West Coast Regional Council welcomes the receipt of $1 million for early Westport flood protection works.

The funding was reimbursement for emergency flood protection works for Westport following the July 2021 flood event.

In last year’s Budget, the then Labour Government set aside $22.9 million to increase Westport’s flood resilience and part of this was a contribution of $1 million to assist with restoring Council’s Catastrophe Fund to pre-flooding levels.

Council has worked with the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) to secure the funds which have now been received.

Peter Haddock, West Coast Regional Council Chair says he is pleased the funds have now been received and is grateful to the Government for its ongoing support for Westport’s flood resilience.

"After the floods, the Regional Council felt it needed to proactively tackle some of the urgent initial work to protect Westport while we waited for the Government funding to be secured. Council was concerned that, had it not used its own funds to move things along, little constructively would have been tendered and completed in the immediate aftermath of the flooding.”

The works included repairing a 260m length of bank on the true right bank of the Buller River upstream of the O’Conor Home (a rest home and residential care facility) and repairing an erosion scour in a section of historic rock training wall adjacent to Organ’s Island.

“Council’s Catastrophe fund is an important part of our community resilience response, so we are pleased to see it replenished by $1 million to allow us to respond to any further emergencies anywhere in the West Coast and have the first instalment of money towards improving civil defence arrangements in Westport,” said Chair Haddock.

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