Wellingtonians distrust their council, residents’ survey says

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

The people have spoken and they just don’t trust the Wellington City Council.

The council has released a summary of its annual survey of 1100 residents. The full results are not yet out.

But with just 27% saying they trust their council, things could be better. Concerns about council non-essential spending, priorities, elected officials, and issues with cycleways featured highly among gripes.

And it is the elder Wellingtonians doing the most griping: 54% of those aged 18-29 believed council decisions were in the best interests of the city. The number dropped to 27% for those 60 or older. Perception of city safety has dropped steadily since 2019.

“Because of all the homeless people and beggars on the street and if I am on my own it can be very scary,” one respondent told the council.

There had been a 42% drop from 2018 to 2024 in people saying Wellington had a positive “look and feel”.

But there was good news ‒ 83% were satisfied with recreation centres, 77% were satisfied with pools, 81% were satisfied with kerbside waste collection, and 86% were satisfied with artificial turf sports fields. Perceived ease of cycling has tripled since 2022.

Secrecy around the results was so high that even elected councillors were not able to see an early copy ahead of a briefing from council staff at 3pm on Tuesday.

Councillor Diane Calvert questioned why it took so long to present the results when the survey was done in February, saying it would have helped to know when the council reworked its long-term plan in March and April.

She wanted to see more action from the council on the results, saying they were “put in a bottom drawer” until a strategy was written at the end of the year for the following year.

The same survey a year earlier showed half of all people surveyed were dissatisfied with the council decision making process, with just 20% satisfied.

Pride in the way Wellington looked and felt reached its lowest point in the past decade, at just 50%. The finding a year ago was accompanied by falling numbers of residents who felt safe in the central city.

Mayor Tory Whanau saids there was a huge amount of work already under way to make the city more vibrant, safe, and welcoming.

“We’re heartened that Wellingtonians continue to value many of the services we provide. We also acknowledge that there are areas where we must do better. We hear you, and the identified areas for improvement will be a priority for us,” she said.

Ray Chung said the dissatisfaction worried him and he wanted to see an action plan made in response.

“We should be very concerned. This is not the city we want so let’s do something.”

Rebecca Matthews said the survey continued to be a good snapshot and the results showed city safety was perceived to be less safe than other cities.

“I take those seriously and there are things we need to do to make the central city feel better and safer and nicer.”

Where there had been work done in Auckland and Christchurch to make the cities safer, Wellington had not had that same chance, but she felt confident about it changing with future work in the city safety plan and the Golden Mile.