IR-01-25-30522
11 November 2025
Harwood Wilson
[FYI request #31925 email]
Tēnā koe Harwood
Request for information
Thank you for your Official Information Act 1982 (OIA) request dated 6 August 2025.
Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you.
You wrote:
Please provide the following information:
Response data for the following:
• Priority One Urgent calls with in the period April 2024 to March 2025 • Within
station areas: Hanmer, Culverden, Waikari, Cheviot, Amberley, Oxford, Akaroa,
Leeston, Darfield & Arthurs Pass.
• The number of times the first the first arriving officer was from the home station
and the number of times the first arriving officer was from outside of the home
station area, please provide this data separately for al of the above stations
mentions.
• The average response time (alert to arrival) for each station area mentioned
above, separated by when the first arriving officer belonged to the home station
or if the first arriving officer was NOT from the home station.
• Please also advise the top 5 longest and fastest responses by each station
area
Table 1 below shows the average arrival times to emergency events within the specified
station areas, for the period April 2024 to March 2025.
Attendance times are dynamic and when there is a threat to life or property, violence
being used or threatened, a serious offence / incident in progress, and/or offender(s)
present or leaving the scene then a call or other contact is classified as a Priority 1
“emergency event”.
There are a range of factors such as the number of staff available, population density,
and types of cal s for service, an event’s distance from an available unit, as wel as other
events, seasonal factors (e.g., including access issues during flooding events), the travel
times in the coverage of that area may mean the standard is not attained for a particular
subset of events.
Police National Headquarters 180 Molesworth Street. PO Box 3017, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Telephone: 04 474 9499. Fax: 04 498 7400. www.police.govt.nz
Each call or contact to Police is acted on or responded to on a case-by-case basis.
Policing by its very nature requires constant prioritisation of resources to respond to
emergency demand. Police wil always prioritise and attend the events where peoples’
lives or safety are in danger.
Only some of the requests for assistance received by Police require emergency
attendance. Additional y, during the life cycle of an event additional information may come
to hand which causes the re-prioritisation of the event (either up or down), and this may
affect Police’s decisions about response. The information provided below relates to those
that remain Priority 1, so for example do not contain events which entered as Priority 1
but were downgraded as more information came to hand. Conversely, it does contain
events which are upgraded.
Table 1. Median attendance times to emergency events at the specified stations and for the period
of April 2024 to March 2025
First arriving
officer was
Priority One
Attended
First arriving officer was
from
Events
from the home station
another
Total
station
Median
Median
Median
Scene Station
Events response
Events
response
response
time
time
time
Akaroa
90
64
35m 06s
45
33m 48s
34m 44s
Amberley
282
208
17m 56s
103
16m 35s
20m 21s
Arthur’s Pass
70
38
53m 08s
53m 08s
44m 14s
Cheviot
188
140
32m 03s
30
30m 55s
42m 21s
Culverden
34
24
33m 32s
11
29m 14s
36m 48s
Darfield
173
134
20m 31s
77
20m 31s
22m 48s
Hanmer Springs
66
47
28m 23s
29
27m 34s
32m 15s
Leeston
229
166
15m 28s
46
13m 53s
17m 11s
Oxford
107
94
22m 04s
51
21m 18s
24m 37s
Waikari
39
31
36m 06s
4
31m 57s
38m 04s
As Arthur’s Pass does not have officers stationed there and Waikari is a sole charge
station, events are usually attended by officers from nearby stations.
The table below shows the five shortest and longest attendance times for the specified
stations during the period for each scene station.
For those Priority 1 events with long attendance times there are a variety of possible
explanatory circumstances. Even within those events remaining Priority 1 there wil be
different necessities for emergency attendance and Police carefully prioritise attendance
according to individual event circumstances.
Table 2. Five shortest and longest attendance times for emergency events at the
specified stations and for the period of April 2024 to March 2025
Scene Station
Attendance Time
Akaroa
193m 45s
173m 06s
169m 50s
143m 03s
108m 12s
8m 19s
7m 49s
7m 17s
7m 11s
0m 14s
Amberley
920m 52s
604m 38s
154m 47s
119m 59s
101m 15s
3m 15s
3m 00s
2m 57s
2m 20s
1m 37s
Arthur’s Pass
202m 01s
154m 31s
98m 42s
90m 09s
89m 18s
14m 24s
13m 58s
13m 32s
10m 09s
9m 35s
Cheviot
354m 20s
199m 50s
Scene Station
Attendance Time
136m 58s
134m 32s
106m 45s
5m 38s
5m 12s
4m 07s
3m 48s
2m 18s
Culverden
100m 03s
54m 44s
51m 56s
51m 04s
50m 59s
5m 15s
4m 19s
4m 06s
3m 49s
3m 07s
Darfield
1,909m 26s
1,280m 44s
948m 32s
427m 45s
352m 05s
4m 32s
4m 20s
3m 17s
1m 51s
0m 43s
Hanmer Springs
240m 40s
136m 59s
74m 57s
62m 48s
62m 32s
14m 44s
11m 06s
9m 41s
6m 26s
0m 07s
Leeston
894m 10s
866m 40s
703m 11s
Scene Station
Attendance Time
278m 07s
221m 49s
2m 42s
2m 39s
2m 18s
2m 11s
1m 24s
Oxford
1,390m 00s
222m 49s
162m 08s
91m 05s
86m 50s
5m 58s
5m 43s
3m 19s
2m 20s
1m 21s
Waikari
61m 10s
59m 53s
57m 39s
56m 52s
54m 12s
12m 15s
12m 13s
11m 18s
8m 41s
8m 30s
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this
decision. Information about how to make a complaint is available at
www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Please note that as part of its commitment to openness and transparency, Police
proactively releases some information and documents that may be of interest to the
public. An anonymised version of this response may be publicly released on the New
Zealand Police website.
Ngā mihi
Superintendent Tony Hil
District Commander - Canterbury
