGGA), November 2025.