Wollongong City Council has received an improved scorecard following the release of the 2014 community survey results.

The survey indicated that the council had achieved its highest satisfaction rating among residents in more than a decade.

The biennial Wollongong City Council Community Survey surveyed 503 residents, asking them to rate their satisfaction with the council's performance in specific areas, as well as areas for improvement and what they see as key priorities.

Sixty per cent of respondents said they were highly satisfied with the council's performance over the past 12 months, with 30 per cent indicating that they were mildly satisfied.

There were no statistical differences between men and women, but residents aged 45 to 64 were the least satisfied group.

People indicated that areas of highest priority should be: parking and parking meters, road maintenance, the environment, footpaths, cycleways and parks, and sporting grounds and pools.

In a significant improvement from 2010, 41 per cent of the community said they thought the council had spent their money wisely over the past 12 months.

Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said he was pleased with these results.

"I am still concerned about people's perceptions on spending money wisely, and while it is an improvement there is still a long way to go," he said.

"We [the council] cannot rest on our laurels."

Among those who disagreed with council spending were similar responses - a popular one being that too much money had been spent on improvements in Wollongong's CBD and other suburbs were being ignored.

People also thought that money could have been better spent on footpaths and cycleways, the environment around Lake Illawarra and introducing more solutions to stormwater flooding.

"Wollongong is a very large area and that has to be taken into consideration," Cr Bradbery said.

"We are putting money into a number of projects in the region but people who live in other parts of the community do not realise this. $86 million will be going into our capital works program, which will include replacing footpaths, roads and storm flooding."

Cr Bradbery said he wanted to fix community perceptions in the forthcoming budget.

A large area of concern for residents was parking.

Responses focused on the cost of parking, the lack of available parking in the CBD and short parking times, either with or without meters.

However, free parking in Wollongong's CBD seems to be a thing of the past.

"We are increasing the parking in the city but this comes with costs, such as parking rangers and financing supervision for parking facilities," Cr Bradbery said.

"We don't want to turn the CBD into a parking lot."