A temporary “tradie” village is being planned to help Westport recover from recent floods.
By Katie Stevenson
With hundreds of homes damaged in the region, the rebuild will take months and working out how to accommodate tradespeople is one of the issues facing local authorities.
Flood recovery manager Bob Dixon says there is a level of urgency around finding a solution.
“People are obviously very soon swinging into that mode of rebuilding their houses and ensuring they have tradespeople on site.”
Scott Nelmes, construction manager for Jennian homes, says his team’s been run off their feet getting around houses and stripping them of wet materials so they can start drying out.
“Started with sort of five, six, we’ve done about 14, 15 and we’re looking at probably double that at the moment.”
Insurance assessors are also making their way around town.
Assessor Rob Harvey, from IAG which covers brands State, AMI and NZI, says it’s been a unique event with the township really pulling together after the flood.
“It’s surprising just how well they’ve helped each other out… so as assessor when we come in here we find they’ve already been proactive and started stripping out their homes getting all the wet carpet out and that makes our job so much easier.”
The rebuild in this West Coast town still very much in the early stages.
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