From fruit and vegetables hit by weather events and fuel and grain prices hit by the conflict in Ukraine, the pandemic and other international forces, we just can't take a break at the moment.

Now we could possibly be paying more for our cups of tea and showers with Central Tablelands Water proposing to increase both their consumption charges and availability charges.

Contained within CTW's Draft Strategic Plan is a proposal to increase the annual availability charge by 3.2% from $248 to $256 per annum for a standard 20mm meter connection and increase the consumption charge by 5.4% from $3.50 per kilolitre to $3.69kL.

General Manager of CTW Gavin Rhodes said that the draft Integrated Planning and Reporting plans sets CTW's strategic direction and provides for its long-term sustainability, whilst continuing to deliver an essential service of quality drinking water.

"Overall, these proposed increases will see the average residential customer, consuming 180kL a year, paying an additional $43 per year or 82 cents per week," he said.

Other main fees and charges in the draft Operational Plan include:

CTW's chairperson Cr David Somervaille said that the increase is necessary to ensure the continuity of a quality water supply.

"We've created our Long Term Financial Plan over 10 years where we plug in the expenditure we need to allocate to the maintenance and renewal of trunk mains, reticulation mains, relining reservoirs and all the other work that we need to do to keep the quality water flowing," he said.

"Unlike the major projects such as the Lake Rowlands Augmentation and the upgrading of the Blayney Water Filtration Plant, we can't get grants for that sort of maintenance and renewal work so unless we submit moderate annual increases in both charges, we won't have the money over that 10 year period to maintain the system effectively."

Unsurprisingly wet years such as the last two we've had aren't good for a business based on selling water. Cr Somervaille said that the impact of all the good rains is that the sale of water has decreased.

"The irony is that when it's wet, people don't use as much water," he said.

"CTW's only business is providing water so we're very exposed to the seasons. If we get a run of very dry summers it's very good for business, but when it's wet it's a bit of disaster because we still have to cover our ordinary operating expenses."

"We've been running in the red by over $1 million for the last two years because we haven't sold the budgeted amount of water."

That's a great thing for customers of course as they may have noticed that without needing to water the garden and still maintaining many water saving strategies developed during the drought, that the bills are lower than in previous years.

"Resident's bills are based on how much they use and over the last few years they've been using nowhere near the 10 year average of consumption," Cr Somervaille said.

These challenges notwithstanding, the latest draft LTFP contains up to $63 million in capital expenditure over the next 10 years, including a massive expansion at the Carcoar Water Filtration Plant.

"This includes major projects such as trunk main renewals ($22.757m), Lake Rowlands Augmentation ($16m), water treatment plant upgrade ($9.5m), and reticulation main renewals ($1.49m)," Cr Somervaille said.

"In addition, a new 12 megalitre reservoir is to be constructed at the Carcoar Water Filtration Plant during the next financial year, greatly assisting with the daily operations of the CTW supply network, including interlinking regional pipelines."

The draft documents can be found at https://www.ctw.nsw.gov.au/publications/documents-on-public-display/

Written submissions must be received by 5pm Friday 17 June 2022.

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