The Wellington Chamber of Commerce urges CBD businesses and residents to heed official’s request to limit the use of toilets and waste water, following the burst of sewage pipes along Victoria and Mercer Streets.

"Right now, what’s important is the immediate fix and clean up. Then the city must urgently respond and put in place the findings and recommendations from the Taskforce report release last year," says Jo Healey, Wellington Chamber of Commerce President.

"These problems aren’t going to get any smaller - quite the opposite as today’s sewage pipe burst has shown - so our city leaders need to get on with it.

"The prioritisation of our water infrastructure and fixes must happen quickly.

The Chamber has long been on the record calling for councillors to invest properly in our city’s infrastructure.

"Despite significant year-on-year rates increases, capital expenditure on core infrastructure keeps being delayed and deferred meaning decades of under-funding. As the taskforce report revealed

there are still questions around the historic financial arrangements, so a bottom-line condition for any future rates raised is that the revenue must be ringfenced.

"Wellington City Council’s upcoming Long-Term Plan draft must include the immediate remedial costs and prioritise this over other expenditure. It is up to Council to now prioritise Wellington’s water infrastructure - something that our city has not done in the past

"First, clean up the mess, then quickly get on with fixing the pipes."

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