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Neil Maher, strategic connections manager for the project, took a group of about 25 dairy farmers and irrigators through its proposals to modernise their water systems.

The venue was the football clubrooms and among the premiership pennants of history, Mr Maher was concentrating firmly on the future.

Offering options that ranged from probable to unlikely, Mr Maher explained that it was up to irrigators to decide the future water direction best suited their businesses.

Option two, for example, involved 14.84km of channel rationalisation and no backbone extension and option three would see 13.77km of channels taken out and 1.07km of backbone added on.

Mr Maher took irrigators through the process including how the financials would work, but stressed it was up to them to decide, and encouraged them to join an advisory committee to be a conduit between farmers and G-MW.

Non-voluntary rationalisation, he said, was a last resort and before that ‘‘we would continue to explore options’’.

Dairy farmer Felice Sgammotta said later he still felt in the dark where his farm is concerned.

‘‘We had someone (from the former NVIRP) come out to see us last summer, probably more than a year ago,’’ Mr Sgammotta said.

‘‘We invited him into our home and shared our information and farm. He never came back.’’

At the beginning of the meeting Mr Maher apologised for the delay in the modernisation process during the transition of NVIRP into G-MW.

Mr Sgammotta said he and his three neighbours who are expected to form a syndicate still had no idea of the timeline for a project on their farms so his answer to whether he was satisfied with the session last week was an empathic ‘‘no’’.

While the potential new ‘‘private syndicates’’ are the unknown — and to some, uncertain — elements of the program, after the meeting a G-MW staffer said the reality was that they would make up just 10 to 20 per cent of the Strategic Connections Project.

While that had not been put to the meeting, it was clear from the questions Mr Maher fielded that the privatisation of assets was worrying some people.

For example, who is responsible for ongoing maintenance? ‘‘The would either be with G-MW or the landowners, it just depends on the circumstances.’’

Who owns the meters? ‘‘The parent meter is owned by G-MW and the child (individual property) meters by the landowners.’’