Friday, April 27, 2018
Since Sept 27, 1879
Retail $1.80 Home delivered from $1.15
THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF MID CANTERBURY
A squirting good time Ashburton Fire and Emergency rolled open the doors and cracked open the hydrant for children like Ashton Gare, 7, to have a go.
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Water meters coming our way? BY SUE NEWMAN
SUE.N@THEGUARDIAN.CO.NZ
The legend lives on MOTORING
Water meters could be on the horizon for residential properties around the Ashburton District. While stopping short of making a commitment to their installation, district councillors yesterday batted the value of meters around the service delivery committee meeting table. Meters, if given the nod, could be used to measure how much water each household uses, and ultimately they could be used to charge for consumption. A discussion on metering residential D
zone properties morphed into a debate on the fairness of metering water for one section of the community and not for the other. Currently the council is checking residential D properties to ensure they have water meters installed. This regime sees each property charged when consumption rises above 1000 litres per day. That consumption level wasn’t fair, Alasdair Urquhart said. He wanted those properties to be free from restrictions or to be given a 2000 litre allocation before charging kicked in. The council couldn’t have open slather
on its water supplies, projects manager Viv Eyberg warned. “It might be unfair at the moment but the only way to make it fair would be if everyone was metered and this could be where we’re headed,” he said. Even if meters weren’t used for charging water they were a good operational tool for a council because it meant where water was being used, lost or wasted could be measured, Eyberg said.
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