Easy access to councillor decision making is important, but with a region as big as the Waikato it’s not always practical for people to attend our meetings.

To address this, Waikato Regional Council’s democracy staff started publishing recordings of all our council and committee meetings online late last year. This month we’ll be going one step further – livestreaming.

Staff are using simple technology – an iPhone on a tripod and a microphone to catch the discussion in the room and from councillors and presenters online. This is then streamed through Waikato Regional Council’s YouTube channel.

A test of the system was carried out at the February meeting, and I understand the experience for our test audience online was really very good.

Tuning in online is your chance to understand more about the meaty issues we have to make decisions on, and to hear the robust discussions of the people you’ve elected to represent you.

Our meetings are generally on the last Thursday of the month, in the morning, and our first to be livestreamed is on 31 March. The link will be on the council’s website, but you’ll also find it at youtube.com/c/WaikatoRegionalCouncilNZ/playlists. If you miss the livestream, the meeting will still be available to watch later.

One thing I am disappointed we can’t offer is captioning. For the trial, staff did turn on the feature for auto-captioning that’s offered by YouTube, but the combination of our accents and face masks meant far too many words weren’t picked up correctly. Of course, you can turn on captioning yourself in the YouTube settings, but based on our experience in February, please be aware the captions could be grossly incorrect!

Open for feedback

Common-sense investment in public transport is critical for our region. It helps our communities connect with the people and places that matter most, reduces carbon emissions, keeps frustrating congestion down, and builds the resilience of our economy by linking local businesses to ever wider customer bases.

That’s why, in February, council proposed new services in Thames-Coromandel and Hauraki districts, and to rate for public transport services in Thames-Coromandel, Hauraki and Matamata-Piako in the place of those district councils.

The proposals were put forward as part of our annual plan budget setting for the 2022/23 financial year, which we’ll be consulting on in April.

At the same time, the council will be testing its approach to addressing a range of issues affecting our coastal marine area.

It’s part of ongoing work to review the Waikato Regional Coastal Plan. Earlier feedback on the current plan has focused on important issues like how to integrate social, cultural and economic values with environmental requirements, how to guard against the loss of public access, how to protect indigenous biodiversity and historic heritage of our coasts, how to respond to the impacts of climate change, and how to manage things like coastal erosion and coastal inundation.

Feedback provided by our communities in April will help to shape a draft policy which will be notified for public submission later this year.

Look out for information on both consultations on the council website: waikatoregion.govt.nz.

• Russ Rimmington is Chair of Waikato Regional Council. The views are his own.

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