Local Government spotlight: Tory Whanau

Sunday, 28 April 2024

Leaks from burst water pipes have become a common sight around Wellington and will cost billions of dollars to fix

The Sunday Star-Times is putting the spotlight on the big issues facing local government in a regular series hearing from the country’s mayors and others. Tory Whanau is the mayor of Wellington.

OPINION: The ask from Wellington Water earlier this week to continue to conserve water is a reminder that we are not out of our water woes yet.

To me, maintaining water infrastructure is about ensuring that we protect not only one of our most important natural resources, but also making sure we have safe and clean water for generations to come.

I’ve said time and time again that work to address the dire state of our water infrastructure in this region is not an overnight fix and will take a lot of mahi to truly get on top of.

The work we do as a region and in partnership with local government is a critical way forward in doing this. But I wanted to assure residents that while we have a long road ahead of us we are still doing things here and now to make a difference.

Last week we brought forward $4.4m to complete ahead of schedule upgrades to a major sewer pipe on Taranaki St.

This has been a hugely complicated project in a busy part of our city which I’m sure many of you will have come across. Getting it done ahead of time means commuters, residents and businesses in the area will be able to get back to normal, without the disruption of construction work, sooner.

Last week I also visited the pipe upgrade site and met with Wellington Water to check out the work they’re doing. It was impressive.

We have a group of deeply passionate workers keen to bring us out of our water infrastructure problem – and in the case of pipe renewals, they’re doing it faster than planned. This is great news and I hope a sign of things to come.

Many Wellingtonians will have seen the geyser like pipe bursts in Aro Valley in recent years. It’s likely a symbol to many of the extent of the problems we are dealing with deep underground.

Residents have rightfully so been frustrated for far too long with our leaky pipes and quite frankly the lack of action to upgrade them.

But, I’m glad we’re putting extra money in to finally replacing that exact water pipe so local residents will finally see a fix.

We’re also currently consulting with communities on our 10-year budget (also known as the Long-term Plan) which I see as a massive turning point and an opportunity to finally start turning around and changing the decades of under investment.

A glimpse of the rusted insides of Wellington's aging drinking water system.

In this plan we’ve decided to increase our investment in the three waters infrastructure significantly. Over the next 10 years we’ll be spending over $1.8bn on three waters.

It is our top spending priority. $1 in every $4 we spend in the next 10 years is going on water.

This money will help us deliver major upgrades to the most urgent work.

It will also have a focus on finding and repairing leaks. To do that we’re proposing the roll-out of water meters for homes.

Water meters give us the ability to find leaks so we can fix them faster. It’s about working smarter as well as harder.

For households that use less water it could also help reduce their costs.

Other Councils have done this and it’s time Wellington did the same.

The alternative is that we continue to lose water and ultimately spend billions building new water storage lakes instead. That’s something we know that our community and the environment can’t afford.

While it is vital we invest in our water infrastructure, I know it comes at a cost to households.

Wellington’s infrastructure woes are compounded by earthquake damage to buildings like the Town Hall which is costing hundreds of millions of dollars to fix.

We have made some tough calls and tried hard to manage this and made tough decisions to reduce spending on other areas. For example the demolishing, rather than fixing the city to sea bridge, and phasing construction of the Golden Mile.

But alternatively, the cost of not doing anything is also massive.

The cost of infrastructure woes is not unique to Wellington. We’re seeing double-digit rates increases for councils up and down the country.

The Mayoral Taskforce on water in 2020 found that a key governance failure has been political pressure to keep rates lower than what is required to maintain the infrastructure assets and services.

The deficit we have been left with is huge, and rates alone will not plug the gap. Councils around the country are now grappling with this, alongside increased inflation, insurance costs and interest rates.

Local Government New Zealand research shows that councils’ share of overall tax revenue has remained at 2% of GDP for the last 50 years, despite the strain of increasing responsibilities, and the pressure has reached a tipping point.

It’s why ultimately we need reform from central government.

The Government has repealed the three waters legislation but we know that the status quo is not sustainable for ratepayers.

So, while we’re committed to funding as much as we can to fix the pipes right now, we also want to see the Government’s plans for water reform to fix this problem for the long term.

What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz. Please include your full name and address.