Media Release: Alan Vink, Chair Raglan Community Board, 30.07.16
Since Easter this year we have had three Wastewater spills in Raglan. The residents and business community of our town are hugely concerned and exasperated about this. It is unacceptable. As an elected member of the Raglan Community Board(and therefore of the WDC) I wish to apologise to the Raglan community for these infractions. The Raglan Community Board are working really hard, mostly behind-the-scenes to sort out the problems that the WDC have.
At the Community Board’s meeting on Tuesday 9th August at 2.00pm we will be receiving a report from WDC staff about all spills and especially the Waikato Regional Report about their investigation into the Easter spill.
In my view we have two systemic problems. 1) A structural and systems problem with the Waste Water infra-structure in Raglan in that the Waste Water infra-structure is broken system is old and broken and 2) an internal organisational problem in council operations. I want to hasten to add that I have come to appreciate the hard working staff and increasingly feel they are ‘pushing water’ uphill. The system is letting them down badly. I think that an overhaul is probably overdue.