Safest city in NZ?
Last month I laid out a new goal for Christchurch — to become the safest city in New Zealand.
It’s a goal that comes not from on-high, as used to happen, but rather from you, the public, when you were asked what you wanted for this city.
The Local Government Act 2002 changed the way in which we, and other councils, can plan for our communities. A key theme for this new way of doing business is an emphasis on hearing the will of the community, and coordinating planning and activity across all sectors to achieve that will.
In plain English, councils now have to listen to what the public tell them they want and then try and do this as efficiently and directly as possible. It is a change that has my full support.
To do this, Christchurch City Council produced a first Long-Term Council Community Plan and is now working on a second version of that. These plans look out 10 years and, within this exercise, we’ve had to then identify what the public will is for priorities for action in the plan.
The consultation turned up nine community outcomes. Amongst them, "living in a safe city" is one of the top priorities for Christchurch residents. To work toward this meant we’ve had to develop a new way of doing it.
Traditionally the national network of Safer Community Councils and Road Safety Coordinating committees managed the coordination role of crime and road safety efforts on behalf of local government.
In 2003, the Safer Community Council network was wound up. Then central government, through the Crime Prevention Unit, sought stronger partnerships and ties with local authorities, iwi, and Pacific peoples to create joint leadership, decision-making and funding of crime prevention efforts. The strategic aim was to move control closer to the community.
The Safer Christchurch Interagency Group, which I chair on your behalf, represents Christchurch’s response to this shift in responsibility, importantly taking in not just crime prevention, but also road safety and injury prevention to bring all three areas closer. The overriding aim is to work toward making the public will for a safer city become a reality.
The Safer Christchurch Strategy will work toward this goal by ensuring that all the relevant groups in the city cooperate. A very real part of the strategy is a collective acknowledgement that we really are "all in this together."
At the public launch I said that it was vital that we all realise and acknowledge that some of the best and most effective ideas are also the simplest. I said how, on the way for a look at the Kate Valley project in a huge rubbish truck, I had been delighted with how the truck slowed to 40km/h while it passed a boy on his bike. The boy waved and grinned to the driver; the driver waved back. They both knew that they were taking an active role in road safety.
That particular approach has been developed over the borders in Waimakariri.
Locally we have the slow-down-near-schools programme with those vivid flashing signs that has since taken off nationally. There are lots of other simple, effective success stories of how to improve road and public safety. The common thread for all of them is that the closer to street level they are, the better they work, which takes me back to the goals of the Safer Christchurch Strategy. These are:
- Reduce the incidence of injury in our community. We will do this by providing active support to locally led initiatives that work in a significant way to reduce injury.
- Enhance safety on our roads. We will do this by putting into action the Christchurch Road Safety Strategy.
- Enhance safety from crime through preventative and supportive action. We will do this by ensuring we phase in the adoption of the crime prevention through environmental design principles into city wide planning and policy; by promoting these same ideas to the owners of existing properties; and by backing locally led initiatives that make significant contributions to reducing the incidence and effect of crime.
- Support safety and injury prevention through collaboration and coordination. We will do this by making sure there are good collaborative relationships between central and local government,iwi, non-government organisations and the community sector; by gaining accreditation as a World Health Organisation SafeCommunity; by ensuring effective injury prevention, road safety and crime prevention activity through sustained funding arrangements;and finally, by ensuring the phased adoption of public awareness about the Safer Christchurch Strategy.
Which is what this column has been about: telling you how we are starting to act on achieving the goals you have told us youwant. The progress of the strategy will be measured and reviewed every year.
Mayor of Christchurch
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