Golden Plains Shire

The Golden Plains Shire is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central-western part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018, had a population of 23,120. It includes the towns of Bannockburn, Inverleigh, Lethbridge, Linton, Meredith, Rokewood, Smythesdale and Teesdale.

The Shire is governed and administered by the Golden Plains Shire Council. Its seat of local government and administrative centre is located at the Golden Plains Civic Centre in Bannockburn, and it also has a service centre located in Smythesdale.

History The Shire was formed on 6 May 1994 by the amalgamation of the Shire of Bannockburn (specifically, the territory remaining after part of that Shire was absorbed into the new City of Greater Geelong in May 1993), the Shire of Leigh, the bulk of the Shire of Grenville and part of the Shire of Buninyong. Upon its creation, it was known as the Southern Rural Shire and was intended to exist temporarily until the Local Government Board drew up final council boundaries for the Ballarat region. However, a few months later it was decided to make the municipality permanent, and it was renamed to Golden Plains Shire on 1 October 1994.

In 2025, based on Victorian government statistics for the year ending September 2025, measured by the criminal incident rate per 100,000 population, Golden Plains had the lowest crime rate of any Victorian municipality.

Council

Current composition The council is composed of seven councillors elected to represent an unsubdivided municipality. The current councillors are: WardParty CouncillorNotesUnsubdivided IndependentSarah Hayden IndependentDes Phelan Independent Emma RobbinsDeputy Mayor Independent Helena Kirby Independent Owen SharkeyMayor Greens Gavin Gamble Independent Dom Cook

Administration and governance The council meets on alternate months in the council chamber at the Golden Plains Civic Centre in Bannockburn, which is also the location of the council's administrative activities, and at The Well in Smythesdale. It also provides customer services at both its administrative centre in Bannockburn, and its service centre in Smythesdale.

Climate

Townships and localities

In the 2021 census, the shire had a population of 24,985, up from 21,688 in the 2016 census.

Population Locality 2016 2021 ^ 690 734 37 44 5,283 6,470 27 33 ^ 952 1,141 167 194 ^ 40 37 251 292 125 148 132 131 ^ 175 176 533 664 9 12 ^ 392 408 538 574 123 131 155 132 ^ 13 15 ^ 99 113 1,194 1,276 85 87 19 14 32 41 ^ 1,474 1,746 1,014 1,181 ^ 580 635 80 65 223 211 ^ 788 821 ^ 128 118 ^ 58 61 ^ 9 15 69 94 131 132 553 555 122 189 173 168 37 17 48 14 ^ 15 12 217 208 32 34 1,153 1,221 67 70 744 855 107 126 253 263 ^ 1,467 1,762 ^ 1,032 1,189 26 35 45 63 53 61 81 79 Stony Creek 6 0 108 129 1,721 2,308 37 42 ^ 60 66 7 10 ^ 23 26 ^ - Territory divided with another LGA

Golden Plains Shire

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