Last week the Government scrapped its plans to amalgamate the country’s water services into four mega-entities, replacing them with a new proposal of 10 smaller regional entities. Raglan Community Radio had Waikato District Council Mayor Jacqui Church and Water Manager Keith Martin on the line to discuss the changes to the reforms.
Criticism against the Government’s plan to reform the country’s water infrastructure has resulted in changes to the original plans and a rebrand from ‘Three Waters’ to ‘Affordable Water’ to reflect the emphasis on reforming the infrastructure to reduce future rates increases.
“We’re still in a regional entity – number two – so there’s not necessarily significant change, other than perhaps making it a bit more local, which was some of the issues for other councils,” said Church on the changes proposed.
Initial feedback from councils and other stakeholders indicated an overwhelming preference to have more local and regional input and with the proposed 10 entities, every district council in the country will have representation through a regional representative group.
“We’ve got the regional voice and the local voice has improved, which I think it’s really good – that the central government is listening to the voices. You know, that’s what democracy is about, isn’t it?” (listen to the interview below:) Church says that Waikato District Council had always signed up for Three Waters having embarked on their own reform programme over the past few years.
“We’ve been proactively going down that track of reforming and improving our three waters for many, many years.” Mayor Church says that there’s no real change in ‘terms of the landscape’ but that these reforms have come through from central government, under the Local Government Act, which tells councils what to do.
“But we’re happy to do that. We’ve always felt the need to improve our wastewater infrastructure as well as our stormwater and potable water.” Said Church.
These nationwide reforms have been projected to cost up to $185 billion over the next 30 years and the Government says that without these reforms, councils will be unable to afford these upgrades – costing the ratepayer in the long term.
“We were already segueing towards tripling the targeted rates for people who are connected to water. We have a district wide targeted rate and in our previous Long Term Plan, we were looking at up to a tripling, quadrupling of that targeted rate with the necessary improvements to all of our infrastructure,” said Church.
Mayor Church says that while the larger entities could have provided bigger bang for buck through economies of scale, she believes that this can still be achieved with regional collaboration in an effort to keep costs low for the 90,000 ratepayers in the Waikato district.
WDC Water Manager Keith Martin notes that on top of the maintenance costs for the water infrastructure, changes in the environment as well as population growth contributes to the need for infrastructure upgrades.
“The assets and infrastructure and the technology adopted is no longer satisfactory for the population served and for the environmental risk that water treatment delivers back out by the way of a discharge.” “Investment needs to be given into technology that protects public health and the environment – and that’s really the nub of it. Ponds work well for villages. We are no longer small villages. We are significant townships and cities.” Said Martin.
Local Raglan Impacts Speaking specifically on the local situation, some parts of Raglan’s water infrastructure are very close to the high tide mark and depending on changes in sea level rise, these assets could become infiltrated with water more frequently.
Mayor Church says they are operating in a moving landscape and that over the past few years our level of knowledge about what is happening around climate change issues has increased and that the result is a higher expectation of service.
“Each consent has a high level of service which is more expensive but is also better for our environment. So it’s kind of like there’s an evolution of technology, there’s an evolution of population, there’s evolution – retrospectively – of looking back on how we did things, and that was the standard of the day, and therefore we have to upgrade it,” says Church.
When asked if local networks would need to be rebuilt, Martin explained that unless the networks are relocated, the infrastructure remains in play so there are ways of sealing maintenance holes (manholes) if they are causing issues.
“It’s about utilising technology to adapt to climate change rather than just saying that, you know, that’s no longer relevant. I think we can deal with it in other ways that will give us the benefit that we all need whilst securing the infrastructure and the performance of that asset.” Said Martin.
Progress on the Raglan land based sewage treatment plant is ongoing with council staff investigating suitable local properties.
“We’ve identified land that may be suitable. We’re currently doing geotech studies and ensuring that the land can accept treated effluent and quantities. I will say, though, it’s a slow process because we need to go through that democratic process. So there’s a lot of discussion that has to happen, a lot of engagement with the community.” Says Martin.
There is a monthly catch up session for those interested in staying up to date with the wastewater upgrade plans and the next one is being held via zoom on April 20th at 7pm – you can join the meeting at this link . Independent Review into Auckland Council Emergency Response Infrastructure woes and communications issues were unearthed during the Auckland Anniversary floods and an independent report reviewing Auckland Council’s response has been released. Mayor Church says that Waikato District Council staff are reviewing the report and are also focused on updating their emergency planning following these extreme weather events.
Here in the Waikato some areas are still in recovery with some houses being red and yellow stickered and some roads still needing to be repaired.
Mayor Church believes that effective emergency responses are born out of community resilience. Citing Raglan’s own Covid-19 response as a great example of how community connectedness resulted in effective action for the communities involved.
“It’s having the right people in the right places for our communities to put that information out as soon as possible and to have legs and eyes on the ground into our civil defence centre and then the comms can be sent out with authority so that people are assured not just of accessibility but safety as well.” Huntly Community Resource Recovery Centre Xtreme Zero Waste have been involved in assisting WDC in setting up a Huntly Community Resource Recovery Centre over the past few years. While a change in ownership has caused delays, the centre is still planned to go ahead but the contract will now be renegotiated with Green Gorilla, not Metro Waste. More information is available through the Huntly Community Board meeting minutes . https://raglanradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Raglan-wastewater.png