City Safety

What’s delightful about our inner city is that everything seems to be within walking distance. Key to this is feeling safe and being safe. ICW liaises with local community groups, agencies, the police and council teams to provide ideas and submissions to help our community feel safe.

Contact us if you have suggestions for this page or are interested in more information.

2025

May 2025 Update
In May, ICW was invited to be part of a forum run by the WCC City Safety team. It was described as follows:

“The purpose of the forum sessions was to gather your feedback and critical thinking on three key initiatives currently in development as part of the City Safety and Wellbeing Plan:

• The establishment of a Safety Hub in the central city

• The design of a C.A.R.E Support Team to strengthen our response in the night-time economy

• The development and availability of a training package for volunteers, students, community patrols and inner-city residents 

In the room were a variety of agencies and community organisations, including us. The discussions covered some of the aspects of the Plan and we were invited to provide feedback, You can see a visualised summary of the feedback here.

Key changes already in progress include

• the Te Pokapū Hapori space in Manners Street becoming the Safety Hub

• the Hapāi Ake team becoming replaced by a new team called the Urban Liaison Team

• the addition of Safety Points across the inner-city where, if you are feeling unsafe, you will be able to pick up a special phone to let the team monitoring the locations know,

Another forum is planned for September with the following topics

• Share updates on the operational roll-out of the Safety Hub

• Provide and discuss progress on the coordination and coverage of our community patrols

• Discuss the implementation and use of Safety Points across the city (with fingers crossed that these will be installed by then!)

• Hear reflections from the Urban Liaison Team on their experiences supporting delivery and improving coordination on the ground

Upcoming events - further City Safety & Wellbeing

Sexual Violence Prevention and Responsibility Workshop – For Street-Based Teams

When: Wednesday 11 June, 9am – 12pm
Where: Te Pokapū Hapori, 105 Manners Street
Delivered by: RespectEd Aotearoa
This interactive workshop is tailored for street-based teams (e.g. Urban Liaison Officers, Wardens, Patrols, outreach staff) and aims to strengthen practical skills in preventing and responding to sexual harassment and harm.

• Eat St (June)

• Hospitality NZ Conference – Tākina, 10–11 June

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January 2025 - New City Safety Plan
This year the Council is rolling out a new City Safety Plan.

PURPOSE: To create a vibrant, welcoming, and safe central city by addressing complex safety challenges through a collaborative, sustainable, and integrated approach.

VISION: A safe and inclusive Wellington where public spaces are inviting, communities thrive, and where people and whānau feel safe.

The plan has five pillars - ie focus areas.

1. Enhancing Safety Systems

2. Strengthening our Community’s strategic response to Homelessness

3. Supporting a Safe Night Life

4. Integrated and Enduring Approach

5. Our Regulatory Framework

You can read the background and planned activities for each of these here.

We’ll be meeting regularly with the Council team as it is rolled out. We will also be part of a City Safety Forum this month which has been described as:

“…an opportunity to bring together key partners, including service providers, social and community agencies, and community representatives, to discuss and collaborate on the delivery of our City Safety Plan. We hope to have this forum come together on a quarterly basis throughout the year and will be used as a way of updating, testing ideas and collaborating with you as our key stakeholders.”

Please let us know if you have any feedback or ideas you would like us to bring to the forum.

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This enabled us to directly raise concerns relating to matters such as:

• the look and feel of Courtenay Place
  for example: issues such as graffiti, general litter issues, broken rubbish bins

• inner-city safety

  for example: issues such as dark areas, closed neglected shops fronts, rough sleepers, local thefts and incidents

• the continuing impact of the closed Reading Centre

  for example: asking for progress about the closed Reading Centre. Residents noted that it was once a family-friendly space which also offered a no alcohol, under-cover space enjoyed by school students and families with children. The recent closure of McDonalds in the Centre has added to the sense of decline and lack of care about a once vibrant Courtenay Place.

We believe our contribution of residents feedback - which we graphed and anonymised so that we could share it - have helped to inform some recent Council team activities. However we know much more needs to be done and we will continue to make these meetings a priority.

Recent Pōneke Promise information

The Pōneke Promise team delivered a two-year review report to Councillors on Tuesday 30 May.

