Eighty per cent of Australian small towns are experiencing a decline in their population or local businesses, according to the director of a Perth-based community development consultancy.

Located about 220km south of Perth, in the Shire of Donnybrook Balingup, Kirup is one of the towns struggling to maintain its population.

In the 2016 census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded the population in Kirup as 219 people, but this had decreased to 156 people by 2021.

Shire of Donnybrook Balingup president Vivienne MacCarthy said the town was struggling to attract people.

“Commercially it’s quite challenged because it has a highway going straight through it and no visible tourist attractions from the highway to invite people to stop and have a look,” she said.

While there are some small businesses related to tourism and agriculture in the town, the Kirup Tavern is the only operating business remaining on the main highway after a number of popular businesses closed several years ago.

Ms MacCarthy said the fruit shop and café, now closed, had been popular in the area.

“The loss of those two key businesses was quite tough for Kirup,” she said.

To address the struggles faced by small towns like Kirup, the community development consultancy organisation Bank of IDEAS will be holding the first national Small Town Reinvention Conference in Pickering Brook from September 17 to September 20.

The conference will provide an opportunity for people to come together to discuss the future of small towns and to learn strategies they can adopt to develop and build up their communities.

The 2021 census said nearly four out of five people in Western Australia lived in the capital area of Greater Perth, which has a population of more than 2 million people.

Bank of IDEAS director Peter Kenyon said not addressing the struggling country towns would increase even further the concentration of people living in Perth.

Mr Kenyon said the conference would have a particular focus on looking at communities that have successfully grown and reinvented themselves.

He is excited to see communities “stop waiting for the cavalry to turn up from Perth” and begin to take responsibility for their own growth.

“What we are dwelling on is the 20 per cent of small towns that are growing,” he said.

Ms MacCarthy said the conference was an excellent idea because it would provide an environment for small town communities to connect.

“They’ll all have similar problems, but how often do they have the opportunity to get together to exchange ideas,” she said.