Barry Sammels with City of Rockingham senior building surveyor Katrina Mohsenin.
Camera IconBarry Sammels with City of Rockingham senior building surveyor Katrina Mohsenin. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

City of Rockingham breaks through to take out local government award at Master Builders Housing Excellence Awards

Gabrielle JefferyWeekend Kwinana Courier

AFTER being nominated three years in a row, the City of Rockingham has burst through to win the 2018 Local Government Best Practice Award at the Master Builders Housing Excellence Awards.

The award comes after builders found the City to be easy to deal with and reliable when it came to the processing of building applications.

At Rockingham council’s meeting on Tuesday, Mayor Barry Sammels said it was a great recognition for the City and its staff.

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“I attended the awards ceremony on Saturday night and it was an honour for the City. That’s three years in a row we have been nominated and we have finally cracked it,” he said.

“It’s great recognition for our building department and sometimes local governments don’t always get the recognition they deserve.

“We did not nominate ourselves, it was by one our their members. That shows that we are doing something right.”

The award was introduced in 2016 to benchmark standards across councils and encourage best practice across the board.

Housing director Jason Robertson said the endorsement came from myriad builders.

“The City of Rockingham received outstanding endorsement and praise from a cross-section of builders,” he said.

“Rockingham Council has set the standard for other councils by consistently processing building applications in a very short time frame, a must for builders, with their staff clearly having a genuine customer service-focused culture.”

The other finalists for the 2018 Local Government Best Practice Award were cities of Swan and Wanneroo, who won the two previous awards.

The award assessed metropolitan councils that perform best in efficiency and responsiveness when dealing with building applications, demonstrated a customer service culture, provided consistently reliable advice and information and engaged in honest and open communication with clients.

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