Council working to speed up water leak fixes

Christchurch City Council is working with its contractor to try and address a backlog of reports from the public about water leaks.

Over the past two months there has been a 30 per cent increase in the volume of customer service requests lodged with the Council’s Contact Centre  about water leaks.

The Council is currently receiving about 350 calls a week about water leaks.

“We are currently receiving about 350 requests a week and that is putting our contractor Citycare under some pressure,’’ says Council City Services General Manager David Adamson.

“They have been prioritising fixing the larger leaks and are hitting their target of getting those repaired within an hour, or a day, depending on the severity of the leak. 

“Unfortunately they are struggling to meet the response time targets for minor leaks and that means some customers are waiting longer than we would like to have those leaks fixed,'' Mr Adamson says.

“We’ve met with Citycare to discuss how we can reduce the backlog. Collectively we are looking at how we can deliver these in a more effective and efficient manner and as part of this they have agreed to bring in extra resources and do extra shifts if required.''

Mr Adamson says there does not appear to be any one cause for the increase in reported leaks. It seemed to be a combination of better community awareness, using tobies that have not been used for many years, residual earthquake damage and ageing infrastructure.

“We’re very conscious that at a time when we are asking people to conserve water so we can carry on with our well head repair work over the summer that we need to be doing all we can to ensure that any leaks in the system are fixed as quickly as possible,'' Mr Adamson says.

“If you do notice a leak, please do notify us so that we can investigate the cause and do any repairs.''