North Shore suburbs get seal of approval

Joint media release between North Shore City Council, NZ Post and North Shore Fire Service

June 30, 2008

Suburb names in North Shore City have been approved by the New Zealand Geographic Board, the government agency responsible for approving place names throughout the country.

As a result of significant growth and development across the city, the North Shore City Council undertook an extensive exercise to better define its suburbs.

North Shore City Council’s spatial information services manager, Kumar Kannan, says growth in the city had led to a number of new locality names being used.

“This could be potentially confusing for the Emergency Services such as Police, Ambulance and Fire Service that now use centralised call centres and may not be familiar with certain areas within the city,” he says.

“We felt it was important to look at the city’s composition and better define the city’s suburbs to make it easier for the Emergency Services to locate specific addresses when calls are made for help,” says Kumar.

North Shore City’s suburban boundaries were last defined in the 1970s. Since then the city has experienced the amalgamation of its former local authorities in 1989, substantial urban development and the emergence of new communities within the city.

North Shore chief fire officer, Denis O’Donoghue welcomes the move.

“Using consistent, co-ordinated address data is imperative,” he says.

“Our mission is to reduce the incidence and consequence of fire and to provide a professional response to other emergencies,” says Denis. “To do this we need to be able to react and reach people quickly.”

The North Shore City Council worked closely with Community Board members to ensure that the views of their local communities were taken into consideration. It also consulted with a number of key organisations (including Iwi, the Real Estate Institute and Emergency Services) to define suburbs based on the communities that had already established in the city.

The council has provided New Zealand Post, the Emergency Services and other key organisations with the approved suburb data and is continuing to work with these agencies to ensure that their addressing data is updated as soon as possible.

Kumar says it is an ongoing process with the aim of all organisations being able to use accurate and current address data in the near future.

Don Day, Manager of NZ Post’s Local Government Relations also welcomes the introduction of the new suburb boundaries.

“New Zealand Post has updated its Postal Address File to reflect the changes implemented by the North Shore City Council. This data is used by many organisations to verify postal delivery addresses. The definition of the suburbs is a significant step towards removing ambiguity in addressing and will assist with the efficient delivery of mail,” he says.

The North Shore City Council used a variety of criteria to define the suburbs. These included existing names and reference material, heritage values and historic identity, community neighbourhoods and characteristics, physical and natural features, and growth patterns and geographic location.

Under the New Zealand Geographic Board Act of 1946, local councils are required to clearly define and name suburb boundaries. The suburbs were approved by the council and the New Zealand Geographic Board, and became official when they were published in the government’s official newspaper, the New Zealand Gazette.

A search facility which enables people to locate which suburb they are in is available on the council’s website wwwnorthshorecity.govt.nz. Further information and maps are also available in council offices and libraries.

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