Decade-long row all money down drain

DONNA WALSH/Waikato Times

DRAINING FIGHT: Wayne and June Atkinson have been locked in a 10-year battle with Waipa District Council over a drain on their property which they say council should take responsibility for.

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A Kihikihi couple are at loggerheads with Waipa District Council over a stormwater drain on their property which they claim will cost up to $1 million to pipe, but should not be their responsibility.

Wayne and June Atkinson are at their wits' end with the council over the decade-long battle about who should pay $2500 per year to maintain the drain, which the couple say manages the district's stormwater.

The Atkinsons want the council to accept liability for the drain and said forking out for drain maintenance or a potential $1 million to pipe it made their Herbert Rd house unsellable.

When the couple purchased the property in 1999 the drain was listed as "no consequence" on the title.

More than 50 properties in the area now discharge stormwater into the 150-metre ditch running along their land.

The dispute has involved hours of consultation with lawyers, government departments, mediators, the Ombudsman and even an Environment Court hearing in 2008.

As of July 2009 the council had paid almost $84,500 to its lawyers Gallie Miles dealing with the issue and the Atkinsons said they had spent a similar amount.

"When people say everything is going down the drain they are not joking," Mr Atkinson said.

"We are only small fries and we have spent all this money at the lawyers and I don't want to spend another $30,000 to clean a drain in the next 10 years – it's another deposit on a mortgage."

Mrs Atkinson said it shouldn't be the couple's responsibility to manage the district's stormwater.

"It's like having everybody's stormwater in your front yard. We now manage district stormwater on our property and are responsible for keeping it unblocked to make sure it doesn't flood," she said.

The Atkinsons claim Waipa District Council has spent 10 years avoiding a now costly $1m bill to pipe the drain.

They say the council began calling it a "natural watercourse" in September 2003 after a report stating there would be legal problems if the council was discharging stormwater into a private drain.

Waipa District Council said because it was a private drain it was the responsibility of the landowner to manage it and it could enforce action if the landowner did not keep the drain maintained at an appropriate level. The council said the terms drain and watercourse were "interchangeable".

An Environment Court decision in 2008 also ruled Waipa District Council did not have to pipe it.

In a statement to the Waikato Times, the council said the drain had been on the property more than 27 years and there was 240km of similar drains in the district.

It said recent discussions about buying the Herbert Rd property at market value had ended after a deal could not be struck and it was not "proper use of council funds".

The council said the Atkinsons refused an offer to modify it as a swale drain in 2004.

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