The council-owned water company in Auckland has chosen a remote location near a sewerage plant for board meetings which it must now open to the public.
Anyone who wants to attend the meetings will have to travel to a site in south Auckland that's a 20-minute walk from the nearest bus stop.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown directed Watercare and other council agencies to be more open and to allow the public to attend board meetings.
Watercare's headquarters is adjacent to the centrally located bus and rail interchange in Newmarket, but it says its Mangere visitor centre is the only space it has that can accommodate the public.
Richard Northey, who chairs the council committee overseeing Watercare, says the location is not ideal but better than the meetings being in secret.
