Despite the Southern Water Done Well model shrinking by the day, Central Otago District Council (CODC) is still pushing ahead with its jointly-owned Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) with remaining district councils Clutha and Gore.

Timaru pulled out of the deal first in March and then just this week Waitaki, but at council’s meeting yesterday (Thursday July 10) councillors agreed to forge ahead with their plan to share the water services delivery model with their southern neighbours.

That was in line with the majority of Central Otago submitters - 47.5 percent agreed the joint CCO model was best, out of 303 submissions.

The joint CCO is subject to further analysis prior to adoption of a Water Services Delivery Plan that has to be submitted to the Department of Internal Affairs by September 3.

CODC also requested staff to provide further analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the jointly owned CCO model with an anticipated three councils.

CEO Peter Kelly said while four councils in the CCO was better than three, three councils was also better than just two, but one council standing alone with an in-house business unit was not an option.

He told the meeting council would have had to go to the bank and borrow $216M to make the in-house business unit work, when they are already $50M in debt.

“And we’re forecasting over the next seven years in the LTP to spend $247M just in water alone.”

Clutha District Council also met yesterday to also decide on its water services delivery model, while Gore District Council would decide on Monday (July 14).

CODC mayor Tamah Alley said she understood about 70 percent of councils around the country are in some form of joint CCO.

Given that Waitaki had now pulled out of the Southern Water Done Well deal, she said it made sense to have another set of eyes to look over the figures before a final decision is made.

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