Horsham Rural City Council advertised four positions for the strategy’s stakeholder group, and received 10 nominations.

Group chairman David Grimble said it was difficult to discard any nominations.

“Council decided the best option was to appoint all 10, therefore capturing a range of issues the community sees as being important in our transport planning,” he said.

The residents are Andrew Hedt, Bob Scates, Dick Gill, Geoff Rethus, Janette Goodwin, Jeff Moore, Noel Ferguson, Richard May, Russell Peucker and Tim Rethus.

Cr Grimble said the group would work with consultant Driscoll Engineering and other stakeholders including VicRoads, the Victorian Farmers Federation and Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Transport Group to form the plan.

The strategy will examine congestion issues in and near the city centre, connections to residential growth areas, and how a proposed Horsham bypass will affect links to regional highways.

Cr Grimble said the stakeholder group would meet fortnightly.

“The first stage of the strategy will focus largely on the three regional highways – the Western, Wimmera and Henty – and how they might all interface with a bypass of Horsham,” he said.

“It will also look at the location of the railway line, and planning for Horsham’s urban growth.”

Cr Grimble said a workshop this month with stakeholders identified transport opportunities and constraints the group wanted investigated within the strategy.

“The consultant team will compile this information, information from an inception report and other background papers and then present this at the next meeting to start to develop the concepts and themes for the strategy,” he said.

Cr Grimble said meeting information would be available at www.hrcc.vic.gov.au/integrated-transport-strategy throughout the process.

Council hopes to complete the plan by July.