February 4, 2024 7:00am by David Farrar

Another call for a Commissioner for Wellington

The Herald reports:

A plumbing industry body is calling for independent commissioners to look into Wellington City Council amid a tsunami of leaks in the capital.

The Wellington region is in level 2 water restrictions, meaning a ban on household garden sprinklers and irrigation systems, with a possible move to level 3 restrictions.

But at the same time, Wellington Water said the region had thousands of water leaks and estimated 45 per cent of the region’s water was being lost, prompting some residents to reroute the leaks to water their garden.

Master Plumbers chief executive Greg Wallace told Checkpoint Wellingtonians were fed up. …

Wallace said the council needed to stop doing band-aid patch jobs and move forward with a real replacement strategy. In the meantime, he said the isolation valves and tobies (a water shut-off valve) in all houses needed to be fixed.

“We need to stop bandaging the problem. What we’re doing is we’re digging up the road, fixing one leak, and 200m down the road that pipe that needed repair 40 years ago is going to leak again.

“We’re advocating for independent commissioners to go into the council … this problem has been around for decades. We’re still investing into cycleways, a new Town Hall and libraries, when we potentially could run out of water,” he said.

“It’s nothing else than financial mismanagement from this council.”