As part of the post-earthquake recovery, a major rebuild programme was launched and a number of new assets and systems (pressure sewers, vacuum sewers, lift stations, and enhanced gravity systems) were installed in different parts of the wastewater network of Christchurch. As part of the rebuild works, 56 new lift stations were constructed in the sewer network to improve the performance of the earthquake-prone wastewater network. This paper will critically review the effectiveness of lift stations in a complex wastewater network. The paper will examine the importance of wastewater network hydraulic modelling to avoid some unusual challenges during lift station design and operations. The paper concludes that sewer network hydraulic modelling inputs are essential for lift station design. Simple theoretical calculation methods may pose some major challenges causing a lift station to fail to operate effectively resulting sewer overflow into the environment.