What is a Have Your Say? How Lane Cove Council consultation works

Lane Cove’s draft Bike Plan has sparked strong reactions, with posts and messages warning of one-way streets, lost traffic lanes and a $26.8 million bill. So what actually happens now?

Here’s how a Lane Cove Council Have Your Say works, what happens to your feedback and where you can still be heard.

What is a Have Your Say?

Have Your Say is Lane Cove Council’s online consultation site. Council uses it to put draft plans, policies and projects on public exhibition, so anyone can comment through surveys, written submissions and maps.

It is consultation, not a vote or a referendum. Feedback shapes what councillors see when they decide. The number of comments for or against doesn’t decide the outcome on its own.

What happens after it closes

Council staff review every submission. They then write a report for a Council meeting that includes the submissions and Council’s response to them, along with a final version of the plan showing any changes.

In Lane Cove this often happens quickly. The Social Inclusion Strategy closed on 6 June 2025 and was adopted on 19 June 2025. The Car Share Policy closed on 18 August 2025 and went to Council on 18 September 2025.

Bigger or contested items can take longer. Consultation on abandoned watercraft at Dunois Reserve went back to Council about nine weeks after it closed, and the outcome was a further round of consultation.

What councillors can do

When a final plan comes to a Council meeting, councillors vote on it. They can adopt it, adopt it with changes, defer it, put it back out for comment or reject it.

It does happen. In September 2026 councillors deferred the Burns Bay Reserve Masterplan two weeks after consultation closed, asking for changes before it returns to a future meeting.

A plan isn’t a budget

A strategy like the Bike Plan sets direction. Adopting it doesn’t fund or build anything.

The draft Bike Plan’s $26.8 million estimate is in 2024 dollars and spread over more than a decade. The local routes are grouped into three phases, starting with about $5.2 million of work in the first three years. The four regional routes, about $10.9 million, are not allocated to any phase. The draft says they need funding assistance and coordination with the NSW Government.

Before any individual project goes ahead, it would still need:

• money in Council’s annual budget, which is itself put out for public comment each year
• detailed design and, often, its own consultation
• traffic approvals for changes such as one-way streets, shared zones and speed limits, which go through Council’s local traffic committee with Transport for NSW and NSW Police advising
• Transport for NSW agreement on State roads such as Burns Bay Road.

Where the Bike Plan is now

The draft Bike Plan was on exhibition from 28 September to 9 November 2026. It followed an earlier consultation round in February 2026.

Council says the final plan will go to a Council meeting for endorsement. It isn’t on the 19 November agenda, so December is the earliest it could return. Keep an eye on the agendas.

Nothing has been decided yet. The Longueville Road one-way shared space is a concept, and the draft says bus, loading and emergency access still need further assessment. Read our full breakdown of the draft Bike Plan.

How you can still be heard

• Speak at the Public Forum. It is held on the Monday before each ordinary Council meeting at the Council Chambers, Civic Centre, 48 Longueville Road. Registration opens on the Thursday the week before and closes at 10am on the day. Speakers get three minutes per item and can talk about an agenda item or another matter. Councillors listen but don’t debate or respond.
• Contact your ward councillors. They are the ones who vote.
• Read the agenda. Agendas are published the Thursday before each meeting on Council’s meetings page.
• Watch for project consultation. If the plan is adopted, individual projects and the annual budget come back out for comment.

In the Cove will report when the final Bike Plan is on a Council agenda.