Hawkes Bay Today
  • Hawke's Bay Today home
  • Latest news
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Sport
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology

Locations

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Havelock North
  • Central Hawke's Bay
  • Tararua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Gisborne

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Hawkes Bay Today

Independent reviewers happy with Hastings council's water change progress

By Nicki Harper
Reporter·Hawkes Bay Today·
15 Dec, 2017 08:00 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said she was satisfied the council was focusing on safe drinking water and the improvement of water services. Photo / File

Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said she was satisfied the council was focusing on safe drinking water and the improvement of water services. Photo / File

The independent reviewers of Hastings District Council's water services say they are confident that good progress has been made on ensuring the wider Hastings water network is safe, despite criticism from the Havelock North Water Inquiry in its stage 2 report.

While the inquiry found that overall Hastings District Council had taken steps to address the ongoing safety of Hastings' and Havelock North's drinking water supply, there were a number of areas still causing concern.

Released last week the stage 2 report put the Hastings council on notice about a number of issues it considered had not been dealt with adequately or in a timely enough manner since its stage 1 findings in December last year.

They ranged from concerns about the Emergency Response Plan, to the adequacy of the chlorination of the reticulation, and general speed of changes being made.

"It is over 15 months since the outbreak, and over four months since HDC received the report of the independent review. Progress to date seems limited. The processes appear to be over-complicated," the inquiry said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Council chief executive Ross McLeod said the inquiry process was removed from the day-to-day running of the council, and a more accurate reflection of progress to date could be seen in the update from an independent review of the capability and capacity of the water network operations.

In early 2017, Mr McLeod commissioned the review of the council's water services activity.

The review team included independent consultants Bruce Robertson, Neil Taylor and Ross Waugh with independent chairman Garth Cowie and Water NZ principal adviser water quality Jim Graham.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

At a council meeting yesterday, Mr Cowie said the inquiry comments reflected what was happening in July/August but considerable progress had been made since then.

"There is still work to do to the end of June and it will be ongoing – there will be a number of work streams that will need to continue beyond that point to meet the requirements of the government inquiry and also our own programme of delivering safe drinking water."

He noted, however, that to date the council had accepted all the recommendations put forward by the inquiry, and the council was moving as fast as possible to transform its water services.

Mr McLeod said the inquiry's concerns about the Emergency Response Plan not being adequately prepared yet had already been addressed, with the system tested during more minor water contamination events at Waimarama, Whirinaki and Waipataki Motor Camp.

Discover more

Confidence in drinking water lifting

07 Jun 06:31 PM

The inquiry also queried the chlorine levels in the Havelock North reticulation, including having adequate residual levels of chlorine, and said the Hastings council needed to pursue a programme of assessment and improvement.

Water services manager Brett Chapman said work was well under way to addressing these concerns, and that online monitoring was currently being installed, another tool to reduce risk.

Mr Graham, who was acting as an independent technical adviser and also gave expert testimony during the inquiry, said he was very confident progress was satisfactory.

Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said she was satisfied the council was focusing on safe drinking water and the improvement of water services.

"It is important that we keep moving quickly but also where necessary take the time we need to get things right.

"This is about the health and safety of our people, and it is council's top priority."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Premium
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay


Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction
Hawkes Bay Today

Family ties as Joe Helmore art features in HB auction

Artist follows in his grandmother's footsteps to craft a piece for Bay wine auction.

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Premium
Premium
Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble
Opinion

Elastic is anything but trivial: Wyn Drabble

17 Jul 06:00 PM
Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay
Hawkes Bay Today

Motorist dies after four crashes in 40 minutes in Hawke's Bay

17 Jul 06:02 AM


Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
Sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

06 Jul 09:47 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Hawke's Bay Today e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Hawke's Bay Today
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • NZME Events
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP