Last year Bellingen Shire Council took a proposal to the Mid North Coast Joint Organisation of Councils (comprising Bellingen, Kempsey and Port Macquarie) suggesting the JO commission Professor Roberta Ryan to investigate how and why residents value the activities and role of local government.

This was an extension of a nationwide survey carried out by Professor Ryan in 2014 called Why Local Government Matters, and it used a similar methodology based on telephone interviews with a statistically representative sample of respondents based on age and gender quotas.

Across the region, 793 people were interviewed and in Bellingen Shire it was 149, sample sizes that achieved a confidence interval of 94 per cent.

Bellingen Shire General Manager Liz Jeremy said the point of the research was to allow the JO and the individual councils to make decisions "based on facts and data, not just what we thought was a good thing".

She noted that the survey was about values rather than satisfaction levels.

"For decades, councils have routinely done surveys on community satisfaction," she said. "That will tell you whether the community is happy or not happy about particular issues, but not what the key issues of concern are."

The research revealed some distinctive results for Bellingen Shire when compared to the national and regional benchmarks.

Nationwide, people feel a strong emotional connection to the place where they live, but in Bellingen Shire the level of attachment is unusually high.

For instance, 94 per cent of people here strongly agree/agree with the statement, "There is something about the landscape that makes me feel good", as opposed to 77 per cent nationwide.

They also more strongly affirmed the area reflects who they are, they feel at home here, and living here makes them feel good about themselves.

Bellingen Shire residents place a greater importance on the natural environment and its sustainability than the national average or the Mid North Coast average.

"They find availability of locally grown food, pollution levels, healthy ecosystems, and resource efficiency are extremely important aspects of the place," Professor Ryan said.

They also rated community diversity, creativity and cohesion as very important.

In terms of council services and functions, those that contribute most to the area's unique sense of place and community values are more highly valued by Bellingen Shire locals.

Unlike other regional areas, people here do not believe that council should just stick to 'roads, rates and rubbish' - their views align more with the national sentiment of valuing a diverse range of services from local government.

They rate as most important emergency and disaster management, parks and gardens, health and environmental management, and land use planning and development applications.

Residents are more likely to favour direct government service delivery, a larger role for government in delivering essential services and infrastructure, and greater community participation in decision-making. They are particularly sceptical of market-based service delivery models.

As well as using the results to inform priorities and decision making at the JO and shire level, it's hoped the research will also give council a representative panel of residents they can consult in future.

"We will establish a panel that we can talk to regularly, either face to face or via email, and a couple of times a year we will bring that panel together to deliberate," Ms Jeremy said. "That panel will be demographically representative of the shire and so it will provide the best information we can for the councillors to inform their decision making."

The other aspect of the research conducted by UTS involved an independent review of Bellingen Shire Council's financial sustainability - something that Professor Ryan said few LGAs were brave enough to do.

Dr Joseph Drew analysed BSC against 45 metrics, comparing it to peer group councils and all councils across NSW.

The key finding was gratifying:

"It is our conclusion that Council's long-term financial sustainability is tracking well. In particular, the improving technical efficiency, low levels of debt, prudent spending, and the steady improvement in asset condition all indicate that Council is doing an extraordinarily successful job in challenging conditions."

The Courier-Sun asked how much the research project cost and General Manager Liz Jeremy said it was collaboratively funded by the JO and member councils.

She added that Bellingen Shire's contribution from its operational budget was about $15,000.