At the Council Meeting on Tuesday 14 October, Council unanimously adopted the City of Yarra Collection Policy 2025–2029 as the guiding document that outlines the principles and practices for the acquisition, documentation, conservation, interpretation, and accessibility of Council’s art and heritage collection.

Project background

Yarra City Council’s Collection Policy sets out the principles and practices that guide decision-making about Council’s art and heritage collection. This includes how the collection is developed, documented, conserved, interpreted and made accessible to the community.

Our previous Collection Policy was produced in 2020 and needed to be refreshed. Throughout 2024 and early 2025, we developed a draft Collection Policy 2025-2029 and, in July and August 2025, we consulted the community and asked them to share their thoughts on the draft policy before it was presented to Council to be considered for adoption.

What did we ask?

We asked the community to indicate their level of support for these statements about Yarra City Council's draft Collection Policy 2025-2029 (scale from Strongly disagree to strongly agree):

• The draft Collection Policy supports a diverse and representative art collection that reflects our local community  
  
• The draft Collection Policy clearly communicates its purpose and priorities  
• The draft Collection Policy clearly indicates how the public can access Yarra City Council’s Collection.  

We also asked if they had any suggestions for how we can improve access to Yarra's Collection or any ither comments about the draft Collection Policy.

Who did we hear from?

What we heard and how it influenced the final plan?

The responses to the first question indicated that there were mixed opinions about the first statement, with less than half of people who responded saying that they agreed that the policy supports a diverse and representative collection.

However, most people agreed with the other 2 statements that the policy clearly communicates its purpose and priorities and that the policy clearly outlines how the public can access the collection.

The final 2 questions were open ended, providing an opportunity for community members to share feedback that they had regarding the Collection Policy. Where possible, suggestions from the community were incorporated into the final version of the Collection Policy.

You can read the Community Engagement Report (below) for more details.

What happens next?

Council has adopted the City of Yarra Collection Policy 2025–2029 as the guiding document that outlines the principles and practices for the acquisition, documentation, conservation, interpretation, and accessibility of Council’s art and heritage collection for the next 4 years.

Visit the project page

To read more about this consultation please visit the Collection Policy Refresh page on Your Say Yarra.