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Watercare obligations
Watercare, by its actions to date, claims it has the right to install a pipeline transporting wastewater through the middle of the Warkworth business district. It also claims it is not liable for any of the financial and social damage to local businesses and families the pipeline’s construction will cause.
Watercare proposes to construct the pipeline by open cut method essentially closing down the centre of Warkworth (Elizabeth and Queen Streets) for vehicle traffic for eight to 12 months.
Its proposal will also have a devastating effect on pedestrian traffic over the same time period.
The wastewater pipeline is of no benefit whatsoever to those businesses adjacent to Elizabeth and Queen St Warkworth, which will be severely damaged and possibly destroyed by the pipeline construction. Any calculation by Watercare saying the cost of pipeline should be weighed against the benefit to those affected businesses is baseless. How can a business get any benefit when Watercare’s actions have destroyed it?
But are Watercare’s claims correct as to what the law entitles them to do?
Watercare is a legal identity created principally by statute and company law. Auckland Council solely owns Watercare as a council-controlled organisation (CCO).
As a CCO Watercare has legal and social obligations including to:
• ‘exhibit a sense of society and environmental responsibility by having regard to the interests of the community in which it operates and be endeavouring to accommodate or encourage these where able to do so’ [Section 59 (1) (e) Local Government Act 2002];
• ‘be trusted by our customers and communities for exceptional service [and] to gain and maintain the trust of the communities we serve’ [Watercare Statement of Intent 2022 to 2025]; and
• ‘give effect to the relevant aspects of the Auckland Council long-term plan’ [clause 5.1 Watercare Services Ltd Constitution].
Watercare is clearly in breach of the above noted obligations in progressing its current pipeline proposal. Council’s long-term plan envisages a thriving and sustainable Warkworth town centre.
Further, Mayor Brown’s email to Watercare entitled, ‘Letter of Expectation for Statement of Intent 2024-2027’ sets out, among other matters, that Watercare must ‘fully recover growth costs from developers.’
All power to One Mahurangi for publishing the disastrous impact Watercare’s proposed pipeline will have on our small community. With extensive input from our community One Mahurangi has developed viable alternatives with considerably less detrimental impact on businesses and families compared to the devastation of Watercare’s current proposal.
If Watercare collaborates constructively with One Mahurangi to incorporate one of the viable alternatives then surely Watercare will comply with their legal, social, environmental and political obligations.
One Mahurangi (on our behalf) has a number of possible legal solutions concerning Watercare’s high handed attitude and actions including:
• lodging a complaint with the Ombudsman;
• asking Auckland Council to direct Watercare to give effect to Council’s LTP and act consistently with other plans and Council strategy; and
• applying to the High Court for judicial review of any Watercare decision.
Colin Binsted, Matakana
United rural voice
In response to Ivan Wagstaff Viewpoint (MM July 8), Rodney is 95% rural by land area – bush, production farming and lifestyle. More than half of Rodney’s ratepayers live rurally and they contribute more than half the annual rate take ($50 million).
Under the present subdivision boundaries, the Wellsford area is the only rural subdivision with the rest of rural representation fragmented as minorities within Warkworth and Kumeu subdivisions. Rural get few Auckland Council services and many feel disenfranchised by the deterioration of roads and waterways, and see little return for rates.
At present, the town centred boundaries deny true rural representation because they marginalise rural people. The new proposed boundaries are formed by groups of common interests, where populations are put together by their commonality e.g. identifying as either rural or urban. This unites all rural yet protects the main town interests.
Being such a large area, the rural area of Rodney is further split into North and South Rural to recognise more localised representation. And remember, boundaries determine who can vote – not who can stand.
We believe this to bring a fairer and more balanced effective representation across all communities within Rodney.
Also remember that all Rodney Local Board members (wherever elected) must act in the interests of all Rodney ratepayers and residents.
The north of Rodney will still have four members – 2 North Rural, 2 Warkworth. The south of Rodney will have five members – 2 South Rural, 2 Kumeu, 1 Dairy Flat. Fairly distributed by population.
North Rural will include Wellsford as the largest rural service town, smaller rural villages of Te Hana, Puhoi and Kaukapakapa, and surrounding production and lifestyle blocks. Wellsford will gain one extra rural member and Rodney’s rural folk will continue support for service towns and hubs like Wellsford and Warkworth for their valued commerce, facilities and services.
Rural has long wanted a united voice with representation on the local board. The Rodney Local Board, including Wellsford member Colin Smith, have voted in support of the new proposal. You should too.
https://akhaveyoursay.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/auckland-council-representation-project
Bill Foster, Northern Action Group
Brian Mason, Landowners and Contractors Association
Glen Ashton, Rodney Community Voices
Editor’s note: Consultation on the proposed Auckland Council representational changes closes on Thursday, August 8. For more information, go to: https://shorturl.at/fVzr2
Seawall defence
At the risk of further identifying myself as the one responsible for “environmental vandalism,” I wish to respond to Elizabeth Foster’s letter (MM July 8).
The suggestion that we have been responsible for erosion by removing natural vegetation is not only absurd, but demonstrably so. It is only necessary to look at the property to the south of ours, which shows that, in spite of native vegetation, there is extensive and continuing erosion. As a result substantial trees have already fallen. There are exposed roots creating further risk to those walking on the foreshore or reserve land.
