Horowhenua keen to get a deal on water services with either Wellington or Horizons

Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden signs the MoU with his Wellington colleagues

“It is a promising start,” said Horowhenua Mayor Bernie Wanden about movements towards securing a regional deal with the Government, as part of the wider Wellington region, regarding funding for water services.

Now that the Government has put water management firmly back in the hands of the council, it can make plans on how to best achieve that and regional cooperation appears to offer the best and most efficient results.

Auckland made headlines last week with a deal made for its region with the Government and the wider Wellington region had chief executives and mayors in Wellington on Friday to try to start the process for a similar deal.

This deal will mean the water provider can borrow money for infrastructure separately from any council, achieving budget sheet separation.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed to kickstart that process in the wider Wellington region, with Mayor Bernie signing on behalf of Horowhenua.

Wellington region water service planning group met on May 10 to sign a Memorandum of Understanding.

“It was a good first step. All are confident of a good outcome and all CEOs and mayors were unanimous wanting this,” Wanden said.

“It is great to be part of this, but our involvement in this is not fixed. We can pull out.”

Horowhenua is also pursuing a deal as part of the Horizons region and can even work on a deal with just Kāpiti.

He said the signatories to the MoU will be holding monthly meetings and he is expecting to have a much clearer understanding of the process by August this year. “In 12 months’ time it may be much clearer and we can decide which way we will go.”

The Government first needs to pass a raft of laws to enable these regional deals to happen, the first set of which is expected to hit Parliament soon. Whatever those involved with Horizons decide would inform Horowhenua’s final decision. For now, Horowhenua can go either way.

“A lot of water will have to go under the bridge before it is a done deal,” said Horowhenua’s chief executive Monique Davidson. “But we are now invested in two processes: Wellington and Horizons.”

Mayor Bernie said that while technically Horowhenua is part of Horizons, the district council has been involved with Wellington for years as it offers options to Wellington including in terms of growth.

They said other districts may be in a similar position: being part of two discussions, while others will have only one.

“We will be looking at which process will be in the best interest of our ratepayers. Figuring out what the specific short-term, medium-term as well as long-term benefits will be, is the biggest job we have and not much is certain right now. Economies of scale are important here and we expect Wellington to be moving fast, possibly faster than Horizons.

“We have been involved in discussions on many topics within the Wellington region for a long time and are part of the Wellington Future Strategy and the Wellington Mayors forum,” he said.

“Water needs to be sorted first and the Government has indicated that water done well will have effects elsewhere, such as regional boundaries.

“The quicker this is resolved the easier it will be in the long-term and with our decision to bring water services back in-house we can offer any region both assets and management of those services,” Wanden said.

“It has been clear for a while that reform is required but the settings have now changed with a different Government,” Davidson said.

“There has been much uncertainty in the past five years and the Government is looking for sustainability and has set target for delivering efficiencies. That uncertainty may soon be over.”