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Too important for politics

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The Informer
The Informer

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Setting a pathway for the management of Council’s water revenues, infrastructure and asset management.

BY MAYOR LEN SALT – THAMES COROMANDEL DISTRICT COUNCIL

These comments represent the views of myself, as the current Mayor, and as a member of the Local Waters Done Well Working Group. They do not represent an official statement on behalf of Thames-Coromandel District Council,  our staff, Chief Executive our Council or our Elected Members. 

WATER, WATER, WATER

Over the next days, weeks and months, our Council will be making some critical, future-faced, decisions which are, without doubt, the most important decisions that this council has had to make in many decades. They will set a pathway for the management of Council’s water revenues, infrastructure and a significant amount of our asset management. The decisions that we have to make are, in many ways, ‘too important for politics’. 

So what does that mean? Isn’t politics at the heart of everything in a modern democracy? 

Maybe so. There are, however, some decisions that Councils and indeed, Governments, need to make that are clearly too important for partisan or party politics. Some decisions that need us all, as kaitiaki, as custodians of our future assets and the environment of tomorrow, to clearly understand our responsibilities towards the generations that are coming behind us, and to ensure that what we build now, and what we leave behind for those future generations, is the best it can be on every level. 

The Local Waters Done Well legislation that councils were required to follow made clear a number of options and steps:

1. Status quo was not an option. We had to change we the way we operated

2. Council revenues needed to be “ring fenced” and used only for waters

3. The Commerce Commission would regulate these financial requirements (and would charge Councils a levy for doing so).

4. Taumata Arowai, the Water Regulator, would monitor compliance and quality at local and national level, and would charge a levy for doing so. 

5. All councils would be required to submit a Water Services Delivery Plan to the Department of Internal Affairs by 3rd September 2025. 

LOCAL WATERS WORKING GROUP

A number of months ago, TCDC formed a ‘Local Waters Done Well’ working group. This group consisted of 3 key elements:

a) A senior leadership team with representatives of our financial, infrastructure planning, and asset management staff. 

b) Representatives from our leading water consultants, Martin-Jenkins and project consultant Ian Morton

c) A governance team including the myself, Deputy Mayor Terry Walker, and Mercury Bay Councillor John Grant. 

d) The team engaged with Hauraki Coromandel Iwi across the rohe and was able to gain some valuable insight into the mana and the importance of the whakapapa and the tikanga of water and the depth of meaning that this has to iwi Māori of Te Tara o Te Ika a Maui. 

This team began by meeting every two weeks and then moved to weekly meetings as the deadline for making critical decisions got closer. 

Our Council, and previous TCDC Councils, had always taken a long-term view and invested wisely for the future. We were in a strong position to examine our options, and, most importantly, to make choices which would leave our residents and ratepayers of today and of tomorrow in a strong position, no matter which pathway we decided on. 

We had the benefit of strong advice, in-depth modelling of future costs and benefits and the ability to make decisions for the ratepayers of tomorrow, not just today. 

While our Council had the option to choose between a stand-alone model or a combined/collaborative model with neighbouring councils, the government had consistently indicated a clear preference for councils to be working together in order to model and identify future cost savings and operational efficiencies. 

All of these factors had to be taken into account as part of our decision process. 

So, what does the future look like?

As a team and as a Council we needed to ask ourselves a number of key questions. 

1. Will water services delivery/water management (particularly stormwater) look the same in 10…20…30 years as it does now? 

2. What could be different?

3. Does AI have a role to play – for example in future customer service?

4. IOT The Internet of Things – for example – where water leak sensors are talking to water management systems which are talking to internet enabled infrastructure in the same way that traffic lights are managed by smart computer systems. If there a future where flood management systems are significantly more sophisticated than they are now for example? 

5. Are costs spread between 200,000 connected consumers rather than 5,000 connected customers likely to deliver procurement savings and benefits?  

6. Can forecast efficiencies happen be delivered over a medium to long term period, allowing consumers to enjoy the future benefits of scale?

There is still a lot of work to do, and a number of questions still to be worked through. However, we are well on the way towards a future where our water services will be delivered in a future-ready and cost-efficient manner.

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