The policy was adopted at the Council meeting on 7 May 2025. The Policy has come into effect.
In late 2024, Palmerston North City Council consulted on our Health Promotion Policy.
Following consultation with the community Elected Members voted to amend the proposed policy to remove the proposal to widen the number of council facilities and events where sugary beverages could not be sold. They also voted to amend the prior policy which had seen sugar sweetened beverages removed from sale at some council facilities and events over the last four years. This will mean they can now be sold at these places once more.
The balance of the new policy was adopted, which will combine the three existing policies and the rest of the proposed changes into the new Health Promotion Policy.
The purpose of our proposed policy is to improve people’s health
The aim of our proposed policy is to promote healthier lifestyle choices for Palmerston North residents and visitors.
As well as owning land and running public facilities, we’re also a major provider of events in the city. This means we have the opportunity to determine how our public spaces and events are managed. The proposed policy aims to guide us in running these in a way that reflects our community’s values by encouraging behaviour change in the places, facilities and events we manage.
Read about the changes we're proposing
We're proposing to combine the Healthy Beverages, Smokefree and Vapefree, and Sun Protection policies into one policy, titled Health Promotion Policy (healthy beverages, smokefree and vapefree, and sun protection) 2024.
The draft policy targets events defined as ‘Council-delivered community events’. These are events directly delivered by us for the community. For example, Esplanade Day and our New Year’s celebration.
We're also proposing to extend the list of Council facilities where sugar-sweetened beverages can't be sold. (In other words, beverages with calorific sweetener, including some carbonated soft drinks, fruit drinks and flavoured milks.) This is to reflect current practices by facilities that have already transitioned to removing these from their supply stock.
These new facilities are: Caccia Birch, Central Energy Trust Arena, Central Energy Trust Wildbase Recovery, isite Palmerston North, Palmerston North City Council Civic Administration Building and Customer Service Centre, Palmy Conference and Function Centre, Youth Space.
Other proposed changes include:
- requiring smokefree and vapefree signs to be in te reo Māori and English
- requiring sunblock stations to be available at Council-delivered community events scheduled between September to April (daylight saving months)
- an update to the structure of the policy including the strategic content, purpose, objectives, and principles
- expanding the mandate of the current smokefree and vapefree reference group to become the health promotion reference group
- adding a requirement to raise public awareness of the policy
- adding a requirement to advocate to the government on matters to achieve the objectives of the policy.
You can find more detailed information on our proposed changes in the consultation document(PDF, 3MB).