Media Release: Waikato District Council, 8 May 2014
A regional survey kicks off next week giving Raglan and other Waikato district residents the opportunity to feedback on the summer water campaign, Smart Water Starts With You!
In November, a partnership between Waikato district, Hamilton City and Waipa District councils saw the launch of a sub-regional campaign aimed at encouraging water conservation.
Smart Water Programme Co-ordinator Charmaine Petereit says the campaign is built on existing relationships between the three partner councils to deliver a consistent message about long-term water resources, Water Alert Levels and more importantly how the Council and residents could work together to conserve water.
“We’ve had positive feedback about the programme from across the district and this translated into positive actions from our residents with the Water Alerts only reaching Level 2 despite a very dry summer.
“We believe this is driven by the messages we delivered to the community which offered hints and tips on water conservation and sprinkler use requirements rather than a heavy handed ‘do not use’ approach. However we want to see how effective the campaign was and work with residents to develop and grow the campaign.”
She says research consultants, Relate Strategic, have been engaged to complete telephone surveys across the district over the next two weeks which will be followed by community focus groups.
Feedback from the surveys will be used to develop future Smart Water campaigns.