South Wairarapa District Council today voted to exit the Wellington Regional Water Services Delivery Plan (WSDP), and to continue developing a joint Wairarapa + Tararua (Wai+T) WSDP.

As part of central government’s Local Waters Done Well reform, council officers have been developing the two joint arrangement options to determine how council’s drinking water, wastewater and stormwater services could be managed into the future. Officers’ strong preference was to only develop one joint WSDP, rather than continue with two alternatives as the workload and cost to deliver an acceptable WSDP is high.

The Wai + T Project team developed and used a Multi Criteria Analysis Framework, peer reviewed by an independent expert, to rank the various options by assessment against an agreed set of criteria, including those selected and ranked by iwi representatives. The Wairarapa and Wai+T options ranked consistently higher than the Wellington Regional option. Officers therefore recommend exiting the Wellington Regional WSDP option and continuing to develop the Wai + T WSDP option.

This multi council water services council-controlled organisation (CCO) option involving the three Wairarapa and Tararua councils will be offered as an alternative to the existing SWDC delivery method (status quo) of a non-asset owning CCO during formal consultation with the community in 2025, ahead of adoption and submission of the final plan to the Secretary for Local Government for approval no later than 3 September 2025.

Deputy Mayor Melissa-Sadler Futter acknowledged that this is one of, if not the biggest, decision that elected members will make in this triennium.

“To move forward with the Wellington Regional WSDP, we need to consider the significant financial impacts continuing with this option would take on our ratepayers. We work well with our Wairarapa neighbours so developing the Wai+T model to take to our communities feels like the most pragmatic approach” shared Sadler-Futter.

The two water service delivery models that South Wairarapa District Council will consult on will be:

• a Wairarapa and Tararua water services delivery joint arrangement (known as Wai + T), involving Masterton, Carterton, South Wairarapa, and Tararua district councils utilising a water services CCO model
• a status quo model which is a non-asset owning CCO (like Wellington Water Limited) delivering against new government requirements.

ENDS

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