Council is on the clock to make ‘significant’ water decision
On 5 May 2025, Ōpōtiki District Council opened consultation on its Local Water Done Well proposal. And time is tight to get a decision across the line in time to meet the government’s September deadline to get a Water Services Delivery Plan to the Department of Internal Affairs.
Ōpōtiki Mayor, David Moore, said that it had been a huge undertaking for staff and council to have options on the table for public feedback given the scale and implications of such a big decision.
“The Government gave us five options for managing our three waters: keep it in house (with some modifications), a Water Service Organisation(WSO) either on our own or with other councils, and two options to work with local trusts.
“It was clear pretty early that most of these aren’t options for us - we are too small to benefit from having our own WSO, and there aren’t any trusts that would be able to partner with us to make the trust options work either.
“So that left us on the table a multi-council WSO or keeping it in house for the moment to allow us time to find good water partners and the best long-term arrangements for our communities,” Mayor Moore said.
The council reports shows that current costs of delivering three water services per ratepayer in Ōpōtiki are around $2,300 each year. Both options see that figure rise above $4000 over ten years, but when the costs will be felt by households is different under either scenario. Keeping the water services in an in-house business unit would be cheaper in the first years but more expensive after 2034. Joining a shared WSO may be the same as an in-house business unit in the earlier years, but the efficiencies would be seen later, depending on the mix of councils involved and the agreed approach to pricing.
“Public consultation is about testing the water (excuse the pun) so I would really encourage people to research the issue and have their say online or on paper.
“We’ve kept it pretty simple at this stage just “do you agree with our preferred approach (keeping services in house while we explore our WSO options) or not”. So it doesn’t have to be a long response, but it gives people the opportunity just to raise any concerns or things we should be considering before we make that decision to meet government’s September deadline,” Mayor Moore said.
The public consultation period on the two Local Water Done Well options will run from 5 May to 6 June. The council must submit its Water Services Delivery Plan to Government by 3 September.
