Water Corp’s new site to speed service

A NEW Water Corporation web site aims to accelerate response times for water service applications and create a more efficient approvals service for single residential building plans.

Launching the BuilderNet web site last week, State Government Enterprises Minister Nick Griffiths said the system was the first of its type to be introduced by a water utility in Australia.

The system will be able to electronically process the majority of the 40,000 building plans and water service applications received by the Water Corporation each year.

The corporation’s regional business manager, Graham Cargeeg, said the web site would streamline the building approval service for most applications down to less than five minutes, whereas previously applications took more than two days to process.

He said documents submitted on the web site were compared with the Water Corporation’s digital layout of water mains and sewers. If the application was straight forward, it could be processed immediately.

The web site also would allow builders to track plans that had previously been submitted for approval, Mr Cargeeg said.

He said the service would not only save Water Corporation resources, but also would spare builders having to travel in to the Water Corporation offices to lodge applications.

“The website service is one of a number of applications the Water Corporation is developing over the next few years,” Mr Cargeeg said.

Housing Industry Association WA/Asia region executive director John Dastlik said builders would be quick to utilise the new service because of the variety of benefits it provided.

He said that, although the Water Corporation web site had taken time to come to fruition, the time taken to fully test the web site and eradicate any problems meant it would provide better service.

Mr Dastlik said he hoped the launch of BuilderNet signalled the beginning of a trend towards automated services in related industries.