How to have your say by Friday
- Who can respond
- People living with disability; and family members, carers and service providers. Each group has its own survey.
- People living with disability
- Public Places and Spaces Accessibility Survey, people living with disability (26 questions)
- Family, carers, providers
- Public Places and Spaces Accessibility Survey, family members, carers and service providers (24 questions)
- Closes
- 11.59pm, Friday 16 October 2026. It opened on 4 September.
- Questions
- Parkes Shire Council, Planning and Community Services, 02 6861 2333 or council@parkes.nsw.gov.au
The council says what the answers are for:
Your feedback will help Council better understand current accessibility barriers and identify priorities for future improvements, maintenance programs and capital works projects.
The surveys cover three things: footpaths, public toilets, and the council-operated
recreation, learning and leisure facilities across the shire. The council ties them to
Pillar 2 of its disability plan, Liveable Communities.
What the council's plan already says
This is not the first time the council has asked. When it consulted for its Disability
Inclusion Action Plan 2025-2029, the plan reports, The survey showed that the facilities that people are most likely to find difficult to access were footpaths and public toilets, followed by bus shelters, sports and recreation centres, Council events and festivals, and accessible parking.
Among the things people asked for were Provide more accessible public toilets
and to improve footpaths. One respondent, quoted in the plan, asked the council to survey
every footpath and address the abundance of trip hazards and blocked sections
,
naming grass edges and overhanging bushes and trees.
The plan also says a footpath survey of that kind was done. Among the highlights it lists
from the life of the previous plan (2017 to 2025), the council says it
Completed a detailed footpath audit on our 177km footpath network.
It adds: This audit captured Council’s compliant and non-compliant kerb cut outs.
The audit identified trip hazards.
Civil works funding has been allocated for disability specific projects.
The plan does not date the audit within that period or say which projects got the money.
We looked for the audit, or a list of works drawn from it, on the council's website and did not find either. It is not among the 37 documents in the council's strategies, plans and reports library, and the council's Road and Footpath Assets and Roads Program pages do not mention it. The 2026-27 capital budget has one footpath line, $150,000 of council money under the name PSC Footpaths, with no streets or locations. That does not mean the audit is unused. It means a resident cannot see what it found or what has been fixed since.
The council's own documents also disagree on how much footpath there is. The plan calls it a 177 km network, and the 2026-27 Operational Plan says the council manages 177 km of footpath and cycleways on one page; the same document's transport chapter gives 57 km of footpaths and cycleways, and 177 km of kerb and gutter. The council's Road and Footpath Assets page gives more than 48,000 square metres of footpath and 138 km of kerb and guttering. We could not reconcile them from the documents.
What the plan commits to, and how it will measure it
Pillar 2 of the plan has five actions. Every one is scheduled for the whole four-year term, 2025/26 to 2028/29, with no year-by-year milestone.
| Action | Scheduled | How the plan will measure it |
|---|---|---|
| 2.1.1 Progressively improve the accessibility of footpaths | 2025/26 to 2028/29 | Number of footpaths or shared paths constructed, per lineal metre. No target is given. |
| 2.2.1 Improve the accessibility of public toilets, including wayfinding | 2025/26 to 2028/29 | The council website shows the location of public toilets and their access features. |
| 2.2.2 Improve access to council recreation, learning and leisure facilities | 2025/26 to 2028/29 | Review access to town libraries, aquatic centres, the Little Theatre, sports fields and playgrounds; the website and Visitor Guide carry access features. |
| 2.3.1 Improve access to the Administration Centre and Visitor Information Centre | 2025/26 to 2028/29 | A review of whether the buildings are accessible. |
| 2.3.2 Upgrade and renew public accessible adult change toilets | 2025/26 to 2028/29 | Public toilets modified or replaced by accessible adult toilets as needed; the Access and Inclusion Advisory Group consulted on priorities. |
Summarised from the Parkes Shire Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2025-2029,
Pillar 2 action tables. The footpath measure's own words are shared paths per lineal metre constructed
.
The plan says its actions will be built into the council's operational planning, so we
read the 2026-27 Operational Plan and the council's progress report for January to June
2026. The 2026-27 plan attaches action 2.1.1 to one yearly measure, the length of pavement
rehabilitation, with a target of 3.5 km a year. The progress report marks that measure
achieved for 2025-26, with the comment
The length of pavement rehabilitation was completed across State, Regional and Local Roads
.
Neither document gives a length of footpath built or repaired.
On adult change toilets the progress report is more specific. It says
There is an interest to deliver an adult change facility this will depend entirely on grant funding
,
then that the grant was approved, with planning into the next year, in Church Street in the
CBD. Among the grants the report lists for the June quarter is
$122,940 to Parkes Shire Council under the Accessible Australia grant program for a fully accessible Changing Places amenity in the CBD
.
Neither document gives a date for it to open.
Public toilets: the council's page now sends you to the national map
Action 2.2.1 is measured by the council's website showing where its toilets are and what access features they have. The council's Public toilets page now redirects straight to the National Public Toilet Map, which carries the logo of the Australian Government's Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. On 14 October that map listed 16 facilities with Parkes Shire Council as the provider, across Parkes, Peak Hill, Trundle, Tullamore, Alectown and Cookamidgera.
| Feature shown on the map | Listings |
|---|---|
| Accessible toilet | 15 |
| Baby change | 4 |
| Ambulant facilities | 2 |
| Accessible parking | 2 |
| MLAK key access after hours | 2 |
| Transfer side recorded (left or right hand) | 1 |
| Adult change or Changing Places | 0 |
Our count of the features the National Public Toilet Map records for each of the 16 facilities it lists under Parkes Shire Council as provider, read from the map's own facility data on 14 October 2026. The one listing with a transfer side is Cooke Park, Parkes, which records both. The map shows what has been entered for each toilet; a feature not recorded there may still exist.
