An estimated 500,000 litres of water was lost in a water leak in Carterton while council staff contended with red tape over access to private property.
By Emily Ireland for Local Democracy Reporting
Prior to recent legislative changes, the council had a bylaw which enabled staff to enter private property and carry out repairs on shared or private laterals – the pipes that connect properties to the water main.
This was done primarily to reduce water loss across the network, even in cases where the lateral was technically private infrastructure and therefore not the council's direct responsibility to maintain.
In a recent report to council, group manager of infrastructure Lawrence Stephenson said "this approach, while pragmatic, operated in something of a grey area".
"The council was effectively intervening on private property to fix private infrastructure, justified largely on the grounds of minimising network-wide water loss," he said.
'Basically impractical to fix leaks... urgently'
"It was a workable solution in the absence of clearer legislative guidance, and it allowed the council to act quickly when leaks were identified."
Councillor Brian Deller said the introduction of the Local Government Water Services Act 2025 made it “basically impractical to fix leaks on lateral urgently – it’s just crazy”.
Permission was needed to enter private property unless it was an emergency, a report to council said.
Most of the time this could be easily resolved with owners or if there was only a single owner, as the service request was viewed as approval to enter the property, however, this was more difficult if there were multiple owners, such as a shared drive where the water meters were not at the boundary of the road.
In Carterton, there was an estimated 16.6km of water pipes on private properties.
The Water Services Act required going through a potentially prolonged process of approval from all parties who shared the driveway, tenants, and owners.
Deller said there had been a recent lateral water leak on Brooklyn Rd that had taken about five weeks for the council to be able to access the property under the new legislation.
He had estimated 10 litres of water was lost per minute in this leak.
“Surely, in a situation like that, we need to get them fixed urgently.”
'Absolutely ridiculous' – Mayor
Under the legislation, the council must give property owners at least 10 days' notice prior to entry, conditions can be requested, and if the conditions were unreasonable it could be referred to the district court.
Carterton Mayor Steve Cretney said the 10 days' notice prior to entry was "absolutely ridiculous".
Stephenson agreed and said it "just turns farcical".
"Should the landowner decide to object to us coming on site within 10 days, the next course of action we have is going through the district court."
All the while, the leak continued, he said.
To simplify the process, the council recently voted to fund the relocation of shared laterals where necessary so that each property had its own independent connection to the main, or to install a meter on the shared lateral where this was not possible.
There were at least seven obvious private water pipes where, at a minimum, a valve at the boundary needed to be installed to provide a clear line of responsibility, the council report said.
The report said a key issue stemmed from the placement of water meters at the time of installation in 2008.
Meters were installed at the location of the water toby – the shutoff valve – which in many cases did not account for the existence of shared laterals running beyond that point.
Shared laterals that were unmetered created a significant accountability gap, as there was no reliable way to attribute water consumption or loss to a specific property.
“When a leak occurs on a shared or common line, it frequently leads to disagreement between the affected property owners regarding who holds responsibility for the repair,” Stephenson said.
“These disputes can be protracted and difficult to resolve, particularly where the lateral crosses multiple titles or where ownership boundaries are unclear.”
It was estimated that $38,000 was required for the relocation work which would come from the reactive renewal budget of $70,000.
– Local Democracy Reporting is local body journalism funded by RNZ and NZ on Air
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