Communitrak reveals resident satisfaction

Manawatu District residents remain well satisfied with the council’s services and facilities and the performance of its mayor and councillors, according to the 2008 Communitrak survey.
The annual survey, conducted by the National Research Bureau, is the major source for measuring the community’s opinion of the council’s efforts.

Parks and reserves (75 percent), food hygiene (74 percent) and community halls and recreation complexes (71 percent) filled the top three spots in the public’s overall satisfaction with services and facilities.

Feilding Public Library and sportsfields and playgrounds both rated at 68 percent, Civil Defence Emergency Management on 66 percent and the overall stormwater system at 65 percent.
In rating user satisfaction with services and facilities, 96 percent of those surveyed were very or fairly satisfied with the library, followed by sewage disposal (94 percent), Makino Aquatic Centre (93 percent), piped stormwater collection system (92 percent) and cemeteries (91 percent).

And of those respondents who were provided with, or used, the services, 94 percent were very or fairly satisfied with the sewage system, ahead of the piped stormwater collection system (92 percent), recycling services (85 percent) and water supply (82 percent).
Sixty-three percent of the 400 residents surveyed rated the performance of the mayor and councillors as very good or fairly good (compared to 58 percent in 2007 and 70 percent in 2006). The provision of information by council on council affairs reached 56 percent, up two percent the previous year.

Strategic Planner, Philip Bronn, said the latest ratings were a “heartening” result for council in a number of service areas.

“While there are some areas that have fallen, the feedback received allows council to understand more fully what the issues are,” he said.