Wagga cream of regional crop, Riverina's hidden gem a well-being haven

An independent study by SGS Economics and Planning indexed every local government area in Australia on seven different well-being dimensions, such as equality and community, economy, housing and health, using the data to create an overall score out of 10.

The average index score of the Riverina Murray LGAs was 4.82, higher than the average of the Central West and Orana at 4.75, while Wagga out-performed other major regional cities like Orange, Bathurst, Albury and Tamworth.

Michelle Tjondro from SGS said this year's report took around four months to develop and looks to understand the impacts public policy has over time, with an interactive dashboard displaying all the data in an easy to explain way.

"Even within NSW, there are significant differences in infrastructure, provision, service, density and population and community profiles," Ms Tjondro said.

"We've really structured this framework across the seven dimensions of well-being... You can imagine how much richness of data sits under all of this when we've got all of that available from the 518 LGAs across the nation."

The fact Wagga has come up trumps over other large regional cities came as no shock to city councillor Georgie Davies.

"We all know that it's a great city ... Wagga has great employment opportunities," said Cr Davies.

"It's a thriving city to live in and a great place to raise a family ... you've actually got a lifestyle.

"It's absolutely no surprise for anyone that has been living in Wagga for most of their life, or has moved to Wagga, and loves it."

Snowy Valleys was ranked highest with a score of 5.59 and a national ranking of 93, followed by Lockhart, Temora and Wagga LGAs.

However, Lockhart achieved a perfect 10 in the housing dimension - one of the highest rankings in the country - while Wagga came in at 197 with a score of 7.22.

Lockhart mayor Greg Verdon welcomed the report's findings, saying it "isn't a surprise" his shire is shining in terms of housing, due to its affordability and proximity to Wagga.

"Any land that we've developed in The Rock or Lockhart is seemingly snapped up pretty quickly and there has been a lot of new construction taking place in both Lockhart and The Rock," Mayor Verdon said.

"People are building and certainly looking for a different lifestyle, which a lot of our smaller communities offer.

"You've got your supermarkets, your local butchers... still got a minimum as your old quarter acre block of land ... very low crime, and it's just that communal effect I think of living in a small area."

The housing dimension is based on the Rental Affordability index, which measures rental affordability against household incomes.

Despite the report putting Lockhart close to the top nationally, there is one issue causing concern for Cr Verdon.

"The only problem is we don't have much land available at the moment... I don't think you'll find anything to rent around The Rock, or even in the shire," he said.

"We're currently looking at reviewing our local environmental plan (LEP) to allow more land to become on the market for residential housing... unfortunately that's not a quick process."

Ms Tjondro hopes that instead of using the data as a scorecard, people can use the data to make changes in the dimensions they may be not doing as well in, with the ranks and scores not "set in stone".

"What I really hope to see if we're having this conversation in a year's time, in five years time... let's look at the LGAs that didn't perform as well this year and did they shift the needle on overall well-being - can we say that it's due to good policy design and programs that have been introduced," she said.