COUNCIL staff have committed to do better after a very public tongue-lashing over a sewer pump-out blunder that has left Lake Macquarie residents in the lurch.
Awaba resident Hayley Maeder described the council's communication as "anxiety-provoking" and "disgusting", after it told 195 residents in a letter that they had just four months to find someone else to empty their septic tanks.
"I'm feeling confident that they will look at it but I don't think they will take the contract back on," she said.
"The ultimate goal for most of us is for us to continue to pay council for the service through our rates.
"We want a reliable and consistent service that doesn't increase environmental and public health concerns, the council was also subsidising part of the cost and if we take it over completely that would stop.
"It means these private providers can increase prices because there's no governing body looking over it at all."
Lake Macquarie council has provided the service since 1989, until it recently ended its contract with Remondis leaving households to negotiate individual deals.
At this week's council meeting, councillors unanimously asked staff to take a closer look at the issue.
A Lake Macquarie council spokesman said it had made inquiries with a number of companies that provide pump-out services and had found a potential solution.
"Information obtained from those investigations suggested the price of individual services in most cases would be similar to the cost council incurs for the same service under the current arrangements," he said.
"Some households would end up paying more, but others would pay less."
He said staff would report back on the impact of the contract changes on residents, roll out more helpful and appropriate communications and look at bundling opportunities.
The spokesman confirmed the council would investigate facilitating another contract with a sewer pump-out company and passing it on to residents to continue.
"This option is available and will be further investigated," he said.
"Council facilitating a further contract consistent with the historical process will remove the capacity for individual residents to have a service customised for their needs.
"This option will result in some properties being over-serviced and therefore paying more than they need to."
But, according to Ms Maeder, most of the residents she has spoken with are not interested in a more flexible service schedule.
"It's not something I have heard from residents and I haven't had one person say they would be better off without council," she said.
"I will say as well, while councillors and the mayor apologised, we were all very hurt and confronted by the fact that the operational staff who made this decision and presented it in the way they did didn't apologise or acknowledge wrongdoing at all.
"What I want more than that is the action to back the apology."
The Lake Macquarie council spokesman said staff would work with the community to see if a standardised service was suitable for individual needs and would engage with them in coming weeks.
"The goal of council staff for this project is to help residents achieve a service that is correctly sized for their individual circumstances," he said.
"Our communication of this goal has not been to our usual standard, and we will address this going forward."
