Community Insights

If you are chosen from our random selection, you’ll receive an invitation to take part in a digital survey via email or letter with a unique code to your household.

Share your experience by completing our user-friendly digital survey.

Your input influences community policies, projects and services.

This round of the study asked questions about local activities and daily life in the City of Whittlesea. 

This round of the study asks questions about neighbourhood safety, connections and support within the community. It also seeks to understand residents' involvement in community activities and decision making.

This round of the study asks questions about quality of life, sense of place and belonging, disaster preparedness, personal support and knowledge of healthy lifestyle behaviours.

13% of respondents reported a travel time of less than 15 minutes to get to work.

• Car – 76%
• Walk – 4%
• Bicycle – 1%
• Public transport – 17%
• Other – 2%

Childcare/kinder

• Car – 82%
• Walk – 14%
• Bicycle – 3%
• Public transport – 1%

Primary School

• Car – 84%
• Walk – 13%
• Bicycle – 3%
• Public transport – 0%

Secondary School

• Car – 76%
• Walk – 6%
• Bicycle – 2%
• Public transport – 15%

• 57% of the surveyed residents are extremely, very or somewhat satisfied with childcare quality and services in the local area
• 64% of the surveyed residents are extremely, very or somewhat satisfied with the quality of services of kindergarten.

Shopping and entertainment centre

• 58% of the respondents are extremely, very or somewhat satisfied with the ease of travelling to their favourite shopping and dining area with 86% going at least once a week
• 77% travel by car.

Parks, gardens, trails and reserves

• 29% of the respondents who visited parks, gardens, trails reserves
• 60% were extremely, very or somewhat satisfied with them.

Discover local parks, gardens, trails and reserves via our Local parks and reserves page.

Sports and recreation facilities

• 17% of the respondents visited sports and recreation facilities
• 61% were extremely, very or somewhat satisfied with them.

Find our local sports and leisure facilities via our Sports and leisure page.

Local libraries

• 12% of the respondents visited libraries
• 78% were extremely, very or somewhat satisfied with them.

Our libraries are open, accessible, inclusive and free to all residents. To find out more, please visit our libraries page.

• 42% of the surveyed community members feel part of the community
• 62% of the surveyed residents are proud to live in their neighbourhood
• 40% of the surveyed residents somewhat or strongly agree that people in their neighbourhood have a strong sense of community
• 32% of the surveyed residents have reported feeling lonely in the past week
• 63% of these aged between 35 to 64.

To connect to others in your area, find a range of local community groups by browsing our community directory.

• 88% of residents reported feeling somewhat or very safe during the day
• 47% reported feeling somewhat or very safe after dark
• 62% of women feel somewhat or very unsafe on public transport at night compared to 44% of men.

Our Community Safety and Crime Prevention Strategy aims to improve safety and minimise crime.

• 38% of residents have volunteered in the last year
• 57% of these locally within the City of Whittlesea
• 79% of residents report that multiculturalism makes life in their area better
• 41% of residents were born overseas.

To become a volunteer in our community, check GoVolunteer for current volunteering opportunities.

Visit GoVolunteer

• Half of our sampled residents have reported that they are not aware that they could provide feedback to council.
• Only 18% were aware of the Engage Whittlesea Online platform.

Visit Engage Whittlesea website

For more information, you can reach out to us on engagement@whittlesea.vic.gov.au

84% feel valued in their community.

Fruits

• 65% consumes 1 or 2 serves of fruits daily.

1 serve of fruit = one medium sized piece of fruit

Vegetables

• Only 6% consumes 5 serves or more vegetables daily.

1 serve of vegetable = one cup of salad or half a cup of cooked vegetables

Water

• Only 23% drinks 7 or more glasses of water a day.

1 glass = 250ml

Recommended rates as per Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC): Fruits - 2 serves; Vegetables - 5 serves; Water - 8 glasses

Fast food

• 43% consume fast food at least once a week.

Soft drinks

• 44% consumes soft drinks at least once a week.

Alcohol

• 28% never consumed alcohol in the last year
• 4% consumed daily.

Sleep

• 96% of respondents mentioned adequate sleep is very or moderately important
• 78% gets at least 5 to 8 hours of sleep on a weeknight
• 12% gets over 8 hours of sleep on a weeknight.

