2025 Election Eve Shock: Mayor Named CEO of Water CCO – What Our Investigations Found - and - You May Like to Vote in our Poll & Sign the Petition

It has taken just under 6 months, and the assistance of the Ombudsman’s office, for the New Plymouth Ratepayers Alliance to gather, and process, NPDC internal documents about decisions made to create the New Plymouth Water Services Council Controlled Organisation (WSCCO).

The Alliance submitted two OIA’s to the NPDC and we received around 500 pages – in two separate lots – that our team went through to piece together how this unusual set up happened with this NPDC Council Controlled Organisation.

Previous CCO’s set up by the NPDC have appointed a Board. The Board have been heavily involved in the creation of the Constitution and Statement of Expectations documents, and the Board have been heavily involved in the recruitment of the CEO of these companies.

But the Water Services CCO for the NPDC was different.

The NPDC CEO of the time, Gareth Green, created a system where an interim CEO position would be created, and that position would (initially) report to a senior manager at the NPDC. After receiving legal advice, the position was altered to report to Gareth Green. The CEO position for the WSCCO was interviewed before the Board interviews took place, and the appointment of the new WSCCO CEO was also made before the Board applicants were interviewed.

And in this mix, was the sitting Mayor, Neil Holdom, being interviewed for the CEO of the WSCCO, and no one was officially told about this until the day before the 2025 Election.

A highly unusual way of appointing a CEO to a Council Controlled Organisation.

When we received the 500 pages of internal documents to go through, we expected to find quite a bit of information.

• We have attached a timeline – showing the dates various events took place.
• We highlight when various decisions were made about the WSCCO, when meetings or events took place, dates with the recruitment process, due dates for Government and consultations, dates involving sign off at Council meetings, staff decisions made, where we could piece together who was involved with discussions and decisions, and e-mails that were of interest.
• Our story touches on some of the dates of "interest" with activities happening by decision makers around those dates.

Specific wording we used in our questions, for the type of information we were looking for, were:

• All documents
• Assessment documents
• How decisions were made
• Who made and signed off decisions
• Who signed off and approved appointments
• Copies of any minutes of meetings
• All records of which NPDC staff, management, contractors, or suppliers were involved with WSCCO meetings where Neil Holdom was present
• All internal and external documents, e-mails, minutes and in any other format
• Dates and who was present with WSCCO discussions

We expected to find a lot of information about how the WSCCO was set up, and we expected a lot of information in writing on decisions which had been made.

We didn’t find that information.

