Water, water everywhere… but not a drop from our taps that hasn’t cost our communities.

Over the past seven years, our beautiful clear waters have become a dirty word in New Zealand.

Our previous mayor, local media, national media, and facebook comments have provided ample context and conjecture on the merits or otherwise of the reform to date, but the simple fact is: water is no longer simple.

Last year, rather than a Long Term Plan, council took the option to complete an enhanced Annual Plan, in the hope that some of the turbidity in the water would have settled and we could see more clearly what was going on. Sadly this has proven not to be the case.

As promised, the coalition Government has repealed the previous legislation relating to water services entities and has started to set in place new legislation for Local Water Done Well.

The third part of this will be released in December, which will include minimum requirements for Local Government water services providers.

The trouble is – we’re already working on what our Long Term Plan consultation for next year will look like. It’s helpful if we put in accurate numbers when we ask you to consider options, and tricky to do when we don’t yet know what the legislative requirements will be.

The conversation we need to have with you is complex.

And there are challenges such as “Three Waters? I thought we stopped that?” (We can’t, it’s part of our core business) “National said we didn’t need to do it anymore?” (They didn’t, but have changed the name) and “My water is fine, just keep it as it is” (which is great, but not practical everywhere and we have to ensure drinking it won’t accidentally kill you.)

We also have communities who are exceptionally unhappy with the quality of the drinking water council provides, plus areas where there will be substantially more development and these areas will need connected to services too.

My plea is this – we will bring you an opportunity to treat “every day as a school day.”

There is a huge amount of information on our website, we will keep updating this as more becomes available, please check it out. I will be breaking down information into bite-sized chunks, and other elected members are also available to chat. We’re friendly!