Mayoral Column - Water Services Delivery Plan

Every council is required to develop a Water Services Delivery Plan before September 2025 outlining how we will deliver and sustainably finance the community’s water services into the future.

There will be greater central government oversight with quality and economic regulation through Taumata Arowai and the Commerce Commission. They will apply greater scrutiny using new quality standards for wastewater and stormwater, as well as standardisation of design and parts Councils will retain legal responsibility and control of stormwater but can choose different delivery models. Water and Wastewater may be transferred to new Water Service Providers that must remain in public ownership. Taumata Arowai and the Commerce Commission will be funded from the fees or rates charged to customers, those connected.

Before writing a water services delivery plan, our council must make a choice this year on our preferred options to be able to better inform the community on what we think is best, and consult early next year. This will cover who of our neighbouring councils we could work with and how the services are likely to be delivered.

A Council Controlled Organisation gives the greatest access to future borrowing, which is very important for spreading the cost over time and still achieve a sustainable service. Whilst we could consider continuing to operate ourselves, we need more scale to be cost effective for residents. Through these more localised models we have a greater voice which has been key for us throughout all our water conversations.

A joined-up approach could be implemented by in-house management spread across partnering councils or by developing a Council Controlled Organisation with partner councils.

There has been a significant amount of work carried out understanding our assets, exploring and analysing options to understand what these models could look like, and the costs and benefits to Tararua residents.

Our council will have papers for our 11 December public meeting where the options for consultation for the delivery arrangement of our water services into the future will be discussed. Some councils have already started this process a there is already public information available.

We are aiming to get our information on the website for residents to follow. Agenda papers are always published on-line, and our meetings open to the public.

This is a significant decision, and we will be consulting in February and March 2025 with community meetings and drop-in sessions along with Facebook live. If you are keen to engage early, feel free to make contact or drop into our weekly Mayor and Councillor drop-in sessions.