A council-police community safety plan fails to address the root cause of crime - poverty, a councillor believes.

Rotorua Lakes councillor Lani Kereopa has spoken out over the plan which is being developed to cut crime and antisocial behaviour in the city - including violent offending, shoplifting, graffiti and theft from cars.

Kereopa told Local Democracy Reporting she supports the plan and partnership between Rotorua Lakes Council and police.

But in her view: 'My issue is that it's focused on being an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.”

Areas such as Fordlands and Kuirau were in the 10 per cent most deprived in the country, ranked as decile 10 on the 2018 New Zealand Index of Deprivation.

Rotorua Lakes Deputy mayor Sandra Kai Fong at the April 5 council meeting. Photo: Laura Smith.

Kereopa says children resorted to stealing food and clothing to survive, and it continued into adulthood.

She believes victims of child abuse and violence sometimes 'learn a disregard for the bodies of others”, and it could result in future offending.

The plan, in her view, should therefore have a 50/50 split of resources to nourish and protect children and to catch and punish youths who turned to crime.

'That should be the starting point and we should have a timeline by which we expect to move to 80 per cent resourcing going towards improving social equity and 20 per cent towards catching criminals.”

She likens the focus on catching criminals to when iwi and police met to address the meth epidemic she says ravaged the city's communities a decade ago.

She says iwi did not think sending its people to jail is the answer and it needs resourcing and support to help whānau with addictions to provide sustainable solutions to both meth and crime issues.

The first-time councillor also believes equity in council services across its communities is important for making them safer, including for fair and effective public services such as transportation, cleaning and lighting, water supply and recreation services across all suburbs.

The plan needs to recognise that communities within Rotorua have different levels of advantage and required different approaches and resources to get equitable service outcomes, she says.

'That also includes equity in decision-making relating to things like consenting of liquor and gambling licences and commercial and industrial zoning.

'Obviously, all these things are connected to the health and wellbeing of communities and have been shown to directly correlate with the safety or otherwise of communities.”

She says the council did not outline in the plan how it would support local social services to grow and build on work in the communities with the most need.

Therefore she believes the plan should include strategies, resourcing and timelines to ensure appropriate support for things like addictions and mental health.

'Many of the crime and safety issues we are currently experiencing here in Rotorua have been caused by the actions of government departments as part of their emergency housing strategies.”

Collectively, she says the council, police and local social service providers should be calling for targeted funding for Rotorua to address the social needs of the homeless, 'who have ended up here as a direct result of government departments channelling of people with social issues from around the country here”.

In response, acting mayor Sandra Kai Fong says community safety was of top priority for the new council.

'We're well aware of social issues that were exacerbated by the number of emergency housing motels in and around Fenton St and our CBD.

'This is why within two months of being elected we had negotiated and signed the Rotorua Housing Accord with a goal of significantly reducing emergency housing motels, and therefore reducing social issues.”

She says the council was limited in what it could do in the community safety space, which is why it is working with police to combine resources.

'We've had great success already from this partnership and we are working on longer-term solutions for community safety which require resourcing and a comprehensive plan between multiple government and community agencies.”

She says the council's Child Equity Programme is well established and hundreds of children had access to what they needed to thrive because of it.

A final strategy document will be presented to councillors in the coming months.

Rotorua area commander inspector Herby Ngawhika. Photo: Laura Smith

Rotorua police area commander Inspector Herby Ngawhika says police are focused on keeping communities safe and continue to deploy staff to the times and places it knows it needs to have a presence in.

'We also know we need collaboration and community partnership to address the underlying causes of crime, and the plan will address that.”

He says it recognised not all issues were for police to manage alone.

'This is why we are partnering with Rotorua Lakes Council and will continue to work with other community partners on local solutions for what are complex social issues.”

Housing Minister Megan Woods and Police Minister Ginny Andersen were approached for comment.

- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air