The Christchurch City Council will be using the research findings of a Lincoln University student to inform their future work with central businesses.
Josh Waterman approached the council to participate in a research placement as part of his Bachelor of Environmental Policy and Planning (Honours) degree and was tasked with finding out whether business owners were confident about operating in the city centre.
“By personally connecting with individual business owners and operators and speaking to them in their places of business, I was able to collect much richer data around what is and isn’t working in the central city and the issues that need to be addressed,” Josh said.
“Also, the fact that I was a student researcher and not a council employee meant I was unbiased and able to connect much better with the respondents.”
Josh recently presented his findings to the Central City Action Plan Working group, which encompasses representatives from multiple agencies, including the city council, ChristchurchNZ and Development Christchurch Ltd.
“Those who attended the meeting found the research very relevant to their work, especially because the informal interview format drastically changed the quality of the information gained from businesses,” Josh said. “Previous survey methods had been more formal.”
He will now submit a summary of his research to council staff, who will present it to councillors to be used in their future work for the central city.
“My course enables planning students at Lincoln to get first-hand experience of a council office environment and take ownership of a project that will benefit council processes into the future,” Josh said.
“It is definitely a unique opportunity that gets graduates ready and excited about moving into a career.”