Redress For Carterton Water Race Users Gets Green Light

Friday, 28 February 2025, 5:53 pm
Article: Emily Ireland - Local Democracy Reporter

After being overcharged for three years, Carterton’s water race users have been granted redress from the council.

The Water Race Committee sought a decision from council that would reduce overhead charges by 50% for three years and for the council to pay for a water race apprentice for three years.

It followed three years of water race users paying 6% of the council’s overhead charges which was disproportionate to the benefits they received.

It was later reduced to 2.6% in 2024.

Overheads are shared activity costs such as financial administration, information technology systems, rates billing, senior management, and elected representative governance time.

Water Race Committee member John McFadzean had estimated users had been overcharged almost $700,000 over the three years.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, a majority of elected members voted in favour of the proposed redress.

Deputy Mayor Steve Cretney said he was in favour of providing “some sort of contribution back to the water race” and that what had been proposed was a “fair reflection”.

Steve Laurence agreed the council needed to “sort this out” but had concerns about whether hiring an apprentice was the right “mechanism”.

It was proposed the apprentice would learn from Melvin Pike, affectionately known as “Pikey”, who had maintained the water race network for more than 40 years and create a succession plan.

Laurence was concerned the council would employ an apprentice for three years and then the apprentice could resign “and then we’re no further ahead”.

Councillor Lou Newman said she felt “super uncomfortable about this for many reasons” and said there was not an “immediate need for this apprentice”.

“I don’t think necessarily we said we did anything wrong,” she said, referring to the previous overhead allocation model.

The additional costs of employing a water race apprentice would be funded from general rates.

The impact of this additional expenditure would be a 0.5% increase in general rates.

“To me that half a percent increase on general rates is massive to placate a group of people,” Newman said.

“It seems wrong to me.”

Newman and Laurence voted against the resolution to pay for an apprentice for three years but all were in favour of reducing corporate overhead charges by 50% for three years.

With a majority of councillors in favour of paying for an apprentice, the Water Race Committee was now tasked with identifying suitable candidates for the position.

At Wednesday’s meeting, the council also formalised an agreement that the water races would get priority over the Waingawa Process Water project during times of low flow.

The Carterton district contains two water race systems that total 306km in length.

Water races are primarily used to supply drinking water to stock animals.

– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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