Christchurch City Council has brought forward the upgrade for Hillsborough’s Grange St, originally planned for the 2026/27 financial year, to begin later this year.
Claire Burridge hopes she will not have to worry as much about stocking up on drinking water or having her family’s laundry and shower plans interrupted.
“It’s a relief to know that hopefully after August it will all be safe and more reliable. Reliability is the big thing,” she said.
The decision follows a report by The Star two weeks ago highlighting the street’s ongoing water issues.
Grange St’s pipes, untouched since 1944, have caused around a dozen water outages since 2022 – each lasting several hours. The worst stretch was a series of bursts on April 3, 4 and 5.
Grange St residents are generally pleased with the timeframe for a fix given by the city council.
“It’s great. Anytime this year is an advance on what we thought it might be,” said Burridge.
Residents have worked together to bring the issue to the attention of the city council and media.
“I was very skeptical that anything would actually move, but it has been very encouraging to see that they (city council) actually did listen to us,” Burridge said.
