As the first in-house water services business unit in the country to be approved under the Government’s Local Water Done Well legislation, Council has been preparing for the 1 July handover since it’s Water Services Delivery Plan (WSDP) was approved a year ago.

The Waters Service Delivery Plan outlines the key steps the Council will take to ensure our structure is aligned with the new water services legislative requirements and financials are fully ring fenced for water supply and wastewater.

Over the last 20 years Council has invested over $100m in water infrastructure to ensure it is of the highest quality and standard and has a 150 year infrastructure strategy to fund these assets to ensure it remains this way.

This in-house business unit model builds on Council’s existing approach to managing water supply, wastewater, stormwater, rural drainage, and stock water, but with increased financial ring-fencing and new regulatory requirements for water supply and wastewater.

Implementation of the Water Services Delivery Plan will occur over two phases: preliminary establishment of the internal business unit (July 2025 – June 2027), which includes setting up systems, processes and reporting framework, followed by full implementation and ongoing deliverables (July 2027 onwards).

The ‘Water Services’ section of Council’s website will be updated regularly to ensure the community can monitor progress as well as view key documents including:

• Water Services Delivery Plan (WSDP)
• Community Drinking Water Assessment Report
• Policy for Funding Growth
• Fees & Charges schedule

Waimakariri District Council operates:

• Six urban and five rural water supply schemes, servicing a total of approximately 22,800 urban residential, urban commercial and rural properties to approximately 81% of the population
• Two separate wastewater schemes serving approximately 19,900 properties
• Five urban and seven rural stormwater drainage schemes servicing 90% of the District’s population