Greater Wellington Regional Council
regional council of New Zealand
Wellington Regional Council, branded as Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), is the regional council overseeing the Wellington Region of New Zealand's lower North Island. It is responsible for public transport under the brand Metlink, environmental and flood protection, and the region's water supply. As of 2023, it is the majority owner of CentrePort Wellington with a 77% shareholding.
The Wellington Regional Council was first formed in 1980 from the amalgamation of the functions of the Wellington Regional Planning Authority with those of the Wellington Regional Water Board, before taking its current form with the local government reforms of 1989. The council adopted the promotional name "Greater Wellington" in 2003.
A proposal made in 2013 that nine territorial authorities amalgamate to form a single supercity met substantial local opposition and was abandoned in June 2015.
Council members
The governing body of the regional council is made up of 14 councillors, representing six constituencies:
Pōneke/Wellington – 5 councillors
Kāpiti Coast – 1
Porirua-Tawa – 2
Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai/Lower Hutt – 3
Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta/Upper Hutt – 1
Wairarapa – 1
Te Upoko o te ika a Māui Māori constituency – 1
The Te Upoko o te ika a Māui Māori constituency was established for the 2025 local body elections by council vote in October 2023.
The most recent elections to the council took place in October 2025.
Wairarapa councillor and deputy chair Adrienne Staples died on 20 April 2026, meaning that a by-election was held in the Wairarapa constituency to fill her seat. Voting opened on 20 July and closed on 21 August.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Greater Wellington Regional Council” is regional council of New Zealand. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Greater, Wellington and Regional, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q59125327. VIAF identifies the subject as 124066032. The Library of Congress control number is no2004063152. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2023, 1980, 1989 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Greater Wellington Regional Council” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.