The decision to keep water services in-house reflects community feedback received through consultation carried out earlier this year.<\/p>\n
With the plans now accepted, the councils will begin transition planning to ensure the new delivery model is fully operational by the statutory deadline of July 1, 2028.<\/p>\n
Whakat\u0101ne District Council. Photo \/ LDR<\/p>\n
Whakat\u0101ne District Council has announced its employment of former Tauranga City Council\u2019s infrastructure general manager, Nic Johansson, as its three waters transition director to oversee the implementation of the new model.<\/p>\n
With councils nationally facing ongoing challenges around the long-term financing and affordability of three waters services, the Eastern Bay councils have not taken the possibility of a future regional partnership off the table.<\/p>\n
Discussions are continuing between the three Eastern Bay councils and Rotorua Lakes Council about the potential to form a multicouncil-controlled organisation in future.<\/p>\n
Whakat\u0101ne council stated this option would be explored and decided by early 2027, allowing time to establish a shared entity by July 1, 2028, if agreed.<\/p>\n
The model would involve transferring water-related assets, revenue and debt to a jointly owned company, with shared governance and oversight to retain local influence.<\/p>\n
\u014cp\u014dtiki District Council. Photo \/ LDR<\/p>\n
\u014cp\u014dtiki District Council service delivery group manager Nathan Hughes said the DIA\u2019s acceptance of the plan was a significant milestone and allowed the council to move forward with a clear plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to thank all those who helped get our WSDP [Water Services Delivery Plan] to this point. It has been a big undertaking and we\u2019re pleased our plan has been accepted,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n
Kawerau District Council. Photo \/ LDR<\/p>\n
Kawerau District Council chief executive Morgan Godfery said the council\u2019s priority over the next three years was to deliver its reticulation renewal project, which aimed to replace the entire district\u2019s drinking water reticulation network.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of October, the project was over 60% complete,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision to keep water services in-house reflects community feedback received through consultation carried out earlier this year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,15385,3595,7558,67297,4881,111,43,139,69,2171,669,376,2240],"class_list":["post-125537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-approved","tag-by","tag-councils","tag-dia","tag-kawerau","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-plans","tag-ptiki","tag-water","tag-whakatne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}