Stephen Heath has been appointed as the new Group Manager of Community Assets and Services at the Wairoa District Council.

Mr Heath has been in the Acting Engineering Manager role for the last three months and is excited to be taking on this role and serving the Wairoa community.

Previously the Utilities Manager at the Wairoa District Council, Mr Heath has overseen three waters (storm water, wastewater and drinking water) at Council and has been at the forefront of some significant projects to find efficiencies within the three waters area and moving into the Group Manager role is a natural progression to apply this approach across all of Council’s major infrastructure projects.

Wairoa District Council Chief Executive Steven May says that he was pleased to be able to make this appointment. Equip, which is a specialist unit with Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) undertook the recruitment process on behalf of Council. They processed all the applications and provided Council with a short list of candidates for the interview stage.

“This Group Manager role replaces the previous Engineering Manager role and was part of the reorganisation strategy.  I have really talented staff working in this area but often the hard work behind the scenes is not visible to the community. So this new role and Mr Health’s focus will be about how our community experiences and can be involved with the full cycle of community build and services experience.

“Mr Heath has shown that he has the abilities, attributes and characteristics to undertake this role, and I’m pleased I now have a complete senior leadership team to be able to move our organisation forward in the interest of serving our community.”

“I’m confident that we will go into the New Year with renewed enthusiasm and vigour.  We will work hard to ensure that all of our Council staff are ready for the year to come and Mr Heath will no doubt add his contribution to the leadership of the Community Assets and Services team.”

“Mr Heath brings the necessary experience and knowledge to this role. He has held roles previously in the South island as Business Operations Manager for a large organisation and has also served as the Maintenance Manager for South Canterbury District Health board with 750 staff”, Mr May says.

21 December 2018

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