Conversely, our wall, which has been in place since 2011, has been entirely successful in preventing any further land loss and erosion.
It is also appropriate to point out that the wall was built not just to protect our property and where we have built both up and well back, but to save the reserve land being eroded away. We did not create a beach, “sterile” or otherwise. We did, however, save two pohutukawa trees, but we lost one because the land was being eroded. The land is grassed, but is that a bad thing? And we have agreed from the outset to maintain the wall in perpetuity.
Furthermore, Ms Foster must know that the independent environmental commissioners in their decision comprehensively rejected the various arguments advanced by Auckland Council in resisting our application for a resource consent.
None of council’s arguments were supported by expert evidence and no one from the council or [Rodney] Local Board has been able to explain why there was such a difference between the state of our land and that of our neighbour discussed above.
There are, however, ironies arising out of what has occurred, most notably that despite the independent commissioners having determined that the retention of the sea walls best promotes the sustainable management purpose of the RMA, we are still subject to the kind of random criticisms made by Ms Foster.
In addition, as everybody knows, council itself built a sea wall right around the village of Point Wells and on the other side of the Whangateau Harbour. The land there is identical to ours i.e. grassed, well maintained and accessible by the public. Why we, and the other three owners who built sea walls, should be treated differently has never been explained.
While serious resource has been committed to the resource consent processes, in the meantime there are very serious and unchecked erosion problems occurring on Riverside Drive in Point Wells.
The land there has fallen away so much that the adjoining road is in danger and ultimately the properties on the other side of the road will also be at risk. Council seems to be content to leave that hazard as it is.
Finally, these issues have much wider ramifications than just for our properties. Since our decision was granted, I have been contacted by numerous owners facing a similar predicament. The problem is that council does not have the resource to build or repair existing sea walls, so is adopting a policy of either letting the erosion continue, or “managed retreat”, whatever that means in an urban context.
Council’s problems with funding repairs to sea walls are obvious, but it is difficult to see why in those circumstances council does not allow or even encourage owners to build or repair sea walls themselves, provided they do so responsibly and with engineering advice.
It seems to me this is going to be a very serious issue going forward and something that ought to be at the forefront of discussions in the next round of local body elections. There are many other people affected and valuable properties potentially at risk.
Paul Dale, Point Wells
Charter checks
Alwyn Poole says he is planning on starting a new Charter School in Warkworth claiming he will be using his knowledge from previous charter schools he ran (MM Jul 8).
He says there will be no fees and that the schools will be fully funded from his and government sources.
One would hope, therefore, that his operation doesn’t once again become the subject of criticism by the Auditor General, which occurred with previous school operations he was involved with (South Auckland Middle School and Middle School West). These operations were subject to scrutiny by a Parliamentary Select Committee in August 2022 after a report by the Auditor General concerning conflict of interest and failure to properly manage Government funding.
The Auditor General’s report can be read here: https://shorturl.at/VyswW
Neil Anderson, Algies Bay
Crew commute
Warkworth is going green-er!
The new circular bus route 999 goes up our street. Yes!
The boys at Agile contracting have done a good job, blessed with fine weather. Who are Agile?
According to their crew boss, they come up from Manurewa. What!
They leave their depot at 5.30am and drive almost two hours to get to site. What a waste of time and resources. So what happens to family life, to seeing the kids in the morning, arriving too late to put them to bed with a story.
What about using local contractors?
Reducing the impact on so many things, travel and emissions, keeping the cash flow local and enhancing family life, too.
I’m afraid that in an effort to reduce costs there is a rush to the bottom. I should have asked the boys what their wage rate was.
From Manurewa! For heaven’s sake.
Michael Dymond, Warkworth
Lumped together
I was interested to read Merv Bayer’s letter (MM, Jul 8) on the link between Ahuroa and Makarau. I fully agree with his views. There is no association or any other link between the two districts. The Makarau River is on the West Coast and the area leans towards Kaukapakapa.
Ahuroa is on the Araparera River and in 1962, when I came to Rodney, was a thriving inland village on the Northern Railway line, with its own railway station, fire brigade, school, general store, church and thriving farming and social life.
Its social and business leanings were, and are, towards Warkworth. But of course, its true associations are over the hill, south to Puhoi and the early settlers (Merv’s name gives that away).
Ahuroa is still there, sans most of the above services. It may come into its own again if the proposed land sales by Joey Tolhopf’s Road are an indication of where we are going (MM, Jul 8)!
The seemingly gratuitous lumping together of small communities under one banner is not always beneficial to all. The best local example of this is the absorption of the District of Rodney into the Auckland Council in 2010. The spinoff from which, both beneficial and not so beneficial, are now being felt by all Rodney residents and ratepayers.
Geoff Ward, Snells Beach
Kowhai Park trees
Kowhai Park is a large and impressive area that consists of mature native trees such as totara, matai, kauri and titoki, not just the pretty trees around the carpark and the historic kilns.
There is also a rimu planted by Lord Bledisloe in 1934.
These treasures are between the proposed start of Watercare’s sewerage project and the route through town. I would like to know if Auckland Council is aware of how irreplaceable these native trees are, as Watercare plans for this area are unclear. The park, especially the large natives, must be protected.
Our town has only just got back on its feet after covid and the bypass of traffic, and the removal of all the orange cones blocking parking.
Mary Daynes, Warkworth
