Hamilton City Council staff have recommended forming a joint water company with Waikato District Council to deliver water services.
Waikato District staff are on board, agreeing in their own report that it’s the best option but the Waikato councillors still need to meet on Friday to confirm that the decision. Even at that point it won’t be set in stone with council taking public submissions in March next year. It will still be possible for the rest of the nine councils in our region to join the scheme later on.
Following decades of under-investment in critical water infrastructure nationwide the previous government came up with a scheme that would keep the extra debt required to solve the problem off council books but it was scuttled by the 3-waters controversy. The new government has simply decided to increase the debt limit for councils and then is making them prove they have the financial capacity to cope. Some councils have stated outright that they won’t be able to meet modern water quality standards under this system.
There is lots of talk about efficiencies gained from councils working together but we still don’t know how much this is actually going to cost ratepayers except that it will be more than current costs. It’s likely that efficiencies will help with admin and debt costs but it won’t change the construction costs of upgrading the nation’s tired infrastructure.
The planned roundabout and safety measures at the Whatawhata intersection on state highway 23 have been scuttled by the government’s focus on roads of national significance.
The previous Mayor of Waikato District Alan Sanson had bought a lot of publicity to the issue in an attempt to make Waka Kotahi aware of the local safety concerns and Waka Kotahi (which seems to have gone back to calling itself NZTA) says they were all ready to go.
They had completed the detailed design phase but, in their words; “several state highway safety improvements projects at various stages in planning have been reprioritised to meet investment objectives and available funding” - while reiterating several times that they were still focused on safety.
Commentators have translated this to mean the government and the minister in particular have taken an ideological stance and are ignoring expert advice.
Xtreme Zero Waste is gearing up for another busy summer and is alerting the community that their Christmas and New Years day will be brought forward from Wednesday to Tuesday, the day before.
They say they will also be doing extra skip bin servicing at Te Uku and will be putting extra staff on street bins from now until the end of December.
This year they will also have a waste ambassador at Papahua for 4 weeks who will have the job of educating our visitors about Zero Waste and recycling.