A Kakanui resident has attacked plans to connect the town to the Oamaru water and sewage schemes, claiming residents have been misled by figures manipulated to achieve an end result.
Resident and Kakanui camping ground owner
That report was considered by the council's committee of the whole last month, but councillors declined to make a recommendation, instead calling for a public meeting at Kakanui for residents to discuss all options with the council.
Mr Jones said Kakanui should retain its own water and sewage-treatment schemes, with water upgraded to meet drinking standards.
"I've spoken to a lot of Kakanui residents who are annoyed at what is going on and the buck has to stop somewhere," he said.
He questioned how happy Oamaru people would be to learn they would pay some of the cost.
The report prepared on the two Kakanui schemes contained errors. It started with an end result connecting to Oamaru, and figures were then manipulated to obtain that result, Mr Jones said.
For example, there were growth rates for demand for water, but those rates were not applied to sewage treatment and $150,000 was missing from the cost of connecting to Oamaru's water supply.
The plan, he said, appeared to be to get as many people as possible to connect to the Oamaru water scheme to pay for it.
At the committee meeting on October 16, two representatives from the Interim Kakanui Water Supply Liaison Group also raised issues about the report, including the projected costs, which prompted councillors to call for a public meeting.
The report said connecting Kakanui to Oamaru's water supply could cost $359,000 with a total of $469,000 in operating costs over the lifetime and for wastewater $228,888 with a lifetime cost of $446,000.
