Under the Government’s Local Water Done Well programme, prospective water service providers had to develop Water Service Delivery Plans (WSDPs) for review by DIA in September 2025. Waitaki DC’s plan fell short of DIA’s requirements: it did not adequately show current asset condition to support the proposed financial projections for renewals. Waitaki approached ProjectMax to improve its asset condition knowledge so a revised WSDP, due June 2026, would stand behind those projections.

The work ran in two stages. First, using existing information together with ProjectMax’s local and national knowledge of how pipes with given characteristics tend to perform, we predicted the condition of each pipeline asset in the district. Where actual condition information existed, it was used to validate the predictions.

Second, we investigated the anomalies between prediction and actual data, and gathered targeted information in the field where it mattered most to the likely renewal profiles, and therefore to the financial renewal projections that flow from them.

The condition predictions proved broadly accurate, with a handful of anomalies that were resolved. Waitaki now has the information to support its revised WSDP. As a by-product, it also has the basis for a prioritised condition inspection programme to pin down the precise timing of renewals.