Quality of life in the increases in Community Views survey

Published on 05 August 2015

5 August 2015

More of our residents feel their quality of life is ‘much better’ or ‘better’ this year than in 2014, according to the Community Views Survey 2015.

The survey is conducted annually by Versus Research on behalf of the Wanganui District Council to seek residents’ feedback about Council services and facilities as well as general perceptions on quality of life, community engagement and wellbeing.

Respondents were surveyed between March and April 2015 with a representative sample of 400 residents spread across the urban and rural area, weighted to reflect age and gender.

This year 30 percent of participants said their quality of life was better or much better than the previous year, an increase from 16 percent in 2014.

The Council facilities which received the highest level of satisfaction were the libraries, parks and reserves and cemeteries with significant increase in satisfaction with the War Memorial Centre, swimming pools and the cemetery.

A significant increase in satisfaction for the roading network was reported (up 60 percent from 48 percent in 2014), with the tidiness of the central business district and lack of litter in our community also scoring highly.

The use of cultural facilities in our district remains about the same as last year, although an increase was seen in the use of the Whanganui Regional Museum, which went up seven percent from 2014. Use of our libraries is the most popular cultural activity and has the highest user satisfaction with 94 percent of all users ‘very satisfied’ or ‘satisfied’ with the service. This was a four per cent increase since 2014.

A significant increase was also seen in the number of people who play a sport.

Mayor Annette Main says the Community Views Survey, which has been undertaken yearly since 2009, is a key monitoring tool for the Council to help improve services and contribute to strategies and policies.

“While I am generally happy with the results from this survey, our goal is to improve every year. With the adoption of the Leading Edge Strategy and our 10-Year Plan I am sure we will see even better results next year.”

The results of the survey are available here.