Child care is an essential community service and with the rising demand for child care premises in both metropolitan and regional areas, it is imperative to achieve the right balance, to ensure that the development of child care premises occurs in appropriate locations.
The draft position statement updates the Planning Bulletin 72 Child Care Centres (August 2009) and aims to provide decision-makers, proponents and the community with a consistent policy approach to planning for child care premises in Western Australia.
The draft delivers key improvements including:
- Encouraging the co-location of child care with schools, allowing for the development of child care premises to be considered when planning for the development of new public primary schools.
- More location options for co-locating child care premises on government reserves (intended for community and educational uses) and mixed commercial type zones, allowing for more flexible hours of operation to cater to the increasing number of families who have irregular or out-of-ordinary work hours.
- Ensuring that proponents adequately demonstrate that their development will not create unsafe conditions for the children and families, or pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles using the roads near child care premises.
- Emphasising requirements that any noise impact on adjacent residential properties be minimised to a level acceptable to the decision-maker.
- Ensuring external negative impacts, such as service station fumes and heavy vehicle traffic noise and exhaust, are recognised and addressed.
- Prioritising children’s health and safety by reference to the Act and Regulations that apply guidance and standards for existing and future child care premises.
