A bit of rare good news for Wellingtonians, they've escaped having the water restrictions ratcheted up on them this week.

That decision was taken today, it’s taken every week at the moment, and at the moment they’re staying in level 2- for now.

But the case against Wellington City Council as the bad guys is building fast. I would argue it’s becoming more and more obvious that they have neglected to fix the pipes when they knew they should've.

Remember how I told you the guys who fix the pipes asked for $10 million but only got $2.3 million from the council?

Turns out the reason Wellington City Council said no to giving all the money was because they told Wellington Water they didn’t think they could use all the money to do the job and fix the pipes.

Except they could. Because the budget for fixing the pipes the previous year was $10 million, and they used it all.

So Wellington City Council reduced the maintenance budget by 75 percent when they knew the pipes would leak- and there were water restrictions in the city every summer.

On top of that, there’s a guy on the Wellington Regional Council called Daran Ponter who's just thrown them to the wolves as well.

Daran is a Labour man, so you would expect him to be friendly to a left leaning council.

Nope, he’s called them out for spending the money they should be spending on pipes on other things- “new town halls, or refurbished town halls, or bike lanes".

• Finance Minister Willis blames inadequate funding for Wellington water issues
• Wellington Water CEO hopeful top-up could address impeding water shortage
• Chance of acute water shortage in Wellington increases
• Simeon Brown hunting for answers as Local Government Minister outlines plans for Wellington's water
• Simeon Brown Expecting Word Over Wellington Water Issues Soon

Now, I reckon the case that’s building here is that this council needs Government intervention. It needs a Crown Observer called in.

Because if you don’t know that you should spend money on making sure people get water to their houses before you spend money on cycleways, you shouldn't be running a council.

Incidentally, the Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has gently threatened that in a letter to Wellington City Council- and I think he should follow through.

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