The average rise in water rates for Central Coast residents will be more than $300pa if a 34 per cent rate rise proposed by Central Coast Council is approved by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) is approved.
Residents of the former Gosford Council area will pay an average of $310 more and if you live in the former Wyong Council area, the average rise will be $347.
Fixed charges are going up so smaller households might have a larger increase than the typical bill.
And water usage charges are also going up so households using more than average households might have a larger increase than the typical bill.
The Council was not so quick to talk about these figures at the IPART public hearing held on Tuesday, October 26.
Council prefers to talk about pre-2019 figures which makes the proposed increase look smaller than it actually is.
Central Coast residents’ water bills have decreased since 2019 and Council compares the proposed increase with the higher pre-2019 figures rather than what residents pay now.
At the public hearing, resident Mark Skipper asked how Council had worked out that the proposed 34 per cent water rate rise would be affordable to residents.
The question wasn’t answered the first time it was asked.
Later the question was asked again and Council CEO David Farmer answered.
He said residents of the former Gosford Council area would pay about $50 less than they had been paying in 2019 before IPART gave residents a rate decrease.
He didn’t say what former Wyong residents would pay under that same analogy.
But IPART followed up and provided Coast News with the answer after the hearing ended.
Former Wyong area residents will pay $186 more than they paid pre-2019.
“We have been able to reproduce a similar figure to what the Council provided at the public hearing yesterday for Gosford – i.e. that under the Council’s proposed increases, former Gosford Council residents would pay typical household bills that are about $50 less (or $46 less to be more accurate) than they were paying before the last (2019) IPART Determination,” IPART said.
“On the other hand, we estimate that former Wyong Council residents would pay typical household bills that are about $186 more than they were paying before the last (2019) IPART Determination.”
But in many ways, these figures are irrelevant because they are based on the higher prices you paid before the 2019 IPART decision that saw your water rates go down.
The price increase all up will be between $310 and $347 for an average household on what they are paying now.
The disparity between Wyong and Gosford in the old pre-2019 prices are because the rates have still not been harmonised.
The proposed new figures will harmonise the water rates, just as residents noticed a harmonisation in their general rates recently.
With the general rates, Gosford was hit with a higher rise than Wyong.
This time it is the other way around.
Merilyn Vale