After a couple of delays, and a long and rigorous process, we were very pleased to be able to open the 2025-34 Long-term Plan consultation on the 1st of April.

Over the community consultation period (open until 1 May 2025), we are keen to “unpack” the LTP’s nine items, and water is a weighty one:

Water done well. 

This question focuses on the future delivery of water services. Currently all water services are managed by CODC, but there may be opportunities in the future to shift water services to a separate Council Controlled Organisation (CCO) or collaborate with neighbouring councils to develop multi-council water service organisations.

The community's input will help guide these decisions.

How we deliver water services in the future has a BIG impact on our finances. Our preferred option is to set up a CCO that will deliver our drinking water, stormwater and wastewater.

We could do this alone or form a multi-council organisation, which is being explored now, with Gore, Clutha and Waitaki district councils. It would be run like a company with a board of directors, but the councils would own it. One of biggest benefits would be access to greater funding levels for the upgrades needed to meet the new standards.

Water rates would no longer be on your rates bill, you would get a separate bill from the CCO – like other utilities. We have an alternative option where services continue to be delivered in-house, but at a higher cost and would require increased investment in infrastructure and staffing. We’d continue to deliver water, but the rates would rise more quickly than they would under a CCO. 

The commitment from the group of councils looking at working together is that no water consumers would pay more under a joint service than they would if it stayed with council, with a similar level of investment. Importantly – there will be another consultation process (yay, right!?) that covers just this detailed water decision towards the end of May.

Ida MacDonald Roxburgh Pool Punawai Ora. 

The Roxburgh community fundraised and built a state-of-the-art pool facility that the whole community enjoys. However, there are insufficient resources (both staffing and financial) to maintain the facility long-term. It is a big ask for a volunteer trust to run a community pool – it comes with a lot of liability.

This question asks whether Council should take on the management of the pool to ensure its sustainability.

The pool committee approached us to see if we’d be interested in taking over this $3 million facility.

If the community wants this to happen, we would run it in a similar way to Council’s Ranfurly Pool – it would be seasonal, open December to March with the same staffing and management, using the district-wide funding model that we’re moving to come 1st of July this year. This is a tricky one with some consequences for the Teviot Valley community which will provide food for thought. More information on this is available on our website.

That’s a simplified version, and there’s a lot more detail about this and the other consultation items on Let’s Talk: What's important Central Otago: 2025-34 Long-term Plan | Let’s Talk Central Otago.

There you’ll find the Long-term Plan Consultation Document, additional links to more information, the dates for public information and drop-in sessions, and a calculator to work out what it all could mean for YOUR rates. 

Don’t forget you can raise topics and issues not covered as well – just add to your submission!