Water bills across the region were less painful last financial year thanks to higher-than-average rainfall, but Coliban Water customers still received the highest bills across the state.
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A water performance report, released by the Essential Services Commission on Thursday, showed bills in the Coliban region dropped by $37 on average in 2016-17, but at $1305, were still more than $200 higher than statewide averages over the same period.
Related: We all knew it – 2016 was a wet one
Goulburn Valley Water customers experienced some of the biggest reductions in bills, averaging $42 less than the 2015-16 financial year.
Goulburn Valley customers paid on average $883 for water in 2016-17.
Across the state, the average household payed $32, or three per cent, less than the previous year.
The figures were largely influenced by the sodden winter of 2016, which contributed to Bendigo recording the third wettest year since 1993, and the wettest September in history.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s rainfall gauge at the Bendigo Airport recorded 676.6 millimetres of rain for 2016 – well above the long-term average of just over 500 millimetres.
Those figures were in stark contrast to the winter of 2017.
A total of 123.6mm fell in Bendigo during the three months, 34.8mm below the average for winter as the state experienced its driest winter in more than 10 years, after some of the lowest June rainfalls on record.
Just 2.4mm fell at the Bendigo Airport in June, the smallest figure since records began in 1862.
Coliban Water general manager finance and pricing Peter Leersen said average household water use in the Coliban Water region fell from 210 kilolitres per year in 2015-16 to 185 kilolitres per year in 2016-17.
“We are committed to keeping prices as low as possible while delivering the services customers need,” he said.
The company’s pricing submission 2018 to the ESC proposed a reduction in prices over the next five years, excluding inflation, Mr Leersen said.
Coliban Water’s current water levels across its three major catchment storages at Upper Coliban, Lauriston and Malmsbury are five per cent lower (54,786 megalitres) than the corresponding period last year.
Malmsbury storage levels are at 12,034 mgl, or 21.3 per cent full – 17 per cent lower than last year.
ESC director of water Marcus Crudden said the report also found most Victorian customers received good quality, reliable water services over 2016–17.
“Overall, the sector is performing well with the top performers on a range of measures being East Gippsland Water, Goulburn Valley Water and South East Water,” he said.
The Energy and Water Ombudsman received 53 complaints from Coliban Water customers over the corresponding period and just 27 from Goulburn Valley customers.
