Another challenge in the water space is the water reform currently underway in New Zealand. In July 2020, the Government launched the Three Waters Reform Programme – a three year programme to reform local government water service delivery arrangements for drinking water, storm water and waste water. The government’s proposing to develop a new, regional model delivering water services across the country.

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta outlined her expectations in an interview on Radio NZ (July 2020) - “What we want councils to do is think strategically about how they could aggregate service delivery in the water space to be able to gain all the advantages of creating scale and the opportunities it would provide in terms of investment into the water service system.”

Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta spoke at last year’s Water New Zealand conference and expo about the need to lift standards to make drinking water safer for all New Zealand communities.

This could mean a new entity will own and operate water, storm water and waste water services (not Council).

We have entered into an agreement with the government to participate in this reform process. Water and waste water manager Karl Pavlovich indicated that currently we’ve “agreed to be in the conversation, we agree to share our information freely so the conversation can be had in an effective way.”  While we are actively participating in this initial stage, there’s no requirement to continue with future stages of the reforms.

Once the details of the reform proposals have been decided, we will have to decide whether to remain in or opt out of the reform programme by the end of 2021. At this stage we don’t know what size, shape or design these regional entities will be, or when the new model will be in place.

What we do know is that our community will always need these services, so regardless of who will own them, we are continuing to plan for future needs, maintaining our assets, and investing in improvements where they are needed.

As we plan ahead and face challenges such as tougher compliance requirements and changes to water management, we are focusing on maintaining our infrastructure and ensuring it can cater for growth. We can continue to improve, but we can’t do everything - it’s simply not affordable. So this is where we need your help making some big decisions for the next ten years. 

You can read more about the challenges we're facing with water, or make a submission online.