Wellington’s failing pipes need $2b investment, council told

Wednesday, 22 November 2023

The cash-strapped city council should invest more than $2 billion in the city’s pipes over the next 10 years, Wellington Water has told councillors.

The council is in the midst of drafting 2024’s long-term plan, and has already floated cuts to several projects, including a cheaper roll-out of the cycleway network and the demolition of the City to Sea bridge.

Wellington Water network group manager Julie Alexander and service planning manager Pete Wells made the case to Wellington City councillors on Tuesday that water services were not an area where the council should be looking to make cuts. .

The presentation outlined cost-saving options, which were not recommended by Wellington Water, as well as the maximum capacity available. The advice was given against a background of uncertainty, said Alexander, given Three Waters reforms would likely be scrapped when a new government was formed.

Wellington Water recommended a programme including $1.8b of capital spending on projects in the coming decade, as well as $600 million in operational spending.

Dropping the operational spend from $60m to $40m for a year could create risks to public health and increase the number of leaks, Alexander told the council.

Because of the shortfall in this year’s budget, where Wellington Water did not get $2.5m of funding it requested, there would be 1000 more leaks at the end of the year, worsening the risk of a water shortage in the region.

Diane Calvert pointed out that the council still had the option to give Wellington Water that funding and get more leaks fixed.

In the presentation councillors were provided with forecasts for a lower, baseline level of investment ‒ $40m a year of operational spend ‒ although Wells said this was not recommended by Wellington Water.

“You would be going backwards,” he said. “We don’t believe it’s viable to support that option.”

The baseline level would have no funding for planned maintenance of pipes which would inevitably lead to further costs down the line, he said.

Even an uplift in funding would get the council back on track and was a good start, but would not get them all the way to fixing the water network.

Councillor Rebecca Matthews questioned whether water services had become more efficient, even after council had doubled the funding over the past four years.

“It seems like we have put in significant amounts of funding and then been told that even basic work can’t be done.”

Alexander replied that ageing pipes and a historic lack of investment had left the council in an bad position. “You are dealing with a legacy issue, I’m afraid.”

Councillor Tim Brown said he’d been confused by the briefing, but seriously doubted Wellington Water would be allocated upwards of $2b in the Long-Term Plan.

“There’s a lot of water to go under this bridge yet.”

The council still had no clear metrics for what it was getting from its increased investment, he said.

Councillors were keenly awaiting what would happen with Three Waters reform once the new government was formed and what alternatives would be on offer, hoping to find an endpoint to the never-ending cost of maintaining the pipes.