Mediator to help sort trade waste

Wanganui District Council PHOTO/FILE

A professional go-between has been taken on to help formulate a new trade waste monitoring and charging regime for Wanganui.

A new trade waste bylaw is a key part to the multi-million dollar upgrade of the city's wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) and a key to that is getting agreement between council and industries discharging into the system on monitoring and charging.

Bruce Cottrill, a member of the Arbitrators' and Mediators' Institute of NZ, has had discussions with the Wanganui District Council about his availability for meetings involving the wastewater advisory group.

Julian Harkness, council's deputy chief executive, told the council's audit, risk and finance committee meeting those discussions considered the timing of meetings and his availability.

As part of his involvement, Mr Cottrill would be speaking directly with the wet industries as well as council.

"We're expecting that to happen before Christmas and a trade waste model created soon after that," he said.

Mr Cottrill is a dispute resolution practitioner and consultant and also lectures at Massey University in dispute resolution.

The new plant is scheduled to be operating by July next year, significantly modifying the Airport Rd plant which had been plagued by problems since it opened in 2007.

Drafting a trade waste bylaw is regarded as critical to future-proofing the upgraded plant and to that end council set up a wastewater advisory group to look at the issues.