$24m - smells like a rise in rates

$24 million - ouch! As a Wanganui ratepayer, does that number get up your nose?

That's the projected cost of putting right the city's malodourous wastewater treatment plant, and it's not a sum to be sniffed at.

You can get a lot of eau de toilette for that amount - in fact, the combined houses of Chanel, Dior and Hermes could be signed up to get rid of Wanganui's waste whiff.

Those who smell a rates hike coming on may be comforted by Mayor Annette Main's ``absolute confidence'' in the council's plan to deal with the problem, and even encouraged by the Cardno BTO consultant who was ``absolutely'' certain that the proposal would put an end to the pong.

But one wonders how many times similar confidence and certainty were reassuringly uttered when the treatment ponds project was originated a few years back. And yet it has never worked properly since being commissioned in 2007.

So we are left to pick up the bill and can only hope that the sludge layer that is to be dug out can be sold as fertiliser to offset some of the cost.

The attraction of the city's outstanding house affordability is now threatened by rates rises that will make it more expensive to move here.

Let's hope the legal beagles can get some of the money back by proving liability by those who saddled us with the putrid plant in the first place.

Still, if you are seeking consolation, this is the week that Christchurch ratepayers found the cost of their rebuild had bumped up from $30 billion to $40 billion, and Auckland motorists are in a financial traffic jam of similar proportions.