Council to forgive past water charges for community groups
Community groups have had a small financial reprieve with Auckland Council ‘forgiving’ outstanding water charges for groups that lease council land or buildings for community activity purposes.
The amounts vary between around 200 groups with an average of about $500 per group being forgiven.
Council has been working with Watercare to reconcile water charges for community groups after the super city amalgamation to align water and wastewater charging for community groups from the various legacy councils. Because of the complexity in determining how much each group used per water meter, Auckland Council became the default payee for water and wastewater.
With a resolution in sight and a more clearly defined billing system scheduled to begin on 1 July, Council is to forgive historic payments required of community groups that have not already had their water charged directly from Watercare.
Ian Wheeler, General Manager Property at Auckland Council, said with the vast range of community facilities, the task of attributing each community user group’s meter usage for water and wastewater is a time-consuming task.
“It is more cost-efficient in terms of staff time and resources to forgive the charges and start with a fresh slate in July,” he said.
Mr Wheeler said it was important that community groups understood they would be responsible for the payment of their water accounts to Watercare from July and he urged groups to contact the Council if they have any concerns about their future metering charges.
He said Council’s Property Lease Advisors are available to work closely with and support community lease tenants as they transition through this new invoicing process and to answer any queries.
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The Ovation of the Seas is part of a new breed of mega-cruise ship. Currently being built in Germany, its sister ship the Quantum of the Seas is shown here. Source: NZ HeraldOne of the new generation of billion dollar plus mega cruise ships is heading for New Zealand.
Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas will cruise in New Zealand and Australian waters next year and will be the biggest cruise ship to ever visit.
Its arrival is a coup for the fast-growing cruise industry in this country – one of the most rapidly expanding in the world – and the tourism sector which has targeted the industry as a source of high numbers of increasingly wealthy visitors.
Ovation is still being built at a shipyard in Germany and when finished will be 348m long and 168,666 gross registered tonnes.
The biggest cruise ship to enter New Zealand so far is the Queen Mary 2 at 148,528 gross tonnes and 345m in length. Another Royal Caribbean ship, Voyager of the Seas regularly calls here and is 311m and 137,276 tonnes although has to date been the biggest by the number of passengers.
Good to see that the 348 metre long mega ship is coming to visit Auckland next year. That said the irony has not been lost on me either that the ship will technically only be able to fit on Bledisole or Wnyard Wharf (see below).
Berths along water front including length
For the ship to fit on Bledisole without the wharf extensions the Marsden Wharf would need to go which is touted in the Central Wharves Strategy. Fail that Bledisole would need to be extended. The other option which is a more long term option is for the Waterfront Auckland owned Wynyard Wharf to be converted from a liquid bulk terminal as current to a passenger terminal. Now with the tank farm on Wynyard Point going within the next 15 years utilising a converted Wynyard Wharf would be ideal.
Why?
Passengers disembark into a high end retail, commercial, residential, hotel, hospitality area that is more dispersed than the Quay Street area
Public transport links as buses, light rail and eventually the North Shore Line come on stream
Takes 5,000 passengers and supporting buses or trucks (for supplies) away from the busy Quay Street which handles people, traffic and freight
No blocking those views from Queens Wharf if the ship was docked at Bledisole
So yes the irony of this big mega ship has not been lost on me in the port debate at all.
Talking Southern Auckland 