• This is a link to the video recording of the meeting

These are also recent documents provided by the Pōneke Promise team.

• Click to open: Poneke Pulse
  - an economic pulse check for Wellington businesses from Wellington City Council

• Click to open: Central city May updates - Pōneke Promise
  - a general update featuring, for example, news about a planned ‘Courtenay Place Cleanup’ and Tākina opening.

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Let us know if you have a question or issue
If you have a question, feedback or issue you would like us to raise, feel free to email us at innercitywellington@gmail.com

2021

During 2021 we were invited to have regular video conferences with the Council’s Pōneke Promise team. This enabled us to provide direct feedback from inner-city residents about their observations and concerns. We also took the opportunity to make suggestions and to review some of the services and tools the Pōneke Promise team were providing. These are some results from our discussions.

Adding light in Courtenay Place
In response to residents voicing concern about their safety when walking in dark areas of Courtenay Place at night - particularly in the Te Aro Park area - we asked the team if lights could be put on at night in closed shops and buildings in the area.
- This was actioned.

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Making alcohol licence notifications more obvious
Another discussion concerned alcohol licence notifications. When a business wants to change or apply for a new licence to sell alcohol, part of the process is for the business to display a paper-based notification in plain sight on its premises, perhaps on their window or door. This is intended to inform the public about what is planned in case they wish to object. We raised the fact that the style and very small size of these notifications made them so non-descript that they were unlikely to be noticed. We made recommendations about changing the size and perhaps their colour to make them more obvious.
- The team agreed to pass our suggestions onto the relevant agency.

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Unpacking objecting to the granting of an alcohol licence
We also talked about an inner-city resident’s experience of objecting to the granting of an alcohol licence. As a first-time objector, they had found the judicial nature of the process challenging and time-consuming, and they also felt that it worked against the parties finding common ground in a neighbourly way. ICW wrote up their story as a case study and provided it to the team with recommendations.
- ICW has been introduced to Community Law Wellington by the Pōneke Promise team to discuss this.

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Brightening up empty shop windows
Another issue ICW raised was the many groundfloor windows of empty Courtenay Place shops that were conveying a sense of decline in the area. Rather than sit empty, we suggested that we could liaise with local schools to create children’s artwork for display in these, particularly in the closed Reading Central area which was once an inviting family-friendly space.
- The Pōneke Promise team will explore this idea in the new year. Meanwhile the feedback was taken onboard and some of the shop windows have come to life with festive Christmas decorations.

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Providing feedback about the Pōneke Promise website and interactive map
When the team launched the Pōneke Promise website, ICW provided feedback and suggestions about its functionality and content. One recommendation was that the team add their replies to issues raised by residents via the website.
- This recommendation was acknowledged and an update planned.

Key Wellington City Council and Central Government documents

Ministry of Health - COVID19 Guidance for Isolating in Apartments (24 Nov 21)

• The Ministry of Health issued this guide providing COVID-19 public health advice for residents and Body Corporate Committees of apartments. It advises that further updates may be made as new evidence emerges and in response to the level of community transmission in New Zealand.

• Given the over 125 apartment buildings in our inner-city, ICW is closely following discussions about the guidelines. This recent RNZ interview provided some insights into the issue.

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Other ICW documents and activity:

City Safety in the Inner City (May 2021)
Following the shock closure of Camera Base in 2019, Inner City Wellington monitored the services that replaced it. We then provided a paper that laid out the level of service previously provided by the team of community volunteers and compared it with the service that was now being provided.
Read our findings paper here

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ICW seeks an apology from WCC (April 2021)
In April 2021, a Council Strategy and Policy Committee meeting was held which was attended by members of our Inner-City Wellington team. The discussion covered the closing the Camera Base service, and the meeting was subsequently reported in a Scoop article. ICW disputed some of the comments made in the meeting, and provided its response to the Council in a submission.
Read our submission here

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The Sudden Closure of Camera Base (2019)
For seven years, volunteers from our community provided a city safety-focused service called Camera Base Wellington. A team of 40+ comprehensively trained volunteers monitored the CCTV cameras coverage of the city and alerted the Police when they observed something that may need their attention. In 2019 this service was closed by the Council and subsequently taken over by Council staff. Inner City Wellington presented a submission to put the case for its return.
Read the submission here