A district-sized job - the 22 people keeping Waitaki green

Published on 11 September 2026

From fast-growing grass in Palmerston to playground checks and overflowing bins, the Green by Nature team races across a vast landscape to keep the Waitaki District Council’s public spaces ready for everyone.

You could say 2,533 hectares is the equivalent of roughly nine average-sized New Zealand farms, or around 42 standard 18-hole golf courses, or even the size of 7.4 New York Central Parks packed together.

That number is a tad mind-blowing when you look into it because it’s the amount of green space and recreation infrastructure that the Waitaki District Council owns and maintains.

That figure includes parks, reserves, sports fields, open spaces, public gardens and walking/cycling trails. It also incorporates 24 public playgrounds, four skateparks, three bike parks and 13 cemeteries.

It’s a tall and busy order for the 22 staff, including boss David Welton at Green by Nature, which holds the Council contract for maintaining the massive area that is Waitaki’s open spaces, reserves and recreation reserves.

It’s a chunky and complex job and David is rightfully proud of his passionate staff, who can talk about criss-crossing mowing and line marking for the rugby game until your ears bleed.

Waitaki is one of New Zealand's largest districts by land area – the 11th largest of the country's 67 territorial authorities, covering more than 7,100 square kilometres.

So that team of 22 is busy preparing to tackle an area bigger than some countries’ land size, with a population of only around 24,000. But they get around all the areas in two weeks.

And some places are busier than others, even within the district. “For instance, it (grass) likes to grow and it likes to keep growing in Palmerston, Last year it felt like it was in the spring flush all the way through to just about start of autumn. But everyone else is slowing down and we're still at Palmerston every week or every week and a half, trying to cut all the grass out there.”

Then there’s the facilities side of things – toilets and rubbish bins. In August there were 1,759 jobs logged, and that is a quiet month. As spring kicks in, the team is heading into its busiest season. There are sports fields to be swapped over, spring growth to contend with, a rise in the use of facilities and the list goes on.

How do they manage it?

“We’re checking all the time,” David said. On a typical month they have around 177 garden jobs. “Yeah, weeding, spraying, edging, roses, all the Ōamaru garden. So there's 177 different jobs, and a few of them can be the daily jobs, but a lot of the gardens will be a monthly visit.”

Mowing includes normal maintenance mowing, sports turf, line marking for sports games and mowing community housing lawns.

Playgrounds are definitely high on the priority list. Every one in the district gets inspected once a week, while Marine Parade and the Ōamaru Public Gardens ones are checked daily.

“Every quarter we do full walks of the hard surface, so the playground operator is actually doing a hard surface inspection, so he's got a ton of jobs.”

The playground inspector also trudges along every walking track in the district, making sure there are no safety concerns, such as a fallen tree.

For the playgrounds, it’s a clean-and-check-as-you-go job – picking up litter and making sure the amenities are safe.

“For instance, kids love standing there throwing the swing over the top, so one of our jobs every week is to get a ladder and unwind it back down so someone can use it.”

ENDS

media@waitaki.govt.nz