Don McLeod
Taupō District Council will benefit from shared services even if it does not hand its drinking and waste water infrastructure over to the Waikato Water Done Well council-controlled water organisation.
The council prefers retaining control and revisiting joining six other councils in two years.
Hauraki, Matamata-Piako, Ōtorohanga, South Waikato, Waipā and Waitomo district councils all prefer joining the Waikato Water Done Well council-controlled water organisation.
Asked how Taupō’s fence sitting will impact the project, Waikato Water Done Well Mayoral Governance Group independent chair Don McLeod said Taupō would still be part of the Waikato Water Done Well family in the staged manner provided for in the Heads of Agreement signed by all seven councils in December 2024.
“The agreement provides for councils to transfer water services to a jointly established council-controlled organisation in a staged manner,” McLeod said.
“Between now and then, should Taupō run with its preferred option, it will remain a member of Waikato Waters Done Well as a shareholder in a limited capacity – enabling its communities to gain some of the benefits of the waters council-controlled organisation including access to procurement and other shared services.”
If Taupō decides not to join in the council-controlled organisation, the set-up costs will be borne and repaid by the six councils who are in it – assuming they all continue with their preferred option after public consultation.
“There is potentially a minor impact around the speed at which start-up costs will be paid back by the council-controlled organisation as they are spread across a smaller customer base,” McLeod said.
“If other councils were to join at a future date, an entry contribution would be charged which would be applied against this cost.
“Once decisions are finalised by councils around their water service delivery model, we will be running an updated financial model with all the latest data,” McLeod said. “This will provide us with detailed information on the financial impacts across all Waikato Water Done Well participating councils.”
This information will be fed into each council’s Water Services Delivery Plan for submitting for ministerial approval in September.
“There is no impact on the overall benefits of a joint council-controlled organisation for the participating councils as they still achieve enough scale to deliver favourable debt covenants (reducing the costs of borrowing), investment planning, buying power and other efficiencies.
“While Taupo is not committing to transferring its water services to the council-controlled organisation at this time, its participation as a service recipient is beneficial to all as it will enhance the scale of the council-controlled organisation from an external contractor perspective and the revenue derived from a services agreement with Taupo will increase the council controlled organisation revenue which will further increase the borrowing capacity of the council controlled organisation.
“As we are creating a council controlled organisation for long-life assets (50 plus years) short term timing issues are not critical and we expect the financial impact to be negligible.”
The state of play in June 2025
