New company will run water matters

A joint-council-owned company will manage Wellington’s water supply and distribution.

Wellington Regional Council has agreed to become a shareholder in a new company replacing Capacity and also taking over management of the region’s bulk water supply.

Capacity is owned by Wellington, Porirua, Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt councils. It manages retail water, storm water and wastewater in the Wellington metropolitan area.

The regional council unanimously accepted the proposal at its meeting on Thursday.

A joint committee of the five councils will appoint a board of directors and oversee it. The committee will also decide the new company’s name.

Porirua regional councillor Jenny Brash said she had qualms about Capacity’s past performance, but thought it had become a different organisation.

Her fellow Porirua representative, Barbara Donaldson, said she was disappointed the oversight committee wouldn’t be a Wellington Regional Council one, but she was pleased a Wellington City Council demand for council-appointed directors had been rejected.

Donaldson was ‘‘fearful’’ about losing regional council technical staff to the new company.

Council chairwoman Fran Wilde said it should be viewed as a new company.

‘‘There is a new chief executive, a new structure. There will be a new culture,’’ she said.

Colin Crampton, formerly of the New Zealand Transport Agency, was appointed chief executive of Capacity last November.

Wilde will represent the regional council on the oversight committee, with Brash as her alternate.

The four shareholding councils will be asked to give their formal approval to the regional council becoming a shareholder in the new company.