Hutt City funds a crackdown on leaky pipes
Wednesday, 21 February 2024
Let the war on leaks begin. The Hutt City Council has made a late addition to its draft annual plan, adding an extra $2.8 million to target the current backlog of leaks in the city by this December.
In adding the money, Mayor Campbell Barry said he hoped to send a message to other councils that the region must do more to reduce leaks and preserve water.
His aim is to reduce the backlog in Lower Hutt, which currently results in only the most serious leaks being fixed by Wellington Water. That means residents can wait months for a toby or a minor leak to be repaired. The council also wants Wellington Water to work with local plumbers to get on top of toby leaks.
It is a strategy welcomed by Hutt Gas and Plumbing general manager Colleen Upton. She says it is clear that people are deeply frustrated by how long it takes to fix a leaking toby and plumbers are more than willing to help.
Master Plumbers boss Greg Wallace had been outspoken in his comments calling for plumbers to be given the green light to work with Wellington Water. Upton supports his approach and says it had resulted in a change of attitude from Wellington Water.
After initially claiming plumbers lack the necessary skills, it reluctantly acknowledged the real issue was money.
Barry said he wanted Wellington Water to get on top of the backlog to make it easier for it to work on lower-priority leaks, which at present are largely ignored. Upton said that was a strategy that both the community and plumbers would support.
Using plumbers to do the smaller leaks was common sense and if people saw the smaller leaks being fixed, it would hopefully bring a change of attitude towards saving water over summer, Upton said.
“Plumbers are by nature conservers of water. It [the high number of leaks] goes against their DNA.”
Barry said the money should help Wellington Water get on top of the backlog of leaks and show residents the council was serious about saving water.
'We are declaring a crackdown on leaks in Lower Hutt.“
Wellington Water recently announced a water crisis, noting it was a only a matter of time before the region ran out of water over summer, a situation Barry said could not continue to be ignored.
'The situation this summer is not sustainable year on year. While pipe renewals are the only long-term fix in stopping leaks, we need to be doing everything we can to avoid an acute water shortage in the short term.“
Upton said as well as fixing small leaks, she would like to see plumbers used to report and classify leaks.
“We can be the scouts for Wellington Water. Where is the leak, how big is it? That is a job we can do for them.”
As well as providing extra funding, Hutt City asked Wellington Water to work with the private sector to help clear the huge backlog of leaks.
Customer operations general manager Kevin Locke welcomed the extra funding and confirmed Wellington Water had the resources to address the backlog.
“We appreciate any funding our councils can provide the region’s water services and infrastructure.”
The money would allow it to deal more quickly with non-urgent leaks, including tobies.
He acknowledged that the council had made a request to use plumbers from within the region to help reduce the number of leaks.
Wellington Water was in discussion with Master Plumbers on how its members could help and Hutt’s request would be considered as part of those discussions.
There are currently 839 confirmed leaks in Lower Hutt. This needs to be reduced to below 280 for Wellington Water to be able to respond to lower-level leaks within 20 working days, which is Wellington Water’s KPI.
Wellington Water had fixed 1761 leaks in Lower Hutt since July 1 2023, with 350 of them since January 1.
There are 3337 confirmed leaks and 803 unconfirmed leaks across the region. Wellington Water fixed 681 in January.