Straight from city council A personal view, by Councillor Steve Morris

I'm excited to tell you about council-approved funding for tsunami/civil defence sirens in the Mount and Papamoa next year.

Funding is available for between nine and 11 outdoor, fixed sirens with in-home sirens to be considered through next year's budget.

It's been a seven-year mission for me personally, dating back to when a former council scrapped plans for a siren system in 2011. I was chair of the Papamoa Progressive Association at the time, and we made sure our opposition was heard when we tested two enormous and enhanced air-raid sirens to get council's attention in 2012.

I pledged to do my best to provide safe places and sirens for our coastal communities and was elected in 2013. Since that time, we have signposted evacuation routes and created inland safe places to evacuate to.

We'll soon be building two additional tsunami mounds for Papamoa East. I'm grateful to my colleagues for supporting these and the sirens the community has been waiting for.

If you'd have told me seven years ago that it would take winning a council seat, hours of debate with colleagues and the long drawn-out process of squeezing these projects into tight budgets over seven years, I might not have made the pledge I did!

I acknowledge Cr Bill Grainger and Cr Catherine Stewart, who have been supporters from the beginning, as well as Cr Leanne Brown, who upon joining council in 2015 has been right behind the project too.