Tauranga and Taranaki top metropolitan and regional councils

Tauranga has won the top metropolitan council in the Local Government Forum’s Hot Councils 2004 awards.

Taranaki has won the regional council category.

Local Government Forum Chairman Simon Carlaw said Tauranga and Taranaki had topped the rankings in their categories in a fairly close competition.

“Tauranga came out on top because its rates revenue per head is significantly less than other metropolitan councils, but also performed well against all criteria,” Mr Carlaw said.

“Taranaki did not come top of any of the main categories (rating, spending, RMA administration and local democracy) but its solid performance across all of them put it ahead of all other regional councils.”

All of New Zealand’s 85 councils were ranked against the criteria out of a maximum score of 75 points.

The top performers in the metropolitan and regional councils were:

Metropolitan Regional Tauranga (54) Taranaki (60) Hamilton (50) Northland (59) Waitakere (48) Bay of Plenty (58) Upper Hutt (48) Hawkes Bay (58) Lower Hutt (47) Otago (57)

There are four categories of ‘hot’ councils: metropolitan, regional, provincial and rural. Federated Farmers Vice President Charlie Pedersen today announced the winners of the rural and provincial categories.

The Local Government Forum*, made up of business and farming groups, wants to ensure that urban and rural ratepayers get value for money, and to ensure that important development work does not get stymied by inadequate administration of the Resource Management Act.

The full ranking of all 85 councils will be released on April 28.

ENDS

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