Selwyn Water Decision: ‘People Have Been Ignored’

Friday, 4 April 2025, 8:18 pm
Article: Jonathan Leask - Local Democracy Reporter

In a decision that split the council down the middle, Selwyn councillors voted to create a new council-controlled organisation for its drinking water and wastewater services.

The contentious issue is one of the biggest financial decisions that Selwyn District Council faces, one councillor noted.

West Melton Residents' Association chairperson Samuel Wilshire, who submitted against the creating a new Water Services Council-Controlled Organisation (WSCCO), said he felt betrayed by the council's decision.

“The voices of our people have been ignored.”

The process felt “predetermined towards this outcome” and the rushed consultation focused on the benefits of establishing a WSCCO with “no advocacy for the inhouse option”, he said.

Wilshire said he disappointed with councillors who said the community misunderstood the information and he felt a lot of questions remained unanswered.

Mayor Sam Broughton said the Government's new regulatory requirements had directed the council to change the way it deals with water services.

“Our councillors, after weighing up all available information, expert opinions, and community views, feel that an independent specialist water services organisation, fully owned by the community, will best service our district for generations to come.”

At the meeting on Wednesday, Selwyn councillors voted in a slim 6:5 majority to create a WSCCO.

Broughton, deputy mayor Malcolm Lyall, councillors Phil Dean, Shane Epiha, Sophie McInnes, and Nicole Reid supported the WSCCO option, while Lydia Gliddon, Debra Hasson, Grant Miller, Bob Mugford, and Elizabeth Mundt voted against it.

Some of the opposing councillors referred to the fact that 86% of the 423 public submissions were in favour of keeping water services under direct council control rather than setting up a WSCCO.

During the debate, councillor Mundt said they need to respect the community’s voice in the biggest financial decision ever facing the council.

“This impacts our rates going forward intergenerationally.”

The financial modelling showed the WSCCO option was disproportionately more expensive for the first nine years and then flat lines, “but there is no guarantee of a flat line”, she said.

Cr Miller said in was in the best interests of Selwyn ratepayers to have an in-house business unit.

The Government’s Local Water Done Well reforms forced Selwyn to be “a square peg being smashed into a round hole”, he said.

“We have actively invested in our water infrastructure, and we have got high-quality infrastructure, and it is well managed.”

Cr Gliddon said it has been alarming to know there is a large part of the community that didn’t even know the decision process was going on, and she didn’t see any economy of scale being achieved in the WSCCO model.

Cr Epiha said some of the submissions “were quite hurtful and disrespectful" to his culture, and to the council.

He said he was unimpressed with submission threatening to vote councillors out and said he spoke “for those who submitted yes, the minority and the silent majority”.

Cr Dean also referenced the “threats” in the submission to vote councillors out if they voted a certain way.

He said he backed the direction and advice from the staff and experts on the complex issue, stating a lot of the submissions from the community misunderstood the legislative requirements.

Deputy Mayor Lyall felt a lot of community concerns had been asked and answered during the deliberations.

There were constraints and risks in keeping services in-house, he said.

The WSCCO comes with increased rates “and that has to be balanced by the long-term benefits for those who come after us”.

Lyall said he would have liked to have seen the Canterbury councils work together and suggested that future amalgamation might be the “natural progression”.

Mayor Broughton also believed Canterbury councils should have worked together on an option, but with that off the table, Selwyn needed “to make a strategic and enduring decision”.

With the decision made - to have drinking water and wastewater go under a new WSCCO but stormwater services will remain a council activity - the council now preparing a water services delivery plan for Government approval by September 3.

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