Physical exercise

• 95% of respondents believes regular physical exercise is very or moderately important

• 45% did not do moderate to vigorous exercise for at least 2.5 hours a week. 

Gambling

• 47% of respondents participated in some form of gambling last year
• 62% participated in Tatts Lotteries
• 38% participated in other forms of gambling.

Tobacco use

• Current smokers – 9%
• Ex smokers – 25%
• Non-smokers – 64%

41% of residents reported finding it somewhat or very difficult to see a doctor, with long waiting lists, challenges in securing appointments at convenient times, and cost as the primary barriers to accessing medical care.

• 77% of the surveyed residents do not have any emergency plans prepared in the event of a natural disaster
• 87% have someone they could call for assistance for non-life threatening emergency
• In an emergency, 67% could raise $2000 in 2 days including accessing own savings, borrowing money or using a credit/bank card.

Access local emergency information for residents via the Emergency page.

Residents are randomly selected from our database and invited to take part in the survey by mail or email. Residents may also receive an SMS notification about the survey.

Each invitation is a unique link to ensure the survey can be completed only once.

Some residents can also participate by clicking through from an online ad.

To take part, respondents must be 15 years or older and a current resident of the City of Whittlesea.

If you are selected to take part in the study, you will receive a letter or an email with detailed instructions on how to complete the survey. You will be requested to click a link in the email or scan a QR code and enter your unique number to access the digital survey.

If you have seen an ad for the survey, you can simply click through to complete the survey. 

The survey will take you approximately 12 minutes to complete. You will have three to four weeks to respond to the survey. 

Each survey has a different set of questions to help us learn about your experiences living in the City of Whittlesea. We are not looking for specific feedback about programs or polices in these surveys, instead we want to learn more from our community about changing trends over time.

Depending on the survey you receive, you may be asked about:

• local activities and daily life in the City of Whittlesea
• neighbourhood safety, connections, support and involvement within the community
• quality of life
• sense of belonging
• disaster preparedness
• knowledge of healthy lifestyle behaviours. 

The information you provide will be combined with responses from other members of the community to produce statistical data for the City of Whittlesea.

No, participation is voluntary. You can stop at any time without explanation or penalty. You are free to withdraw your responses from the study until data analysis has begun. During the data analysis stage, all responses will be de-identified and we will no longer be able to identify the responses provided by you. 

Your insights help make the community a better place to live, work and play. It is only through individual contributions that we can track how the community is changing over time. This helps us to know what to focus on now and in the future so that we can remain responsive to the needs of our residents. 

We recommend you complete the survey using a computer or a tablet. While you can do the survey on a mobile phone, the question layout may be a little more difficult to navigate.  

No, you don’t need to do the survey all in one go. As you go through the survey, your responses are saved automatically. This means you can come back and complete the survey later from where you left off.

The survey can be completed in the following languages: Arabic, Chinese - Simplified, Chinese - Traditional, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Macedonian, Malayalam, Persian, Punjabi, Sinhala, Vietnamese and Turkish. At the beginning of the survey, select your preferred language. To use the free interpreter service, call 131 450.

We publish a summary of our findings on our website for the community to view. The results will also be published in strategic reports that we are required to deliver to keep information transparent and accountable to the community and other government levels.  

The information you share will be combined with other respondents to produce statistical data for the municipality. During the data collection and reporting period (approximately four months), survey responses are stored on a secure server hosted by Australian Survey Research (ASR). Following this, the survey data is cleaned and de-identified before being moved to a database on the City of Whittlesea’s cloud server. 

You can access the information you provide by contacting us on 03 9217 2170.  You can only do this until it has been de-identified during the data analysis stage. At this time, we will no longer be able to identify the responses provided by you.

Your information is provided in accordance with the principles in the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014 and our Privacy and Data Protection Policy. Information that identifies individual people or households is never published and your personal information will not be disclosed to any other organisation.

For more information about the Community Insights study or for assistance in completing the survey, please contact Customer Service on 03 9217 2170 and ask to speak to a member of the Research and Analytics department. If you have a complaint, you may call the same number. All complaints are treated confidentially.