Uniting neighbourhoods, one honest post at a time.
LocalVoice exists to bring neighbours back together — to celebrate the people and places doing good work, and to gently point out the things that could be done better.
A friendly place for real locals.
Neighbourhoods are stronger when people talk to each other. Somewhere along the way, a lot of that local chat moved into closed Facebook groups, formal council submissions, or simply disappeared into the noise. We wanted to put it back where it belongs — out in the open, tied to real streets and suburbs, and easy for anyone in your area to find.
LocalVoice is built on a simple idea: give praise where it is warranted, and politely point out the things that could be better. A finished playground deserves a thank-you. A pothole on the school run deserves attention. A great little café opening deserves a shout-out. None of these things have to be a drama — they just need somewhere to be said.
We are not a council, we are not a news outlet, and we are not interested in outrage. We are a community noticeboard for New Zealand, designed to keep conversations local, respectful, and useful. If we do our job well, you will know your neighbourhood a little better every time you visit.
Bring neighbours together
See what people on your streets actually care about — not just what the algorithm decides to show you.
Celebrate the good
A big chunk of LocalVoice is good news — finished roadworks, kind neighbours, local wins worth a clap.
Flag what could be better
Potholes, dodgy intersections, broken bins — pin them on the map so the right people can see the pattern.
Privacy first
Your home base is never displayed. We protect where you live by design.
A wide noticeboard helps communities grow.
LocalVoice is not just for potholes and broken streetlights. It works for anything that helps a neighbourhood tick — the everyday, the good, and the useful.
Car boot sales & giveaways
Let locals know about a garage sale, furniture giveaway, or tools you are lending out.
Cafe & shop openings
Shout out a new cafe, a new butcher, or a local business worth supporting.
Community events
Markets, school fairs, fundraisers, working bees, and street parties — all in one place.
Lost & found pets
Reach neighbours quickly when a pet goes missing or a stray turns up on your doorstep.
Local announcements
Road closures, water outages, new bins, traffic changes, or anything the patch needs to know.
Good news
Thank a kind neighbour, celebrate a completed project, or share a feel-good local win.
From sign-in to posting, step by step.
Here is exactly what happens once you log in, so there are no surprises.
Join in under a minute
Tap Join Now, enter an email, password and display name, then drop a pin on the map to set your Home Base. We snap your pin to a suburb — we never store your exact address.
Sign in and land on Your Feed
Once you are signed in, the homepage shows Your Feed — posts from your home suburb and the area around it. You can widen or tighten that radius any time from the home page slider.
Explore beyond your patch
Switch to Roaming on the feed to see what is happening anywhere in New Zealand, or open the Map tab for a colour-coded view of every recent post — pins by category, with hotspots for the busy areas.
Create a post in seconds
Tap the New Post button (or the floating + on mobile). Pick a category, add a title and a few sentences, then drop a pin on the incident location — this pin is public, unlike your private home base.
Add photos and detail
You can attach up to three photos, and for potholes or speed bumps a 1–5 Wheel Alignment Risk slider appears so others know how serious it is. Photos are compressed automatically before upload.
React and comment
On any post, tap an emoji to react, or leave a comment. Replies are threaded so conversations stay readable, and your reactions are remembered the next time you visit.
Get notified about replies
The bell icon in the menu shows unread notifications in real time — replies to your posts, reactions, and brand-new posts in your suburb. Open it once and the counter clears.
Track your impact
Head to your profile to see your posts, total views, reactions and a posting streak. It is a gentle nudge to keep contributing — not a leaderboard.
Free today. Honest about tomorrow.
Right now LocalVoice is completely free to use.
As more people join, our running costs will quietly grow — hosting, the map service, image storage, email, moderation tooling and the time it takes to keep things tidy. So that we can keep LocalVoice independent and mainly ad-free, we are planning a very small membership down the track: somewhere around $4 a month, that's right $1 a week.
That fee will pay for the things that keep this place trustworthy: New Zealand-friendly hosting, proper moderation, the cost of every map tile and photo, and the time we put into building new features people actually ask for. It also means you are the customer, not an advertiser — which is exactly how a community noticeboard should work.
When that day comes, anyone who has signed up before then will get plenty of notice, a generous free run-in, and the option to support us only if you feel LocalVoice is worth it. If it is not, you keep your account and your posts either way — no paywall locks you out of your own neighbourhood.