A resident living in Spring Creek says people feel helpless about climate change. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
New funding for flood protection work is an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, a resident of a flood-prone Marlborough settlement says.
The government announced $200 million for flood resilience infrastructure and shovel ready projects, as part of its Budget last week.
Of that, $101.1m was earmarked to help 42 projects such as improving stopbanks and dealing with slash.
Spring Creek resident Tim Newsham said any money spent in those areas would be positive, but the U-turn on many other climate change policies was distressing.
"It is an ambulance at the bottom of a cliff and I would certainly like to see some funding and some initiative, some leadership taking us in the direction of addressing resilience and addressing what we can do to turn around or slow down climate change."
People who worried about climate change felt helpless right now, Newsham said.
"The disappointing thing is that we see this funding as coming from government as a great relief, but in fact the government's done a U-turn on building resilience and addressing climate change and I find that really distressing."
Te Uru Kahika, a grouping of 16 regional and unitary councils, said the funding would be a huge help in reducing flood risk for dozens of communities.
The money would cover up to 60 percent of projects, with regional and unitary councils paying the rest.
Te Uru Kahika climate adaptation director Al Cross said it was good news.
"It will have a massive impact positively in terms of what's protected in behind those flood protection structures."
But Cross said the funding was just part of the work needed on resilience, reducing risk, sharing costs, and better communication.
"The government's leading that work currently and working with various sectors on that, so we are looking forward to being part of that particular programme and getting some outcomes that are about the whole system."
A Marlborough District Council spokesperson said it was yet to hear which projects had been approved.
However, Nelson mayor Nick Smith said the region was still recovering from the 2022 storms and flood protection funding could not come at a better time.
Nelson was expected to receive $9m for flood protection and repair projects.
That was tremendously positive, Smith said.
"We got whacked with a horrendous storm in August '22, the worst natural disaster that Nelson has had in 50 years, we've been buried over the last 18 months in nearly $100m worth of fix work, we're just getting our heads above the parapet to be able to look at how we can improve resilience."
Smith said the funding would help manage risk for future disasters.
"We are still very busy doing substantive infrastructure repair works from that August '22 storm, and that's where the timing of this is ideal, it's going to enable us to be able to quickly move the focus from the fix, to improving our community's resilience."