In 1976 I could go down to the Howick Borough Council and talk to the town planner Jenny Parsons and get an immediate and personal response to my queries.With the amalgamation into Manukau I had to first go to a general Customer Care representative who then referred me to the duty planner who would then promise to refer my query to the appropriate decision maker. I would be lucky to have a response within a week. In my view the process had become grossly inefficient.

My question then is do the candidates believe that customer service efficiencies - defined in terms of the time to get a decision from Council - will improve within the new Super City Structure and why?

Similarly I would like to know if the candidates favour town planning to be centrally structured or whether they believe decisions are best made locally?

Thanks.

Des