IPART held a public hearing on 26 October 2021 on the Central Coast Council’s proposed water prices from 1 July 2022.  

We received the council’s pricing proposal on 10 September and published our Issues Paper on 28 September, along with the council’s proposal.

With the release of our Issues Paper, we invited the community to provide feedback and comments on the council’s proposal and on key issues we have identified - via submissions on our website and/or by completing our Have Your Say survey. The closing date for submissions and for completing our survey was 1 November 2021.

On Tuesday 26 October 2021, we held an online public hearing as part of our community consultation for our Central Coast Council water price review. The public hearing provided an opportunity for the public and community to have their say and ask questions to IPART and to Central Coast Council.

The online public hearing had three sessions:

  • Session A for General Discussion about Central Coast Council’s proposed water prices with presentations from Central Coast Council and from representatives of Central Coast community organisations
  • Session B on the council’s performance and proposed costs with a presentation from IPART
  • Session C on the council's proposed prices and impacts with a presentation from IPART.

Each session included a question and answer session following the presentations, where the community could ask questions to the council and to IPART on key issues. In addition to discussing performance, costs, prices and impacts, key themes that we discussed included stormwater, water quality, the council’s projects and council’s accountability to the community. 

We have also published below, responses from IPART and the council to questions and comments that we recorded from our chat box but were not able to cover during the hearing.

Slides, video recordings and transcripts

The agenda and complete presentation slides to the video recordings and transcripts can be accessed as follows:

Stakeholders may make an access application to view these videos under the Government Information (Public Access) Act 2009.

We have listened to the community’s views and will consider all feedback and comments when we make our draft decisions and recommendations for our Draft Report, to be released in March 2022.

This was our first public hearing for our current Central Coast Council water price review. We will hold a second public hearing after we release our Draft Report, on which we will seek further feedback and comments.

Comments/questions asked at the public hearing that we ran out of time for:

Comment/question about bill impacts:

[With reference to David Farmer’s comment that former Gosford council residents would pay about $50 less than they were paying before the last (2019) IPART Determination]

“Will Wyong area residents also pay $50 less or will they pay more?”

IPART response:

Under the council’s proposed increases, we estimate that on average, former Gosford council residents would pay typical household bills (including water, wastewater and stormwater) that would be $46 less than they were paying in 2018-19, that is before the last (2019) IPART Determination.

We estimate that on average, former Wyong council residents would pay typical household bills that would be about $186 more than they were paying in 2018-19, that is before the last (2019) IPART Determination.

We note that compared to 2021-22, typical household bills would on average increase by $342 for one in the former Gosford council, and by $378 for one in the former Wyong council, under the council’s proposed prices for 2022-23.

Please note a typical household is based on a household with a house using 170 kL of water each year.

Comment/question about stormwater charges:

“My block has been paying rates for more than 70 years.  I have had to pay over 20K to install 2 stormwater drains and STILL I pay for stormwater.  I have no kerb and gutter even though my block has been paying rates for over 70 years

Earlier this year I was advised by IPART that Stormwater charges were under discussion?  Whatever happened to the "discussions"?”

IPART response:

Our review of the Central Coast Council water, wastewater and stormwater prices is ongoing. We will publish our draft decisions and draft prices for this review in our Draft Report which we will release in March 2022. We will consider all feedback when making our draft decisions for the Central Coast Council’s water prices to apply from 1 July 2022, including feedback received at the public hearing, in response to our Issues Paper and the council’s proposal (due to be received by 1 November 2021). We will also seek and consider feedback on our draft decisions and draft prices before making our final decisions in May 2022.

We also recently released an Information Paper on stormwater drainage which we are also seeking feedback on by 15 November 2021.

Letter from Central Coast Council - This letter provides the council’s response to comments and questions we ran out of time for during our public hearing. These responses cover stormwater services including stormwater infrastructure and water quality, and the potential for stormwater harvesting, and council’s capital expenditure.