Western Bay residents love the ‘small town feel' of the district, employment opportunities, coastal and rural environment, access to recreation and feeling safe.

These are some of the key messages from residents to Western Bay of Plenty District Council during the two-week road trip in the old Bedford bus last month.

The Portraits of Our Place road show was to get grassroots feedback from residents about their communities. Pictured here is one of the portraits.

The aim of the ‘Portraits of Our Place' road show was to get grassroots feedback from residents about their communities and the role they see Council playing in with their day-to-day lives.

Western Bay Mayor Ross Paterson says the ‘small town feel' was the most highly valued aspect people felt about living in the District.

'Having access to the coast and knowing their neighbours were also very important and having open spaces and feeling safe also rated highly.

'What residents wanted changed in their communities varied from community to community although common to most people were activities and jobs for young people and a focus on promoting towns as a local or tourist destination.

Six themes underpinned the road trip – ‘Community Heart'; ‘Land Lovers'; ‘Just Coasting'; ‘Nature Nurture'; ‘Kia kaha' and ‘Bountiful Bay' – values that are the essential character of the Western Bay.

The five top priorities, in order of importance for residents are - being able to afford to live here; local employment opportunities; looking after the environment; having places to play and meet and making sure we look after what we have so that their children have a future in the district.

'We will take this feedback on board as it will be an important backdrop for our long term planning priorities. The people also told us they wanted to be more involved in the decisions we make,” says Ross.

Residents filled out 533 questionnaires during the road trip and 3000 Portraits of our Place stickers were snapped up by kids and hundreds of the Portrait postcard sets were given away.

Council will continue selling postcard sets and a series of limited edition A2 prints featuring the six original illustrations depicting the roadie themes.

These are available at Council libraries and service centres and serve to recover part of the project's costs.