Matt Cowley Tauranga City Councillor

What an amazing week. We've listened to about 150 people present their submissions on Tauranga City Council's draft Long Term Plan.

The plan sets out what activities council will do during the next 10 years, and how we will fund them.

Reading all of the 725 submissions we received was quite an experience. The city is full of passionate people wanting to make the most of their democratic powers.

The feedback I've had during the last month is that council has generally struck a good balance of keeping services affordable while progressing the city forward – just with a few tweaks on certain projects.

It was interesting to observe people disagreeing with other submitters who spoke before them.

This also highlights the difficulty of our task in making trade-off decisions so we have a sustainable plan for the future.

It's impossible to please everyone in these situations, which unfortunately reinforces the view council does not listen.

It's hard to compare the number of submissions we received this year with previous LTPs. Our deliberate attempt to make it easier to submit feedback online is most likely the cause of this year's high number of submissions.

No worries if you missed out on sending us your submission. You can contact all elected members about any issue by emailing us at electedmembers@tauranga.govt.nz

Feel free to email me your thoughts (matt.cowley@tauranga.govt.nz), call/text me on 027 6989 548, and follow me at www.facebook.com/a.younger.voice.