Work begins on sea wall, bill later
Construction has begun on a sea wall to save a top tourism spot hit by severe erosion but no-one has agreed on who will pay for it.
Storms and king tides have eroded about 18 metres of coastline in front of the Punakaiki Beach Camp, between Greymouth and Westport on the West Coast.
An existing rock wall is being extended by 160m by the West Coast Regional Council, but no-one knows how the work will be funded.
The council had asked residents along the Punakaiki coastline to pay for the $550,000 extension.
A vote came back with 14 against and 10 for the project.
Camp manager Craig Findlay said the regional council had revised the figure to $350,000 and would go back to a public vote.
Work on the sea wall began on Monday though, with council contractors carting rocks into the area. ‘‘We really have to proceed. ‘‘There is no point in waiting for the situation to get so bad we don’t have a camp ground to save,’’ Findlay said.
‘‘If we wait for the next round of consultation and reports, the camp will close and she’ll be all over.’’
He was glad the council was taking the risk to proceed before the costs were apportioned.
‘‘I can finally get some sleep without worrying about a pounding storm eating away any more of the camp.’’
King tides took out 11m in March and April, and since then another 6 or 7 metres had been lost, he said.
After a public plea for help and funding from the Buller District Council, more than 100 volunteers arrived to sandbag the camp in April.
It bought the camp some time, but was only a short-term fix. ‘‘The sea has cut away quite a lot. ‘‘Our wetland area that deals with our sewage is in imminent danger.
‘‘We were only one storm away from closing,’’ he said.
He would meet the Buller District Council, which owns the land, to decide on how much it would pay towards the extension.
‘‘If the camping ground and the council take the lion’s share, it will be significantly easier to get across the line with the residents of the rating district,’’ he said.
Regional council chief executive Michael Meehan said more consultation would held on the ‘‘fair apportionment’’ of the cost of the wall’s extension and a report would be submitted to the August council meeting.