A big thank you to everyone who took part in the recent postal and online survey about Council’s services.

The Council is required to undertake regular satisfaction surveys amongst residents and your help is greatly appreciated. The research was carried out by independent market research company, Versus Research. There was a great response – a big thank you to all those who participated. The winner of the prize draw (an iPad Mini) lives in Marton. Congratulations!

Specifically, Council is focussing on two major aspects of Council activity:

• Roading network and footpaths because this accounts for about 40% of Council’s total spend
• Community and leisure group of activities because this an area where Council needs to make the greatest change over the coming 10-20 years

This is the second year that Council has undertaken this survey.  A full copy of the survey and results is available here.

The swimming pools have had the greatest improvement in terms of resident’s perceptions with 25% of respondents seeing the service provision as better than last year, whereas a similar proportion perceives that the roading network and footpaths services is worse than last year. Dissatisfaction in the roading and footpaths area was greater from respondents in Taihape, and additional comments reflected that this dissatisfaction was centred on the experience over the main street development.

The other main area for additional comment from respondents was the rise in rates. Despite this, most respondents felt that Council’s provision of services was as good as or better than last year.