The basics are there: 15 of the 16 are marked accessible. The detail a wheelchair user plans a trip around mostly is not, such as which side the transfer space is on, and no listing yet shows an adult change facility, consistent with the progress report's account of one still being planned.
Our view
Labelled as opinion. Answer the survey if it applies to you, and be
specific: the street, the crossing, the kerb ramp, the toilet. That is the part an audit
cannot supply. An audit can record that a kerb cut-out is non-compliant or a slab is lifted;
it cannot tell the council which of the defects it records sits on the route someone uses to get
to the chemist every day, which is the ranking this round asks for when it seeks
priorities for future improvements, maintenance programs and capital works projects
.
On that reading the council is asking the right question.
What the plan does not yet give residents is a way to check the answer. Every Pillar 2 action runs across all four years. The footpath action counts metres built with no target, and the one yearly number the operational plan attaches to it is reported against roads. Adult change toilets come as needed, and the first one has waited on a grant. None of that is wrong in itself, but together it will make it hard for anyone outside the council to tell in 2029 how much of the plan was delivered. The useful product of this survey would be a published list: which footpaths and crossings, which toilets, in which year, from which budget line and at roughly what cost, so that the $150,000 footpath line and the Changing Places grant can be traced to places. We will report what the council publishes from the results.
How we sourced this
We read the council's consultation page and the first page of each of the two surveys, without answering either. We read the Parkes Shire Disability Inclusion Action Plan 2025-2029 (document set 2068943, version date 12 May 2025) with attention to the achievements of the previous plan (page 19), what the community said about liveable communities (page 24), the Pillar 2 actions (pages 34 and 35) and monitoring (page 41); page numbers are the plan's own. We read the Operational Plan and Budget 2026-27 (document set 2268080, version 3, 8 July 2026) at PDF pages 16, 120, 132, 136, 139 and 140, and the Operational Plan 2025-2026 Progress Report, January to June 2026 (document set 2310850, version date 18 September 2026) at PDF pages 151, 161, 283, 298 and 308. We kept copies of every document.
The two checks. First, whether the council has published the footpath audit or a works list from it: we went through all four pages of the council's strategies, plans and reports library (37 documents), its Road and Footpath Assets and Roads Program pages, and searched both operational plan documents for footpath items. We found neither. The library does hold an older Pedestrian and Cycling Plan with audit findings for Parkes, Peak Hill, Trundle and Tullamore, which we did not treat as the 177 km audit. The 2026-27 plan's list of proposed future works, which it says carry no commitment, includes a review and update of the council's Access Movement Plan, formerly the Pedestrian Access and Mobility Plan. Second, whether the national toilet map shows access features for Parkes toilets: the council's Public toilets page answered with an HTTP 302 redirect to toiletmap.gov.au on 14 October. We read the map's listing for Parkes Shire Council as provider and each facility's record through the same public data the map's own page loads, and counted the features above.
What we have not done. We have not asked the council about the audit, the network length figures or the Changing Places amenity, read the survey questions past the first page, or read the council's 2024-25 Annual Report, where the plan says progress is reported each year. The national map lists toilets from many providers; we counted only those it attributes to Parkes Shire Council.
Sources
Made like this: AI did the reading and drafting, people carry the responsibility, working from the primary sources below. Before it ran, a script matched 13 quotations letter for letter against our saved copies. More on our method.
- Parkes Shire Council, Help Shape a More Accessible Parkes Shire (consultation page, read 14 October 2026): who is invited, the three topics, the purpose, the two survey links, the timeline (opens 4 September 2026, 12:00 PM; closes 16 October 2026, 11:59 PM) and the contact details.
- Parkes Shire Council, Public Places and Spaces Accessibility Survey, People Living with Disability and For Family Members, Carers and Service Providers (SurveyMonkey, first pages read 14 October 2026): survey titles and question counts.
- Parkes Shire Council, Parkes Shire Disability Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP) 2025-2029 (PDF, 22 MB, read 14 October 2026): Our Achievements to Date, the Liveable communities summary, the Pillar 2 action tables, and Monitoring and Review.
- Parkes Shire Council, Operational Plan and Budget 2026-27 (PDF, version 3, 8 July 2026, read 14 October 2026): the council profile and transport chapter figures, measure OS3.1.2, measure T4.3.1, the PSC Footpaths capital line and the proposed future works list.
- Parkes Shire Council, Operational Plan 2025-2026 Progress Report, January to June 2026 (PDF, version date 18 September 2026, read 14 October 2026): grants secured in the June quarter, actions OS3.1.3 and T4.3.1.
- Parkes Shire Council, Public toilets (redirects to the national map, checked 14 October 2026), and the National Public Toilet Map (read 14 October 2026): the 16 facilities listed under Parkes Shire Council as provider and their recorded features.
- Parkes Shire Council, Road and Footpath Assets and Roads Program (web pages, read 14 October 2026): footpath area and kerb and gutter length.
- Parkes Shire Council, Our strategies, plans and reports (document library, all four pages read 14 October 2026): the 37 documents searched for the footpath audit.
Live with a disability in Parkes Shire, care for someone who does, or know where the footpath audit is published? Tell us and we will check it against the documents and log the outcome here.