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Council urges decision on subsidy
Monday, 5 October 2009Southland District Council Mayor Frana Cardno is urging the Government to make a decision on the drinking water subsidy scheme and make it soon. The Government announced last week it was putting the subsidy scheme on hold again to enable a review aimed at ensuring best use of the money in the scheme, which aims to improve drinking water supplies in small communities of fewer than 5000 people.
"This delay is definitely an issue for Council as it causes problems for our programmed work," Mrs Cardno said.
However, the bigger concern is that if the Government changes the rules, like it did with the sewerage subsidy, some of Southland's communities will miss out on funding.
"That really worries me, particularly as any changes will disadvantage communities that may not be in the high deprivation areas, but are certainly suffering at this time," she said.
The drinking water subsidy scheme originally had $117.8 million in funding for 10 years from 1 July 2006. About $30 million of that had already been given out and applications for a further $27.5 million in subsidies have been received for the current round.
Included in that are applications from Southland District Council.
The townships that have currently been approved for Stage 1 subsidy upgrades are:
- Edendale
- Wyndham
- Riverton
- Tuatapere
- Ohai-Nightcaps-Wairio
- Lumsden-Balfour
Most of these townships will be two stage applications and Council are concerned that the second stage may not get approved if the Ministry change the criteria to qualify for subsidy monies.
The cost of improvements which would be applied for in the second stage applications range from $100,000 to $600,000 for each of these communities.
Other townships that would be affected by changes to the subsidy rules are:
- Otautau
- Winton
- Te Anau
- Manapouri
- Mossburn
The cost of improvements for these townships would be in the range of $250,000 to $1,000,000. These applications are in the initial stages of being compiled except for Otautau, which was to be lodged this month.
The Government is saying the review should be completed early next year and the programme is then expected to reopen with new critieria.
