Watercare Board Response // One Mahurangi, Warkworth UPDATE

Hello Warkworth Residents & Businesses!

Thank you for the massive response we got to the petition to Watercare for an alternative route through Warkworth. Following our townhall meeting we’ve continued to work hard and represent the concerns of the community and the petition was one of those steps.

We managed to present this petition at the Watercare Board meeting on 10th July, ahead of their August meeting where they were slated to make their final decision on the pipeline route. At the presentation we had 3,033 signatures with a following 343 received in the following days, making a total of 3,376 signatures; estimated at over 75% of our voting age population in Warkworth! This is no small feat, and we thank the community for the support. There will however be further call to action so keep your eyes peeled for this and bring your friends and family when the call goes out – this is the only chance we have!

We would like to share with you the letter we received from the Chair of Watercare Board, acknowledging our deputation at the meeting and agreeing to defer their decision until December and confirming invitation to work with their engineers to look at options, including any new proposals.

As I said at the town hall meeting our primary approach is to confirm an alternative route that does not create the same issues as going down the main street. We continue to work on these alternatives, and we thank the landowners who alternative routes may affect for their positivity and willingness to consider the greater good for the community as well as the potential impact on their properties. If, through every effort, the route continues down the main street then we pivot to mitigating and reducing disruptions through potential use of alternative technology (instead of open trenching) as well as pressing for nightworks and work over weekends to complete work as quickly as possible.

We also continue to explore legal and consenting avenues.

We again thank everyone for their galvanizing support and while this is a huge positive step and it buys us more critical time we still have the same issues and challenges to resolve as well as raising the public and national awareness of this.

Please see links below to the response from Watercare as well as the presentation and letter presented to the board.

Kind Regards,

Bevan Morrison
Co-Chair of One Mahurangi Business Association