Warrnambool City Council are seeking to engage a suitably qualified and experienced service provider to prepare the Warrnambool Retail-Commercial Strategy.

The primary aim of the Strategy is to foster a highly accessible and robust activity centre network across the municipality that maximises net community benefit. The Strategy will provide a coordinated municipal response to managing the demand for retail and other commercial floor space as well as providing certainty for substantial investments.

The need for the Strategy is identified as a strategic priority at Clause 72.04 of the Warrnambool Planning Scheme and has been referenced by independent Planning Panels in the consideration of recent planning scheme amendments.

The key aims of the project are to:

• Enable the council to establish a clear, evidence-based activity centres hierarchy with appropriately sized activity centres for current and future population catchments.
• Determine the current land supply available in the municipality’s activity centres to accommodate retail and other commercial uses and whether the current supplies are appropriately located.
• Provide advice on the ‘market gap’ (i.e. the over-supply or shortfall of retail and other commercial land supply, and in relation to supermarket and discount department stores), including estimates that outline the additional land area required to accommodate retail and other commercial uses, where this should be located and when this is likely to be needed.
• Recommend how retail and other commercial floor space growth should be apportioned across the municipality’s network of activity centres and other commercial areas.
• Provide advice on the statutory and non-regulatory mechanisms available to the council to diversify the land use mix and attract more non-retail commercial jobs in to activity centres.
• Reduce the need for centre-specific economic impact assessments through the development of a robust activity centre hierarchy which is informed by evidence and intelligence regarding likely retail and other commercial floor space growth.