Gore District Council

Council’s performance rates highly with residents

Gore District residents are as happy as they have ever been with the performance of the Council, according to the latest survey of residents.

Of the 396 people involved in the biennial residents' satisfaction survey carried out last month, 64 percent were either very satisfied or satisfied with the Council’s performance. That is an increase of almost 20 percent on 2008.

Gore District Mayor Tracy Hicks said it was very pleasing to see the lift in approval that has occurred and congratulated all council staff for their effort and commitment.

“Any organisation that has customers as its focus must have continuous improvement as a primary goal, which is what the council is aiming at,” he said.

As part of the survey residents were asked how they viewed their community. The majority (370 respondents) agreed with the statement ‘the Gore District is a great place to live’ while 362 saw it as a safe place to live.

When rating the Council’s services, residents were most satisfied with the Gore Museum and Eastern Southland Gallery (99 percent), closely followed by the library service (96 percent). This is consistent with previous years, as is the high level of satisfaction with parks and reserves and the aquatic centre.

On average all services or facilities were ranked above three, on a table where five is very satisfied and one is very dissatisfied, and over half were above four.

When it came to communicating with the Council, 90 percent of people were very satisfied or satisfied with the service they received. While newspapers remain the main source for information, there was a significant increase in the number of people using the Council’s website, up from 11 percent four years ago to 31 percent.

Chief executive Steve Parry said the Council had received a pleasing score for its performance.

“The overall results suggest the Council’s performance is on a trajectory of improvement.”

The timing of the survey meant there was a low response from the rural sector and this needed to be taken into consideration when interpreting some of the data, Mr Parry said.

The top three issues residents’ want the Council to focus on are roading (32 percent), footpaths (18 percent) and water (13 percent).

Footpaths have consistently rated as a big issue for residents. A commitment four years ago to increase maintenance expenditure has seen the level of satisfaction steadily rise. This year 50 percent of people were either very satisfied or satisfied with footpaths compared to 40 percent in 2008.

Satisfaction with service at the refuse transfer station has also markedly increased over the past four years to reach 75 percent in the latest survey.

Sewerage and stormwater service satisfaction comes in at 96 percent and 93 percent respectively, while more people were satisfied with the reliability of the town water supply than with its quality.

The resident satisfaction survey was undertaken by the Southern Institute of Technology. Its objective is to obtain information that will assist the Council in providing effective and efficient services to the community.