At their ordinary May meeting, the Cooks River Alliance Management Committee agreed to make its operations more visible to the public. Summaries of quarterly meeting minutes will now be made public via the Cooks River Alliance website. The Committee resolved that:
The future Cooks River Alliance Management Committee meeting summary be made available online going forward. This can include apologies, whose attended, etc, but exclude any confidential matters.
The resolution was triggered by a request from members of the Cooks River Valley Association (CRVA), requesting that there be more transparency around how decisions are made around management of the Cooks River Catchment. Minutes from the Alliance’s Management Committee meetings have not been made publicly available, since the creation of the partnership in 2011. Representatives of the CRVA have expressed confusion about why minutes are not made public, considering the fact that local governments are required to make their minutes public.
Members of the Cooks River Valley Association believe that this “communication silence” … diminishes the effectiveness and engagement of the Cooks River Alliance with the community.
Read the full letter HERE.
The Cooks River Alliance Management Committee is comprised of representatives from the current members: Bayside Council, Inner West Council, Canterbury Bankstown Council, Strathfield Council and Sydney Water. As of 2026, the Management Committee members are: Leanne Niblock (Sydney Water), Peter Strong and Heidi Lee Douglas (Bayside Council), Mat Howard and Olivia Barlow (Inner West Council), Clare Raffan (Canterbury Bankstown Council), Esther Kim and Sandy Reddy (Strathfield Council).
