Timaru council reveals its preferred water service option ahead of consultation
Tuesday, 6 May 2025
Timaru’s council has revealed its preferred option for the delivery of water services to the district, and says it would be the cheapest.
But the Timaru District Council’s preferred option was just that, with the public ultimately deciding what it will do when options go out for public consultation on Local Water Done Well, which was expected to be on May 15.
Councillors would discuss their preferred options to go out to the public at Tuesday’s council meeting, with its preferred option to join with neighbouring councils to set up a new water services organisation.
Under this option, ratepayers could expect to pay up to $1670 per connection for drinking water, stormwater and wastewater.
However, the neighbouring Waimate District Council’s preferred option was for in-house delivery of its water services, and Mackenzie’s options for consultation will be revealed at a meeting on Tuesday.
A four-council option, joining with Waitaki District Council could also be on the table.
Joining with the other councils was one of three options the public could be consulted on — the others being to keep water services in-house at an estimated cost of $1900 per connection, or to establish its own separate water organisation, a Council-Controlled Organisation (CCO), at an estimated cost of $1860 per connection.
Local Water Done Well was the Government’s approach to addressing New Zealand’s long-standing water infrastructure challenges. It replaced the controversial Three Waters reform and allowed councils to determine how their water services were delivered in the future.
According to the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, a report written by group manager corporate and communications Stephen Doran and drainage and water manager Andrew Lester, said further investigation of the plan showed that the district, and its water users, would “benefit more from collaborating with its immediate neighbour councils’’.
“A formal group of representatives from Mackenzie, Timaru and Waimate district councils has been formed to investigate the option of a joint CCO for water provision,’’ the report said.
According to the draft consultation document, under the preferred option, a multi-council water organisation, would be jointly owned by the councils involved and a shareholder council would be responsible for setting shareholder expectations.
It would handle water services across all participating areas and take on each council’s water-related assets and debt.
A professional board of directors, appointed by the councils, would run the organisation day-to-day, and would be guided by the councils.
Over time, under this proposed option, it would be expected that the new organisation would bill customers directly for its services, but in the meantime it was expected that councils would continue to collect water revenue through rates bills.
The draft document, said while it could not confirm which councils it would partner with, the council encouraged people to look at Waimate, Waitaki and Mackenzie’s consultation documents when considering options.
Under the option to keep water services in-house, a water services committee would be appointed and be responsible for services with full decision-making rights.
The option would be more expensive though and major water infrastructure investment would be needed over the next 15 to 30 years.
Meanwhile, establishing a separate water organisation would mean the organisation would be solely focused on the Timaru District, but it would be the most expensive option and it would not benefit from the economies of scale that might come from partnering with others.
The council also considered establishing a consumer trust, either partly owned by the council and partly by a trust, or wholly owned by a trust, but decided the options did not suit as it would probably have to borrow money from banks.
This would be more expensive than borrowing through the Local Government Funding Agency.
Under those options, the council would also have less control over critical decisions affecting water services compared with other options, the draft consultation document said.