It's obvious now that the Minister of Local Government has no intention of allowing councils to opt out of her Three Waters takeover.

This remarkable person has demonstrated her ability to swiftly carry out her decisions whilst taking no prisoners. Look at the dismissal of Tauranga City's councillors and Mayor. It was the correct decision, she put together a very accomplished team and demonstrated to the rest of New Zealand that councils should get back to basics and look after the infrastructure of cities.

This, however, is too much. We in Tauranga have delicious water, and while our stormwater and sewerage systems may be at capacity, they are able to cope for the foreseeable future as long as we don't open up too much more land for subdivision.

We certainly don't need a further layer of bureaucracy to the existing systems and, reading between the lines, I can see that they will have no operational staff.

So who will oversee construction and maintenance work? Who will carry out the work? Who will coordinate road closures? So many questions.

Dan Russell, Tauranga.