Draft Master Plan engagement
Master Planning is a strategic planning exercise that looks to provide options and opportunities for the short, medium and long term future of the greater Westport area.
Led by Buller District Council, with funding from Resilient Westport, the Master Planning process aims to guide the development of areas of land for future use, creating greater choice for the community around lower-risk areas.
We engaged with the community on the Draft Master Plan from 10 February to 10 March 2025.
Engagement has now closed.
In all, we had 126 survey responses. Most we received electroniclly via the https://letstalk.bullerdc.govt.nz/ web page.
77% of respondents indicated they either agree or strongly agree (15.9 % agree, 61.1% strongly agree) with the approach. Participants were given the opportunity to offer additional thoughts or ideas and 62 per cent of respondents did so.
The document ‘Cutting Our Own Track – the Westport Concept Framework’ has been developed by urban design experts Isthmus to explain how it might be possible for Westport – facing its own unique opportunities and challenges – to move toward a stronger, safer, more prosperous future.
In brief:
The results of the feedback have been processed and were presented to Buller District Council (BDC) at its 26 March 2025 meeting.
Buller District Council agreed to endorse the Plan on 26 March 2025.
The Resilient Westport funded component of the process (Phase Two) is now complete.
The third and final Stage of the Master Planning process will be implementation.
A number of mechanisms can be used to implement the Master Plan, including a Special Purpose Vehicle, supporting legislation, land-use change applications and other mechanisms to assist in the delivery of the plan over time.
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Frequently Asked Questions
There’s a lot of content in the Draft Plan and to make it a bit easier to understand we’ve come up with some FAQs to help break it down a bit.
Please feel free to email us if there are more things you would like to know (or pop into one of our community drop-in sessions)
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Cutting our own track
The document ‘Cutting Our Own Track – the Westport Concept Framework’ has been developed by urban design experts Isthmus to explain how it might be possible for Westport – facing its own unique opportunities and challenges – to move toward a stronger, safer, more prosperous future.
You will see how we arrived at the Draft Master Plan, why we believe it is needed, what cutting our own path could look like and how this could be realised.
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Design Week summaries
Design weeks or local stakeholder workshops were held between April and November 2024.
More than 150 people participated over the 8-month period.
The summaries below give you a glimpse of what was discussed and how the work contributed to the Draft Master Plan currently open for engagment.
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Draft Master Plan in a nutshell
This abridged version aims to provide a snapshot of the Conceptual Framework underpinning the Draft Master Plan.
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Master Planning community drop-ins
Extra drop-in sessions were held throughout the engagement period for people to come in and chat about the plan.
The additional drop-ins have now wrapped up but the Resilient Westport Office (147 Palmerston Street, Westport) is open every Tuesday for drop-ins 12-2pm.
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Let's Talk
The Buller District Council’s Let’s Talk
The Draft Master Plan survey is now closed but you can still find information on the Plan on the Let’s Talk website.
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The final Stage of the Master Planning process will be implementation.
A number of mechanisms can be used to implement the Master Plan, including a Special Purpose Vehicle, supporting legislation, land-use change applications and other mechanisms to assist in the delivery of the plan over time.
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You can read the full media release on the engagement here.