Wellington Mayor Andrew Little believes the new water entity will need to go back to the drawing board on a new business case.
Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
A half-a-billion dollar price-tag for rolling out water meters in Wellington is not “credible”, says the mayor, and he expects the new water entity to start from scratch on a business case.
Tiaki Wai will manage the region’s water services from July, and says it wants to roll-out about 140,000 water meters to help people manage consumption and identify leaks.
Its draft strategy said installing meters could take between five and seven years, and may cost $500-590 million.
Questions have been mounting over that cost, as well as a set of indicative charges for water bills the entity released in March.
Wellington mayor Andrew Little told RNZ he was perplexed by the numbers.
“I struggle to find those figures credible.”
Little said Tiaki Wai had told him it was using the figures from Wellington Water as the best information it had at the time it released its draft strategy, and Tiaki Wai’s senior leaders themselves doubted the figures.
He believed the entity would go back to the drawing board on a new business case after it took over water services from 1 July, he said.
“It’s unfortunate that Tiaki Wai felt they had to get that information out, I know they had to make a commitment about water meters, and had to put a price on it, but that information is out there, it is justifiably causing a lot of concern.
“But I take them at their word when they say they’ll re-visit the whole thing, start from scratch once they take over, and it could be a different picture,” Little said.
But former city councillor Tim Brown – who describes himself as a water-users advocate – said he was not impressed by that.
“I just find this so unprofessional. How can people tell us that they are going to oblige us to pay $4000 per household [for meters]?
“Four thousand bucks per households, and now we’re told by the mayor the plan is such garbage they’ve got to start all over again,” Brown said.
Brown said at most, the cost of installing a meter and digging a hole should cost about $1400 per household. He said he understood some of Tiaki Wai’s costs factored in potentially replacing pipes at installation – but questioned whether this had to be done on every street.
He said there were other models where Tiaki Wai could outsource the meter ownership to a company – rather than owning all the meters themselves.
Wellington needed meters, he said.
“If you can’t meter it, you can’t manage it.”
A Tiaki Wai spokesperson said the Tiaki Wai Board had always said water metering estimates may change.
In a statement, chief executive Michael Brewster said the information in its draft strategy was transferred over from Wellington Water, and the board was taking another look at the costs.
“We understand public concerns about projected costs and want to assure people that this is not a done deal.
“We know people are facing cost-of-living pressures and we are acutely aware of the importance of every dollar of customers’ money.”
Brewster said part of Tiaki Wai’s plan was to install smart meters, and the meters must be connected into the pipe carrying water to a property – which may be challenging on a hillside property or where the pipe is in a poor condition.
Because there weren’t any meters installed yet, costs for “significant civil and mechanical works” made up the greatest share of the estimate.
Brewster said the Tiaki Wai board is expecting an update on the plan for water meter costs near the end of 2026.
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