A Christchurch city councillor has urged other councillors to be “more positive around the table” to attract better results from residents’ satisfaction surveys.

Mike Davidson’s comments follow a discussion at the Christchurch City Council today on the lowest ever residents’ satisfaction survey.

Councillor Yani Johanson said “people want us to focus on doing the basics, the maintenance, the roads, the footpath, the waterways, that has come through really strongly.”

“I’m still really concerned that although we keep getting these surveys that tend to highlight very similar concerns around why people are dissatisfied, when it comes to our budget process, the concerns people raised seem to be absent”

Johanson provided council with an example of car parking charges.

“We’re proposing to increase them in our draft annual plan, and yet in our survey, there are a number of people that are dissatisfied with the car parking charges.”

And I mean, we’re only putting them up I think by 10 cents, so it’s not a big increase, but it still seems counterproductive to the recent survey when people were dissatisfied.”

Councillor Davidson said “the residents’ surveys are really good. They give us a good idea of where we’re going right where we’re going wrong.”

“But actually, when I listen to comments from Yani Johanson, it’s actually the comments that we make around this table that create some of the perception that we’re doing things wrong.”

Davidson said “if you constantly criticise the organisation, people will actually start to believe it.”

“If you actually start being a bit more positive about the good things we actually do, then that will also help residents’ satisfaction.”

Satisfaction with on-street parking facilities came in at 7.9 percent.

A comment highlighted in the survey was “I don’t feel the council listens to their residents around spending on things like cycleways when they are not being used enough to warrant that spending. There are other things this City could be doing for a greater good.”

Just 27% of residents were satisfied with the conditions of the roads with comments saying roadworks were taking too long and weren’t done to a good standard.”

35% satisfied were satisfied with the condition of footpaths.