A group of Upper Hutt residents meet on Tuesday the 21^st of July to discuss the forming of an Upper Hutt, residents watchdog group to monitor the charging for water services by the council owned corporation Tiaki Wai and to be informed of how and who paid for the adding of new households to the network and the on-going cost of new developments to the current water users.

They also discussed central governments imposing of a 9^th of August deadline for putting to central government, a so called “Head start proposal” if this timeline was not meet the council would “risk” the government further imposing a “backstop proposal” for amalgamation.

The meeting discussed the fact that central government has no current legislation to enforce amalgamation on local councils under the current Local Government Act 2002. This was confirmed by a letter from the minister Simon Watts in response to emails sent to him asking if he had legislation currently to do this. The response confirmed that amendments to the legislation would need to be made to accommodate either the head start or backstop proposals, this would not happen until 2027, obviously after the next general election.

The group resolved to engage with the wider Upper Hutt community by means of a flyer to invite people to join a resident’s group to keep an eye on Tiaki Wai and to encourage other residents to join them in protesting any amalgamation proposal that did not have hardwired into it, protection of Upper Hutt City’s accumulated assets on residents behalf, protects rates funding for the use and benefit of Upper Hutt residents, Protects Upper Hutt’s natural environment rivers and water ways, provides elected representation acceptable to Upper Hutt residents and answers the question What is in it for Upper Hutt? There was no formal process to constitute the group but an informal agreement to consult with one another on the matters of concern, and to invite other residents to join them going forward.

Teresa Homan

A “thank you” to Teresa Homan for sending this article to The Upper Hutt Connection.

28/07/26