The third round of community engagement in QVM Renewal plans has
arrived and traders are being asked to consider and respond in many different
ways. But does your view really count and how do you make it count?
The input of traders is very important if this renewal is to be
successful. The City of Melbourne is blessed with some excellent planners, and
many are involved with this project, but getting a grand plan right requires
"on the ground" experience and knowledge. Ideas that look great on
paper need to work in reality and the vision of that reality lies in the brains
of many traders.
You can look at this in
another way. Traders provide the conduit that converts a simple plan into many
millions of dollars worth of sales through product supply and customer
engagement. Our role is essential to the financial viability of QVM and that brings with it a responsibility to engage and advise.
As an individual trader you may feel your voice is going to be
lost in the volume of responses but there are various ways to ensure you are
heard. Firstly there is the Engagement Hub at 452 Queen St. That will get you
into the mainstream participation process run by CoM. The hub is run by
professional recorders and will record the views of all participants including traders,
customers and community members. You can also express your views online by completing a survey here - http://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/projects/queenvictoriamarket/
Another way to communicate is through your QVMAC
Representatives. Your Representatives operate this website (Victraders) and have the facilities to record and publish your views if you wish. Representatives would like to get copies of your responses
so that our final submission to management on the Draft Master Plan
incorporates as many trader views as possible. You can send or hand copies of
your responses to your Representative or you can comment through the Have Your
Say facility below. You can also call the editor on 0406 222 020 and have your
views put into print. We will respect your privacy if you prefer not to be identified.
It is now one week since the Draft master Plan was made available for download. QVMAC Trader Representatives conducted information sessions after the market on Tuesday and Thursday this week, and there is still time to book into some of the formal information sessions that were noted in a previous post - http://www.victraders.com/2015/02/renewal-engagement-sessions-for-traders.html .
We urge traders to become informed and we welcome your input with comments and questions as soon as you are ready.
