Award for council community project
Central Hawke’s Bay District Council earned an accolade for strong community engagement at Local Government New Zealand’s annual conference in Christchurch last week.
The council’s Project Thrive was highly commended in the Governance, Leadership and Strategy category at the 2018 LGNZ Excellence Awards presented at the conference last Monday night.
Now in their fifth year, the awards recognise and celebrate the key leadership role that local government plays in communities around the country. This year had the highest number of entries in the Awards’ history.
Launched in 2016 following the election of new mayor Alex Walker and six new councillors, Project Thrive was a comprehensive engagement process to cement the governance of a new council and develop a strategic vision and direction for the community.
Judges praised the project for its collaborative decisionmaking approach and as an example of how a small council with new political and managerial leadership could plan and act strategically for the future through engaging with its communities.
“Project Thrive resulted in effective and genuine engagement by the community to shape the governance of a new council and develop a strategic vision and direction for the community of Central Hawke’s Bay,” the judges said.
Another Hawke’s Bay council, Wairoa District Council, also received a highly commended in the Community Engagement category for its Wairoa Wastewater Stakeholder Group.
The council established the Wairoa Wastewater Stakeholder Group to support it as it undertook community consultation about the future management of wastewater before a resource consent for the community wastewater scheme expired in 2019.
The project was hailed by judges as “an inclusive, solutions-focussed and pragmatic response that included strong iwi participation and two-way community engagement”.