A reminder when walking your four legged friend
Some areas of our district are no dog zones. This includes children's playgrounds, like Page street Playground pictured above, Broadway between the roundabouts, Prospero Place and on our national park.
We have designated on-leash and off-leash areas for walking your dogs and you can see maps of these areas on It’s important to familiarise yourself with these areas if you’re a dog owner. Thanks for helping us make our district safe for everyone, no matter how many legs they have!
Stratford.govt.nz/DogOwners. The results of an independent survey on residents satisfaction of Council services has identified that peoples' overall wellbeing in Stratford is very high, with more than four in five residents (81%) rating their well-being as Good or Excellent. Survey respondents also continue to be satisfied with the service received at Council facilities.
While the 2023 report shows a number of downward trends across Council services, our facilities received consistently high scores from users.
The level of service in the Stratford library, Visitor Information Centre, and Parks and walkways received high ratings from residents, with 96%, 94%, and 90% levels of satisfaction respectively.
The Aquatic Centre received 84% satisfaction, and customer service interactions achieved 83%.
Despite these high ratings, people's overall satisfaction with Council dropped to 57% from 69%. Chief Executive Sven Hanne says we're disappointed to see a decline in satisfaction across the board. "The feedback received via this survey is invaluable to measure our performance. It's clear that we need to stay focused on continuous improvement, and will use these results as a benchmark to do better for our community," he says.
Thousands of residents are invited to do this survey throughout the year, however on average only 400 people respond. It's important to take the time and complete this survey if you're invited to do so. The first round of survey invites for the 2023/24 year will be landing in people's letterboxes now.
To read the full survey report visit