Manapouri Foreshore Vegetation Management Plan

Southland District Council (SDC) was undertaking a review of the Manapouri Foreshore Reserve Management Plan (2003) which provided for height management of vegetation on the reserve. Although some work on vegetation had been carried out, there had been little ongoing height management particularly in the areas identified as “retained/managed bush”. An itemised programme of works […]

Contract Performance Auditing

Nelson City Council engaged Xyst to carry out contract performance auditing. Xyst has developed an inspection template using a mobile app that allows performance against a set of performance measures from contract specifications to be scored from 1 to 5 and to produce an overall percentage score for each location. Activities audited include grass maintenance, […]

Waikato Tree Inventory data collection

Waikato District Council

Using a mobile data collection tool (GIS Cloud) Xyst collected data about the identity, age, condition, location and maintenance requirements of every Council tree in the Waikato District. Data (including images) is collected in the field and uploaded to a cloud-based database from where it can be exported in various formats for import directly into […]

Open Space Maintenance Specifications

In 2016 Xyst Ltd established a working group of parks industry colleagues representing both the client and contractor interests, to explore the need for an industry standard approach to the documentation of service delivery specifications. Based on the endorsement of this group, Xyst then approached New Zealand Recreation Association (now Recreation Aotearoa – RA) to […]

Waitaki Emergency Response and Contingency Plan

Waitaki District Council

Waitaki District Council contracted Xyst to develop an Emergency Response and Contingency Plan for its parks and open spaces activity. The plan provided a generic risk assessment and response for all parks and identified specific risks and prepared appropriate responses where these could be identified at individual parks. The plan included actions around trees where […]

Street Gardens and Street Furniture Levels of Service

Matamata-Piako District Council engaged Xyst to define level of service statements and guidelines at a high level for provision and development of street gardens and street furniture, and more detailed LoS for maintenance. The priority for this project was the public street or road adjacent to the business zones of the Matamata-Piako District, and entrance […]

Yardstick Parks User Surveys

Yardstick Parks User Surveys were developed in around 2008 initially as a paper based intercept survey designed to target park users and measure satisfaction with a range of parks related services and features. The product was initially called Parkcheck and is still known as this by some users. The surveys were taken online in 2015 […]

Section 17a Open Space Maintenance Service Review

Xyst worked with the Parks and Reserves team at South Waikato District Council to compare and analyse options including outsourcing delivery, in-house delivery, shared service arrangements and via a CCO/CCTO.

Child Care Centre Playground Performance Assessment

Key findings of the performance assessments, accompanied by some high level analytical commentary was completed, with each playground assigned an overall performance assessment score. Analysis included site design, play value, quantity of play items, equipment condition, safety surface condition and an assessment of remaining life of the asset.

Parks Performance Assessments

The purpose of the parks performance assessment was to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each park, from a multi-faceted holistic perspective, and particularly from the users’ perspective. Recommendations to retain, change or assign (where none previously existed) service classifications for each park were made.

Playground Performance Assessment

Undertook an assessment of each playground using the Playable Space Assessment Tool, Play England 2009, which has been adapted by Xyst. The tool enabled an assessment to be made of location, play value and ancillary facilities to produce an overall percentage score for each playground, ranking each playground to enable priorities to be identified objectively […]

Botanic Gardens Staff Resourcing Review

Xyst provided an independent review of staffing resourcing to help the Parks and Open spaces department to determine appropriate resources and a structure for the Botanic Gardens in the future. There was only enough staff to perform basic maintenance of the gardens so Xyst carried out a benchmarking analysis to assess how other Botanic Gardens […]