Environment BOP provides flood relief assistance

MEDIA RELEASE

Environment Bay of Plenty provides flood relief assistance

For immediate release: Monday 1 March 2004

Environment Bay of Plenty is to provide $50,000 to help with flood recovery works in the Manawatu – Wanganui area.

Chairman John Cronin says that the Council is responding to a request from Palmerston North City Mayor Mark Bell-Booth, whose own council has donated $100,000 for financial support.

“The one-in-a-hundred year flood that has devastated the region over the past week has displaced many people from their homes and farms and has severely damaged infrastructural assets like roads, bridges and stopbanks,” Mr Cronin says.

The money will go to the Regional Disaster Relief Fund that will help in the recovery process and be administered by a group of trustees. While individual councils will assess the needs for the funds, the regional fund will top up those amounts from the regional fund.

Mr Cronin says that the Bay of Plenty is well placed to understand the impact of flooding and that the regional council has also offered technical expertise for deployment in the recovery process. Environment Bay of Plenty’s communications officer Ana Cotter was in Palmerston North last week helping with the spread of information to people in affected areas.

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