A Titirangi resident is locked in a long-running dispute with Auckland Council and Watercare over repairs to his driveway and fixing a broken wastewater pipe that has been spilling sewage into the environment since the 2023 floods.
Roc Brady said it was a case of “bureaucracy gone mad”, with about 15 visits from Watercare staff and contractors yielding no progress on the broken pipe, while he was issued an abatement notice and fined $800 for carrying out repairs on his driveway.
“On the one hand, I’m being fined for unconsented works, and on the other hand, Watercare is dragging its heels over a broken wastewater pipe affecting dozens of homes.
“I don’t know what to make of it. My head’s spinning,” Brady told the Herald.
During Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023, water pooled at the bottom of the gully on Brady’s driveway, up to his knees. After repeated calls to the council went unanswered, he spent six months clearing debris and stabilising the driveway to stop it from collapsing into a creek.
Brady said when the work was completed, the council turned up following a complaint about the dumping of construction waste, which he said was clean fill.
He said the situation escalated after council staff accused him of being aggressive, when he believed he was simply frustrated. Eventually, he allowed council staff to inspect the site, where they took photos and issued an abatement notice requiring Brady to provide ecological and engineering reports.
Brady, who has had construction and drainage jobs most of his life, was fined $800 for failing to produce the specialist reports and is refusing to pay until the sewage problem is fixed.
“I’m at a stand-off. I’m not budging because I’ve bent over backwards to do the right thing ... ,” he claimed.
Council compliance general manager Robert Irvine said in a statement the abatement notice was issued for unconsented work on the driveway.
“We requested a specialist report to confirm the work was stable and would not slip in the future. As he did not respond to this request, we issued the minimum possible fine as the next available course of action and a notation was made on the property file (LIM),” Irvine said.
While Brady has been battling the council over the driveway, the broken and buried sewer pipe, which is located on a steep, bush-covered bank in front of his house, is bubbling up through the ground.
He claimed the pipe, serving 50 to 60 houses, was releasing up to 100 litres per minute into Laingholm Drive and out into an inlet near Laingholm Beach.
“The smell in summer is terrible, especially with the heat and swirling winds. There are more flies, more rodents. I’ve had to trap rats,” Brady said.
He said teams of up to 12 Watercare staff and contractors have arrived at his property, sometimes with six‑wheelers and utes, yet nothing has been done to repair the 160mm pipe.
Brady, whose 4.2ha property has been in the family since the 1880s, recalled wastewater connections to the wider area of Laingholm, Waimā, Woodlands Park and part of Titirangi being installed in less than three years.
“How can’t they fix the pipe in three years?” he asked.
In a statement, Watercare’s head of wastewater, Jon Piggott, apologised for the disruption and odour affecting Brady’s household, saying it was working to resolve the issue as quickly and safely as possible.
After identifying a landslip‑related break in the wastewater pipe in May 2025, teams had carried out inspections and explored temporary bypass options, but the steep, unstable site had prevented standard repairs, he said.
Piggott said a specialist contractor was now engaged to stabilise the area and install a temporary bypass, while long-term designs were developed to reroute the pipeline away from the landslip zone.
“Our operations team continues to work closely with Mr Brady, keeping him informed of progress and the challenges involved as we work toward a resolution,” he said.
Watercare did not address Brady’s claims about repeated visits to his property, the sewer pipe discharging up to 100 litres a minute, or sewage reaching an inlet near Laingholm Beach.
Waitākere councillor Ken Turner has taken up Brady’s case, calling it a systemic council failure.
He’s produced and narrated a video about the issue which appears at the top of this story.
Turner said the driveway and sewer pipe issues were being treated separately by Auckland Council and Watercare, but the separation of responsibilities was “of little relevance to the family”.
In the video, the local councillor said the council must revoke the abatement notice and fine served on Brady.
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