We recognise the water supply is more important during the current COVID-19 situation with the extra focus on handwashing and hygiene. It’s a tough time for everyone in the community and, with more people at home, water outages are having more of an impact than they normally would.
As part of our response to COVID-19, we’re currently carrying out a review of all network activities, including developer works and shut plans. We’re implementing ways we can minimise the impact on customers during water outages, such as reducing the time the water is off or delaying the works to occur at night. These provisions will enable us to help the community prepare for temporary service outages while important works are allows to continue.
What this means for existing and new shut plans
Holders of existing shut plans are also required to comply with below conditions. if you cannot comply with these conditions you must contact Urban Utilities in order to have your shut plan reviewed and re-approved. Failure to do so will result in your works not being able to proceed.
- Maximum daytime outages of three hours (from water off to water on), with anything longer to be undertaken at night after 9pm and before 5am.
- All conditions of the council night works permit must be adhered to, especially regarding noise.
- Multiple shuts on consecutive days will no longer be permitted.
- You will need to provide bottled water on-site for affected residents when requested.
- Trial shuts will be required to be undertaken one week prior to the main primary shut.
- Only primary shuts will be permitted. In the instance that the primary valves fail, the shut plan will need to be reviewed for amendment or valves repaired before proceeding.
- You will still need to provide at least three business days’ notice to help residents prepare for temporary service outages.
- At the time you are delivering your water off notices, you must provide a copy of the water outage notification and advise the number of residents who have been notified to networkaccess@urbanutilities.com.au. The shut will not be permitted to proceed without confirmation that we have received a copy of the correct notification and distribution numbers.
These conditions will be applied retrospectively to all network access permits involving shut plans and works in progress from 6 April 2020.
Changes to how you apply for a Network Access Permit (NAP)
The permit request process will now require you to provide additional detailed information about the estimated duration of the water outage to complete your works. This will be used with other information to create your shut plan and conditions.
Helping customers to prepare for the interruption
It is very important to correctly complete our water outage notification (available to download below) as per the requirements of the shut plan. This may then be distributed to residents to help them prepare for the temporary service outage.
Water Outage Notification template
More information
For questions about an existing NAP request or shut plan, please contact us at networkaccess@urbanutilities.com.au