The West Coast Regional Council is working on plans for walls costing $10 million.
Regional council chairman Allan Birchfield said he would be pushing for the Westport floodwall to go ahead as emergency works.
"We are in an emergency situation. The [stop] bank needs to be started as soon as possible. We can’t have evacuation plans every time we get rain events."
Mr Birchfield said bringing flood responders to the Coast each time it flooded had its own price tag, as did evacuating the elderly from O’Conor Home.
Buller Mayor Jamie Cleine called for "visibility" concerning the regional council’s timelines and would be asking the council to share its timeline with the community.
His council would fully support the regional council acting swiftly.
In the meantime, the Buller District Council would be leaving in place the emergency stopbanks constructed last week.
A floodwall project is being led by a steering group with staff from both councils, and the Department of Internal Affairs.
Regional council director of operations Randal Beal said a joint meeting would be called as soon as new flood modelling and recommendations were available.
Chief executive Heather Mabin said the steering group was aimed at recovery work for the Buller District Council, and not the flood protection the regional council would be installing.
They were looking into changing this.
They did not expect the steering group to have decision-making power but it was the entity through which the council would secure government funding. A programme manager had been appointed.
Ms Mabin wanted a decision by early March.
"We need to get this moving forward."
It would like to secure government funding and not have the community pay the cost. — Greymouth Star
