Central Coast Council continues to address maintenance and infrastructure upgrades across its vast water and sewer network as it moves into year two of phased rate increases.

From 1 July 2023 the combined yearly bill for a typical household will increase by approximately $169, or $3.25 per week, for water, sewerage, and stormwater rates.  

In May 2022, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) announced it would phase rate increases over four years to allow customers more time to manage the financial impact of the Council’s new pricing determination.

Council’s Director Water and Sewer Jamie Loader said the rate changes had already helped deliver improvements to water and sewer operations over the last 12 months however meeting the community’s service expectations would take time. 

“Since July 2022, we have upgraded over 20.5km’s of new sewer lines and renewed 5.3km’s of watermains across the region. In addition, we have also responded to 266 water breaks and 927 sewer chokes across our network. 

“The performance of our water and sewer operations is heavily reliant on the condition of a very large asset base. The decline of these assets has occurred over several years, as a result of under-investment.

“Council's current water and sewer pricing determination provides sufficient revenue to address this under-investment, however it will take a number of years before the improvements to our assets translates to an improvement in our overall service performance,” Mr Loader said.

Council Administrator Rik Hart said the community can be confident that Council is responding to their concerns about water and sewer services. 

“The recent community consultation has established the customers’ water and sewer values as: good quality drinking water and quality treatment; reliable service; affordability; effective planning; environmental focus; transparency and education.

“These focus areas will continue to be planned and reported on through the Water and Sewer Delivery Plan and annual performance reporting,” Mr Hart said. 

The community can review the pricing for water, sewerage, and stormwater drainage for the Central Coast by visiting the IPART website. 

 For eligibility and to apply for hardship assistance for payment of rates search ‘rates and hardship assistance’ at centralcoast.nsw.gov.au.

ENDS