Community Satisfaction Survey - February 2024

Council engaged the Taverner Research Group (TRG) to conduct the Community Satisfaction Survey during February 2024 with 400 residents of varying ages and from different parts of the Council area.

In response to the first two of the three additional questions asked by Council, results showed strong levels of support for Council to:
    1. Spend more to improve the network of walking and cycling paths (71% of respondents), and
    2. Allocate additional resources to ranger services – with a specific focus on parking, illegal camping, animal control and dumping (70% of respondents).

In response to the third additional question asking respondents whether they have seen anything in their travels that they would like to see in the Nambucca Valley, the top four responses were recreational and sporting facilities (15%), more/improved parks & facilities i.e. play equipment, BBQ's etc. (12%), more/better retail and eateries (11%), and more youth facilities (10%).

Of 26 council services and facilities measured, 18 had a mean satisfaction score of three or above (using a 1-5 satisfaction scale). Top-ranked services included libraries, water supply, sporting facilities, swimming pool, sewage collection and treatment, community halls and bridges.

Conversely, eight services had a mean score of below “par”. Unsealed roads were the worst-ranked of the services measured, followed closely by youth facilities and activities, development applications and economic development and attracting new investment. Development applications may have been impacted by the poor performance of the state government’s planning portal.

In terms of importance, river water quality had the highest mean rating together with sealed roads, followed by waste and recycling, water supply, coastal and beach management, bridges, cleanliness of streets and environmental monitoring and protection.

The 2024 mean for overall satisfaction (3.12) was significantly lower than for 2021 (3.30) but was well ahead of the average regional NSW result in recent years (3.01). The decline reflects a wider fall of 10% experienced across most NSW local government areas since the floods of March 2022, which TRG believe were driven by concerns over the post-flood condition of road surfaces.

TRG was able to benchmark Council’s satisfaction scores against 35 other regional NSW councils. In the case of infrastructure, Council scores are largely on par with its peers – and substantially higher in the case of water supply and coastal and beach management. However, it is lower in relation to roads (sealed and unsealed), stormwater drainage, weed control, and towards the bottom of the list in relation to parks/reserves/playgrounds. In the case of services, Council is below other regional councils on many measures. However, it is higher in relation to community halls and cleanliness of streets.

Survey Results Report(PDF, 959KB)