NEWS RELEASE

Thursday 8 January 2015

Last days for council’s inner city Ideas Store

Local residents have until Saturday (10 January) to call into Rotorua Lakes Council’s temporary inner city Ideas Store to share their thoughts and ideas on what could make Rotorua a better place to live, work orvisit.

The council pop-up shop is closing its doors on Saturday (10 January) at 1pm, having been in operation since the beginning of November.

Nearly 1400 visitors have already called into the store resulting in a list of more than 800 creative ideas and suggestions for the council to work through.

The Ideas Store has been an overwhelming success says Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick.

“The concept was another means of delivering on our council’s promise to engage with the community and ensure residents had a real say in plotting our district’s future direction. People have really embraced the initiative and many productive hours have been spent chatting with councillors and staff about how we could take Rotorua to new levels.

“I want to thank everyone who has taken up the invitation to share their thoughts with us, and also our staff who have engaged so well with visitors to the Ideas Store. People coming into the store have been passionate about their home town, creative in their thinking and inspired by what we as a community have the potential to achieve together. As mayor, I think that’s really exciting for Rotorua,” said Mrs Chadwick.

In addition to providing a channel for submitting suggestions to the council, the Ideas Store has presented a regularly changing display on council activities and projects, helping to keep residents informed and up-to-date on current and future programmes.

Over the next few weeks Rotorua Lakes Council staff will be analysing all ideas submitted by residents, and categorising them into topics and themes for presentation to the mayor and councillors.

They will then be shared with the various Rotorua 2030 portfolio leads and theirteams. They will in turn examine each suggestion to identify where it fits with thedistrict’s future direction, whether it is achievable, what the cost of implementation and delivery mechanism might be, and how it should be prioritised.

However, even after the Ideas Store closes at 1pm this Saturday, residents will still be able to contribute their thoughts to the council through the Ideas Bank on the council website rdc.govt.nz.

More information about the suggestions collected from residents through the Ideas Store will be made available on the Rotorua Lakes Council website as the analysis work progresses.

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