The Taxpayers’ Union is calling for heads to roll at Dunedin City Council after residents were left unaware of lead contamination of their drinking water of four times the allowable levels.

Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “Providing safe drinking water is one of the most basic public services people pay rates for. For it to take 10 days for test result to be sent to the Council, only to have that email 'lost' for another few weeks, indicates a failure of safety and communication systems. For the Council to then take another few weeks to notify the public is incompetence in the extreme.”

“It’s also an issue of trust. Communities should be able to trust councils, who hold monopolies on service provision, to be up front on these matters. That trust has been abused by Dunedin City Council and individuals must be held to account as a first step to rebuild it.”

The maximum accepted level of lead in drinking water is 10 micrograms per litre. Test results show the levels to be as high as 39 micrograms per litre.

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