Wellington city centre hits new low in residents’ eyes - but it’s not all bad
Wednesday, 13 May 2026
Wellington’s city centre has hit an all-time low, but things are otherwise on the up for the capital in a new residents’ survey.
The Wellington City Council on Wednesday released its annual survey of residents showing just 26% of us consider the central city to be lively and attractive ‒ down to a new low after a 29% score on year ago and an all-time 88% high in 2017.
But elsewhere in the wide-ranging survey was room for optimism: 70% say the city is a “great place to live, work and play” ‒ a three percentage point increase on 2025 but a long climb off the 2017 high of 95%.
A question about whether people felt a sense of pride in the way Wellington looked and felt followed a similar, though lower trend, with 46% of people saying they did.
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People rated their own suburban centres far higher than the central city with 74% saying it was lively and attractive and, while the result was down on some other years, suburbs did not suffer the same plummeting perception fate of downtown.
But it is the perception of the council itself that is a simultaneous success and failure; only 26% of residents thought it made decisions in the best interests of the city, versus 39% who didn’t ‒ but things are on the rise.
Survey participants were asked if the council was proactive in informing residents about their city, whether they understood how the council made decisions, whether it made decisions in the best interests of the city, and if they thought they had adequate opportunities to have their say in council activities.
On every measure the council has been rising since lows in 2021 and 2022.
Overall satisfaction with the council, albeit only at 39%, is the highest it has been in four years. Excessive spending and failure to address infrastructure issues were the top complaints.
“Restoring trust and confidence in the council starts by ensuring communities feel their voice matters and that the council makes good decisions in the interests of Wellingtonians,” said mayor Andrew Little.
“The Residents Monitoring Survey shows that we’re making steps in the right direction, with a big job ahead to keep moving in the right direction.”
The survey showed that nearly all of us ‒ 96% ‒ feel safe in our homes at night but step into the city after dark and it drops to 48%, which is an improvement over the past four years.
And while Wellington’s cycle lane rollout has its share of critics, the survey showed a big surge since 2022 in people feeling it was easy to cycle around the city.