An agreement to share water services between the Dunedin and Christchurch City Councils could be just the start of a new era of co-operation, councillors say.
At yesterday’s Dunedin City Council meeting, councillors received an update on investigations into sharing services with the DCC’s Christchurch counterpart.
The two councils signed a memorandum of understanding in February to consider sharing a "wide range of functions or services", including procurement, infrastructure planning and delivery and monitoring.
Cr Jim O’Malley said the "early interaction" between the two councils should be fostered in other areas.
"And make sure that we are unified in our position on a lot of things so that we can speak in unified voices at times when we’ve got to wake up Wellington and tell them to really think about us."
He was excited about the proposal, which took "only good parts out of Three Waters reform from Labour".
Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich said the proposal had the potential to decrease the cost of water services for both councils and could be shared with other South Island authorities.
"Starting with the two largest [councils], figure out how we optimise their services and keep the costs to a minimum and through the cost of scale — it’s just a fairly natural and sensible way to go."
Cr Andrew Whiley said the council should be looking at a similar approach for other council services and Cr Mandy Mayhem said it made sense for two metro cities to work together and she looked forward to the relationship developing.
Cr Carmen Houlahan said all sectors of the city could benefit from a strong relationship.
"If we had Christchurch behind us saying "look governments, support Dunedin for this hospital’ ... it makes us a stronger voice "
Since February, a joint working group of staff from both councils had been working to find opportunities for collaborators "that could enhance efficiency, resilience and cost-effectiveness of our operations", the update report to councillors said.
Feasibility assessments of some shared service opportunities were expected by August and implementation recommendations would be prepared in September.
The Christchurch City Council will consider an equivalent report this week.
