Major change coming for Waipā water

Waipā District Council has signalled major change is coming for how it delivers water services in the future.

Like most other councils, Waipā manages its three waters services internally, using in-house staff and civil contractors to deliver drinking water, wastewater and stormwater across the district.

Today Council acknowledged that was unlikely to continue, directing staff to investigate two options for the future.

One option will see new chief executive Steph O'Sullivan negotiating a non-binding agreement for Waipā to potentially join with other Waikato councils in forming a regional waters organisation. It follows a report released by the Waikato Mayoral Forum in July which said the region would be better off if local councils worked together to deliver water services.

Both Ōtorohanga District Council and Waitomo District Council made the same decision today, also directing their chief executives to begin negotiations.

Waipā’s second option will see council concurrently doing an independent assessment to determine if Waipā can continue to stand alone to deliver water services in future, or if it was better off joining with others. That assessment will be completed by late September.

The independent report from the Mayoral Forum said a regional waters entity could save $338 million across the region with most ($185 million) savings driven by improved capital works and planning. It noted councils face significant community affordability challenges with high-growth councils also coming up against debt limits.

Mayor Susan O’Regan noted the government had made it crystal clear – repeatedly –that the status quo for three waters is not acceptable. And it was clear no government hand-outs were coming to help, she said.

“The savings identified are really, really important but let’s not kid ourselves. There are a whole lot of other challenges to be aware of including securing specialist waters staff and also finding contractors with the capacity to even deliver capital projects that we need to address,” she said.

“We can either choose to collaborate with other councils, or we will compete with them for the same resources. That simply doesn’t make sense to me so I think we must seriously look at aggregation and the opportunities that will be offered to our district.

“We need all the information on the table, noting there are still a lot of issues to work through. Whatever way we go, we know that change is coming.”

A draft non-binding Heads of Agreement, will be brought back to Council before the end of October.