Wellington Water comes in millions under budget as sewage crisis worsens
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Wellington Water has come in millions of dollars under budget but overspent in one key area ‒ works possibly destroyed when millions of litres of sewage and water inundated the Moa Point facility.
Wellington City councillors will be briefed on Tuesday ahead of a Thursday meeting, in which papers show that the under-fire council-owned utility has not managed to spend all the money it has been funded for.
Wednesday will mark a fortnight since the Moa Point sewage treatment plant was severely damaged as it was inundated with millions of litres of sewage and water with the cause still unknown ‒ or at least unconfirmed publicly.
A widely read blog post last week claimed the council in 2021 voted to spend extra money on cycleways instead of putting more money into water infrastructure. While the vote never happened as claimed, it has highlighted the issue of Wellington Water funding and whether it has the capacity to increase work even with more money.
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Agenda papers show capital ‒ or renewal ‒ spending was $8.8m short for Wellington Water in the quarter to December. This was due to some projects coming in cheaper than expected and less need for reactive renewals ‒ having to replace pipes when they failed.
But the Moa Point ultraviolet renewals project, which was ongoing when the plant was flooded, was going slower than expected. It is not yet clear if the work, already done, was salvageable.
“There are several renewal projects at the wastewater treatment plants that are forecasting to come in over the budget amount,” the agenda notes.
Councillor Diane Calvert, who chairs Thursday’s Planning and Finance Committee, said Tuesday’s briefing was sure to see staff questioned on the Wellington Water under and overspends.
Uncertainty about council funding meant Wellington Water could not get the workforce and contractors in place to do the extra work, she said.
“It has been quite clear, you can’t give someone a few million and they can just ramp up the work.”
Councillor Andrea Compton, an accountant by trade, said she had earlier approached mayor Andrew Little with concerns about Wellington Water under-spending its budget.
She understood, from talking to contractors, that last year’s revelations about sloppy Wellington Water contracting practises, had created a situation preventing actual work from happening.
Work was budgeted for, going out for tender, sometimes tendered again, but Wellington Water was delaying signing contracts to get the work done.
She understood spending was closer to budget in January and February.
Deputy mayor Ben McNulty said the issue was two-pronged.
Wellington Water had been historically under-funded, but had also underspent what it got. The utility had been “poor managers of the capital that has been provided”, as shown in the council’s FieldForce4 report into Wellington Water which was released in 2024.
It found soaring costs, duplication of jobs, delays, and a lack of accountability to the council, which the report said appeared to have given it an “open cheque book without the ability to manage the quality and efficiency of services delivered, while all the risk and performance accountability sits with [the council]”.