Council updates  |  Yesterday

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Resident satisfaction in Christchurch continues to climb, with Christchurch City Council achieving its highest overall satisfaction score since 2019.

Overall satisfaction with the Council’s performance climbed to 60%, continuing a trend of steady improvement since satisfaction reached a low of 42% in 2022.

Chief Executive Mary Richardson attributes this turnaround to improvements that the whole organisation has been working to make.

“The figures have improved across the board and people are telling us we’re doing a fundamentally good job providing the services people value,” Ms Richardson says.

Of the Council services measured, 92% met their annual targets, up from 84% last year and the most since before the earthquakes. An impressive 14 out of 16 key Council services met or exceeded their Level of Service targets this year.

See a snapshot of the results, and view the results in more detail. 

Standout results include:

  • Education programmes (100%)
  • Botanic Gardens, Mona Vale and Hagley Park (99%)
  • Cemeteries administration services (97%)
  • Libraries (94%)
  • Recreation and sport support (93%)
  • Council events support (91%)
  • Community development and capacity building (88%)
  • Customer service (87%)
  • Community facilities (87%)
  • Kerbside collection (82%)
  • Drinking water reliability (82%)
  • Waste management (82%)

Residents also noted improvements in transparency, accountability, and communication, areas that have historically been more challenging, says Mayor Phil Mauger.

Trust-related measures improved significantly, with 40% of residents now agreeing the Council has a good reputation and can be trusted, up from 32% in 2025.

“There’s a lot more work to do, but these results suggest the improvements we’ve put in place since 2022 have been working steadily,” Mayor Mauger says.

The average positive score across 15 reputation and trust measures improved to 40%, up from 32% in 2025, with most measures seeing solid improvements this year:

  • Providing value for ratepayer money (30%, up from 19%)
  • Leadership of Mayor and Councillors (45%, up from 35%)
  • Understanding decision-making (48%, up from 40%)
  • Decisions made in best interests of the city (42%, up from 35%)
  • Making wise spending decisions (28%, up from 21%)

While many residents are wanting service improvements, others are reluctant to see rates rise – meaning that what some view as essential, others regard as a nice-to-have rather than a necessity.

“The push and pull of competing priorities is something every council deals with, but having this data shows us where to focus our energy, particularly as we lay the groundwork for next year’s Long Term Plan 2027–2037,” Mayor Mauger says.

The Residents Survey programme involved three pieces of research – the Point of Contact surveys done throughout the past year with 8089 responses, the Life in Christchurch booster survey of 243 respondents done in January 2026, and the General Satisfaction Survey with a representative sample of 806 people also done in January/February 2026.