• There were no internal documents from any meetings, or emails among staff, discussing how the WSCCO would be set up. None.
• Mark Hall was the NPDC Project Manager for Local Water Done Well – the Central Government Plan for Councils to set up WSCCO’s. There is not one document in writing from Mark Hall. Not one thing written down by the Project Manager.
• There is not one set of minutes from any meetings about the WSCCO, or Local Water Done Well.
• We did not receive anything which had any staff signing off any decisions. This included the NPDC CEO Gareth Green. What we did receive was a WSCCO Establishment plan with 24 pages – which was the final WSCCO Draft Decision document - with no date and no signature. There was no signature to show who approved this plan -which was used as an important document for the development of the new WSCCO.
• We found the first page of this Establishment Plan was presented at the NPDC Council meeting to approve the WSCCO on 12 August – just the first page. The other 23 pages weren’t showing with the agenda documents presented to Council, but other pages of information were. Page 11 of the Establishment Plan had a very clear picture of how the WSCCO Interim CEO would report to the NPDC CEO, but this page was not presented at the Council meeting on 12^th August, when the elected officials signed off on the agenda they had for the Water Plan.
• The HR Project Manager appointed for the recruitment of the Board and Interim CEO had no previous recruitment experience. An NPDC asset worth almost 1 billion dollars being created into a new CCO, and the person tasked with recruitment does not have experience with recruiting staff ? Multiple e-mails ask other people for assistance to perform this HR role – and on one occasion an AI Search was suggested to create a Skills Matrix Chart to use in the recruitment process.
• To be fair, the HR Project Manager – Helen Gray – did work with an external contractor who was experienced with recruiting staff, but she did not have previous experience herself to draw on for this project.
• The Alliance put pressure on the NPDC to hold public meetings about the WSCCO. An NPDC presentation was pulled together for this, but an email shows 7 days before the first public meeting the presentation was altered based on public discussions online. Why would the presentation change – surely the actual WSCCO plan should have been presented as it stood – not altered to sway public opinion ?
• There are multiple mentions in the documents about the tight timeframe and timeline to get the appointments made for the WSCCO Board and Interim CEO roles - within 6 to 8 weeks. Those 6 to 8 weeks coincided with appointments being made before the election. The establishment for the WSCCO does not need to be completed until 1 July 2027 – so why the urgency before 10^th October 2025 ?
• Neil Holdom, the incumbent Mayor, was not going to be the Mayor after 10^th October, as he was not standing in 2025. So, was the urgency for decisions before 10^th October because he would have no official influence after 10^th October ?
• A decision was made by Gareth Green there was no need for a conflict of interest register to be created once Neil Holdom had declared he was applying for the position.
• Not one conflict of interest was recorded for Neil Holdom from around mid-August 2025 when he would have been considering the preparation of his application.  
• From 1^st September, after Neil Holdom’s application was received, WSCCO decisions were still being made from this time, but Gareth Green, and the sitting Mayor Neil Holdom, saw no need to raise any conflicts of interest, that a possible future CEO of the WSCCO was making decisions about its operation before a Board had even been interviewed.
• The interview process got a little tricky as by law, and by the NPDC’s own process for appointing staff to a CCO, either the Mayor, or the Deputy Mayor, must sign off the recruitment process and one of them must be in attendance at the interviews. We only received a couple of emails involving Neil Holdom where he had to make decisions on how the recruitment process would work (which ended up including his own application and appointment). We received very little in writing to show what actually happened around this process.
• David Bublitz satisfied the requirement that a Deputy Mayor was a part of the interview and appointment process for the Board, by being on the Board Interview Panel.
• There was no Mayor or Deputy Mayor at the Interim CEO interviews.
• Neil Holdom was interviewed 13 days ahead of the other CEO candidates.
• Neither Neil Holdom (as Mayor) or David Bublitz (as Deputy Mayor) were present when the other CEO Candidates were interviewed.
• On the day Neil Holdom was interviewed, he wasn’t in attendance as the Mayor, but as an applicant for the position. David Bublitz, as Deputy Mayor, was not at Neil Holdom’s CEO interview.
• No Mayor, or Deputy Mayor, was involved with the Interim CEO interview process and the senior management recruitment process states one of them has to be. None of this was public, neither Gareth Green or Neil Holdom saw a need for this interview situation to be mentioned as a conflict of interest situation, or even in the public interest.
• Holdom’s application was received on 1^st September 2025, 5 days after applications closed on 27^th August 2025.

After Neil Holdom’s application was received for the Interim CEO position, and as he was still the sitting Mayor of New Plymouth, he was involved in numerous actions for the WSCCO:

• He decided on and signed off on the Interview Panel for the Board Candidates.
• Legal advice was received from Simpson Grierson to change how long the Board would be in interim positions and the Establishment Plan was updated.
• NPDC Governance raised issues (referred to in an e-mail, but the issues were not itemised with the documents we received).
• On 12^th September a decision was made that the 10^th October Council meeting would be closed to the public, the Mayor, Neil Holdom, was chairing that meeting, so it was his agenda to set.
• Neil Holdom suggested changes to the Board Interview Panel due to a conflict of interest raised by NPDC Governance.
• Questions to ask the Board Candidates were still being reviewed, and decisions were still being made by Neil Holdom on the recruitment process. This is cause for concern because the WSCCO CEO position reports to the WSCCO Board. An applicant for the WSCCO CEO role reviewed the interview questions to be asked of his potential new employers.
• The draft WSCCO Plan was sent to the Government Department of Internal Affairs (DIA).
• The day after Neil Holdom was interviewed, Sam Bennett, in an e-mail, asked Gareth Green why the 10^th of October meeting would be closed to the public. Gareth Green made no mention of Neil Holdom being interviewed when this question was asked. This situation was even kept from a long term Councillor who was asking questions.
• Gareth Green on 10^th October emailed Neil Holdom, David Bublitz, Sarah Downes and Helen Gray, and wrote  – “as discussed with each of you at the interviews, Neil will report to me on paper until you have a legal entity for him to report to”.
• Neil Holdom’s interview was on 11^th September.  At least 4 people at the NPDC knew about Neil Holdom applying for this position in September, but no conflicts of interest were raised anywhere, by any of these people, in any discussions or meetings, after Neil Holdom’s interview date.
• There are emails of Neil Holdom being asked questions, but no e-mails from Holdom back with a reply. But decisions were made, as the sender’s of the e-mails proceeded with their projects and actions.
• 30^th September an HR related e-mail states the Statement of Expectations and Constitution for the WSCCO are still very much a draft, still being decided on, and not available for Board Interviews. That same day Neil Holdom was negotiating the terms of the offer of WSCCO CEO with Gareth Green. The detail of what would be in the Board interviews the next day, and the documents for the Board structure they would be governed by, were still being decided.  Neil Holdom was again making decisions for his potential new employers, before they were even interviewed.
• Gareth Green authorised a 3 month redundancy clause in Neil Holdom’s employment contract, for an 8 month project, rather than the standard 2 week redundancy clause for a permanent role.
• An email from Governance raises a concern that the Constitution states the Chair of the WSCCO is appointed by the Board and the NPDC may not be a shareholder with this in the constitution.
• Neil Holdom accepted the offer for the CEO position before the Board Interviews even took place.
• Gareth Green decided a reference check was not required for Neil Holdom. The Serious Fraud Office and the Public Services Commission both prefer reference checks to be done for all senior positions in Government Departments, to reduce possibility of fraud.
• Gareth Green mentions in an email on 10^th October that the WSCCO is not a legal entity, which is why Neil Holdom needed to report to the NPDC.
• As of the 18^th December 2025, the WSCCO Constitution was still a draft document, when it was presented to the elected officials at a Council meeting.

