Council has conducted surveys of our residents since 1997. It helps us measure how well we are delivering services, gauge where residents support our direction and where we need to adjust our priorities.
The 2025/26 survey involved a random selection of 454 residents. It was conducted in four waves of August 2025, November ’25, February 2026 and May ’26. Care is taken to ensure it is representative across suburbs, ethnicities and age groups.
Overall satisfaction with Council continued to improve to 61%. That’s up from 59% last year and 43% in 2020/21. These are tough times and many similar surveys of Councils are showing declining satisfaction.
Our most satisfied residents live in Tāhunanui (73%) followed by Stoke (62%) and Nelson North (60%). Our least satisfied are in Nelson Central (59%) and Nelson South (53%). The most satisfied by age are the 65-79 year bracket and the least satisfied are the 16-24 year olds.
The areas where the respondents were most satisfied include kerbside recycling (86%), museums, heritage buildings and galleries (86%), water supply (84%) and wastewater (81%). Dissatisfaction was highest for consultation (24%), communications (22%), roads (21%), climate change response (18%) and public toilets (17%).
We also asked residents about their priorities. The top was drinking water, wastewater and stormwater. Next came the environment, flood protection, parks and recreation, recycling services, transport and civil defence. The lowest importance was climate change, community development and arts and heritage.
The areas that residents gave the highest importance and the least satisfaction were stormwater, flood protection, transport and the environment. These are a useful signal about areas we need to prioritise as we develop our next Long Term Plan.
These surveys are imperfect measures but still useful. They supplement submissions on key projects such as the Civic Hub and Haven Waterfront, in-person contact at our regular Nelson Market stands and feedback through Shape Nelson on Council’s website. Our consultation next year on the Long Term Plan 2027-37 is also important.
The improvements in satisfaction levels in this survey are welcomed but we always need to be listening on how we can improve services and deliver better value for money for ratepayers.
