Wairarapa businesses on amalgamation

The Wairarapa Times-Age reports:

The Wairarapa Chamber of Commerce is backing the super-city model.

In a statement on Wednesday, chief executive Steph Gundersen-Reid said their surveys showed 65 per cent supported the Local Government Commission’s draft proposal to create a Greater Wellington Council.

“We’ve listened to our members and engaged with the business community across the Wairarapa,” she said.

“Many of them support the proposal and understand that we must seize the opportunity to benefit the Wairarapa.”

Their surveys, conducted since December 2014, showed that most were in favour of some form of change to the current model.

A reader has e-mailed me some correspondence with the Chamber, which details they had a 20.6% response rate from their approx 220 members.

That means 45 replies.

The margin of error on 45 responses out of 220 for a 65% support is 12.5%.

To have the normal 95% confidence level, a sample of 136 would be needed. So the results are indicative but not conclusive.