Hamilton City Council’s new elected members have begun their Council journey aboard a bus tour of Hamilton.

The tour, hosted by Chief Executive Richard Briggs and senior staff, stopped at key locations including the Peacocke bridge site, Waikato Museum, Rototuna reservoir and Claudelands Event Centre, to highlight major projects and trends impacting Hamilton.

Mr Briggs says the tour was a way to emphasise challenges and opportunities for the new Council, and to understand the complexity of what Council does.

“We need the team to understand the scale of the challenges ahead and consider how they will form as a team to lead Hamilton through this exciting time.

“As an organisation, we cover 27 business units and over 1000 roles, we don’t expect councillors to turn up on their first day and know everything, so we have a complete induction programme to get the team up to speed and working together,” Mr Briggs says.

The tour included a discussion on the cultural significance of the Waikato River, which will be supported by follow up Te Ao Maaori training in November.

The complete induction programme spans nine weeks and includes governance literacy sessions, civil defence training and an opportunity to discuss and set the direction for the new Council.

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