These examples raise a lot of concerns, which the community and the Alliance have, about the entire set up and recruitment process of the WSCCO. But are these concerns illegal ? Or are they unethical ?

From the start we thought the Alliance were unlikely to take the NPDC to court. For two reasons.

• Firstly, it costs a lot more money than we were likely to be able to raise.
• Secondly, even if we did raise the money, the Ratepayers would be paying the costs for the NPDC to defend Neil Holdom and Gareth Green in this whole process.

We did find a couple of technical issues which definitely did not comply with how things should have been done. But to take the NPDC to court over this would not make any sense for the Ratepayers who would have to pay for it.

We are very grateful to the people who contributed to our legal fund, as we were able to obtain legal opinion about the things we were uncovering, and we could not have done this without support.

When you start looking deeply into Government Legislation and Council Policies there is a lot of subjective wording saying – they “should” do this and they “should” do that, but there are not a lot of concrete statements of what is actually a “must have” legally.

So, we are not progressing to Court with the NPDC.

What other options does that leave ?

Between the timeline we have put together, the summary of the information we have found amongst a mish mash of disconnected information and redacted e-mails, a lot of unanswered questions by the Water Project Manager, Mayor Neil Holdom and Gareth Green (as nothing was written down in the project and recruitment decision making process) – we think what is of the biggest concern is the deliberate lack of openness and transparency.

It is almost like if nothing is recorded or written down no one can prove whether things were done as they should be. No one can identify any one person who did the wrong thing.

Neil Holdom was the sitting Mayor through this entire process. He set agendas for meetings and signed off on what would be presented to Councillors. He agreed no conflicts of interest register was required, as he didn’t make sure one was set up himself. He sent few e-mails about any decisions. From 1^st September when his application was received for the role Holdom made no public mention he had sought the position of the CEO of the WSCCO.

• Neil Holdom actively hid what he was doing from the public.
• Neil Holdom currently holds the interim position of CEO at the WSCCO.
• A person to fill the role of a Permanent CEO will be sought for 1 July 2026.

We want to ask the question of the New Plymouth Community:

Do you think former Mayor, Neil Holdom, and his approach, should be considered for the WSCCO Permanent CEO role, in charge of an almost 1-billion-dollar operation, responsible for New Plymouth’s future water supply ?

What decisions may he make in a permanent role that are a big surprise to the community ?

What will he fail to mention, disclose, or document about his activities in a Permanent role ?

Do the people of New Plymouth want this man to head up our Water Services Council Controlled Organisation as a Permanent CEO ?

Tell us what you think.

We are running a Poll to see what people think after reading this story, and a Petition for people who would like to give feedback to the NPDC about the future management of the WSCCO.

The link to the Poll is here:

https://strawpoll.com/kogjRYeEvg6

The link to the Petition is here:

https://c.org/6QtS22NNKn