WHO will decide if North Shore City is a 'safe community'
November 16, 2005

North Shore City Council has joined the Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) and other partners in supporting a community-based initiative seeking 'safe community' recognition for our city from the World Health Organisation.

In order to gain 'safe community' recognition, communities have to meet six key requirements. These include a demonstration that as a city they have programmes that promote safety for everyone, particularly vulnerable and high risk groups.

Chairman of North Shore City's strategic management committee, Gary Holmes, says the council puts a lot of effort into community safety. "We're investing in our roads, parks and beaches while safety is a key feature in our planning and policy work," Councillor Holmes says.

"We're supporting the ShoreSafe initiative to obtain a 'safe community' certification from the World Health Organisation. This will help us to identify and link many of our current safety initiatives with those of other agencies in our city.

"We've already identified that North Shore City has many of the requirements of the WHO safer communities certification in place. Most of the work that has yet to be done involves joining the dots of the various safety initiatives across the city to identify any overlaps or gaps," he says.

North Shore City Mayor George Wood has accepted a request from the ShoreSafe community coalition group to chair the ShoreSafe initiative.

ENDS

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