Opinion: Pull the plug on unfair Christchurch water charges

Property owners in Christchurch and Banks Peninsula will pay a fixed rate of $1.35 for every 1000 litres they use over the average limit. Photo / NZME

OPINION

I was talking to someone yesterday who was asking what’s going to happen at his place with the Christchurch City Council’s new excess water charges because he doesn’t have his own water meter.

He’s got a meter that he shares with other neighbouring properties.

And I was able to tell him that he’s in the clear. Because, if you don’t have your own water meter, there’s no way the council can work out how much water you’re using.

Which, I think, is a good reason why these excess charges shouldn’t have been introduced until every household in the city has its own water meter.

Since yesterday, the Christchurch City Council has released numbers that show exactly how many properties won’t be stung for excess water.

You’ll remember that the charging regime came into force on October 1. And the first invoices for excess water use will go out from the Council in late January.

Which is why people have been reminded to check for leaks on their properties because, if there’s water disappearing into the ground, they’ll be stung for using too much.

There was that recent case in Avonhead, wasn’t there, where a person discovered they had two leaks on their property, got them fixed and reduced their water consumption by 42,000 litres a day.

Which is lucky for them because, under the new rules, they’d be charged an extra $55 a day.

Now that’s probably an extreme case, but that is a real example of a household here in Christchurch that would’ve had to pay an extra $1600 a month to the council if it hadn’t got the leaks fixed.

So the Council says we can use 700 litres per day. Anything over that, there’ll be a charge.

Unless, of course, you live at one of the 25,000 properties that don’t have their own water meter - and share one with neighbouring properties.

25,000 properties where people can use as much water as they want, with no consequences. Water the garden. As many baths and showers as you want. Free reign. Water, water everywhere.

25,000 properties out of a total of just over 110-thousand residential connections in the Christchurch City Council area. So that’s about 22 per cent of places connected to the city council water supply where they won’t have to think twice about how much water they’re using.

One Christchurch resident is speaking out today saying that’s wrong. And they’re saying that the city council shouldn’t be charging anyone until it has the ability to charge everyone for going over their daily limit. And I fully agree.

The way it is at the moment, with nearly a quarter of households getting off scot-free, is a bit like a stall at Riccarton Market or somewhere like that having one of those mobile eftpos set-ups and only making people with money cards pay, and letting anyone else with cash get stuff for free.

That would never happen. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?

So why the Christchurch City Council thinks it’s fair to penalise people just because they happen to have an individual water meter at their property, I’ll never know.

Well, I kind of know. Because the council will say it has to start somewhere. And who knows how long it will take to get individual water meters everywhere. Because, as we now know, there are 9600 shared meters in Christchurch. So that’s a lot of replacement meters that need to be sorted.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that nearly a quarter of Christchurch households will be able to water the garden as much as they want this summer, let the kids run the sprinkler whenever they want and how often they want, and take as many showers or baths as they want, and they won’t pay a cent for the extra water they use.

Meanwhile, the rest of us with individual meters, will either be keeping a check on how much water we’re using or resigning ourselves to the fact that, come late January, we’ll be getting an extra invoice from the city council.

Until every property in Christchurch has its own individual water meter, the city council should pull the plug on its excess water charges because the way it’s running things at the moment is grossly unfair.

We all pay power companies for the electricity we use because we all have power meters. It should be exactly the same with water - but only when the council is in a position and organised to know how much water everyone is using. Not just three-quarters of us.