Hulse slams WaterCare’s lack of demand vision

Waitakere Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse is highly critical of WaterCare’s latest announcement it will not support a well-established rebate programme for water-conscious residents.

The programme offers product rebates for all Waitakere residents who install rain tanks plumbed to their toilets and laundries and is part of an initiative to encourage greater household efficiency and defer the need to fund more dams.

“This is incredibly short-sighted and I have to wonder where the vision is for the touted world-class city that Auckland is supposed to become,” says Councillor Hulse.

“On the one hand we are fed a carrot of lower water charges and then programmes which can help our new city be more sustainable are slashed. Vision requires more than cost-cutting exercises and bottom-line strategies that WaterCare has announced over the past year. This is thinking from the last century,” she says.

Waitakere encourages households to save money by using less potable water and sees heavy expenditure in the near future on new infrastructure and water sources as unnecessary and leading ro increased water costs. Everyone should have an incentive to behave more sustainably.

© Scoop Media