Tauranga City Council has placed its controversial tsunami siren project on the backburner and will instead focus on evacuation routes.
Councillors yesterday voted to delay the project until new national disaster standards were released mid-2014 and planned to push the "have a plan" message, rather than fast-track a siren system.
The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management was investigating a range of alert systems, including smartphone applications, in-home systems and cellphone broadcasting.
Council staff recommended elected members drop the ongoing sirens project, slashing almost $900,000 from the upcoming budget, but the majority opted to put it on hold.
Councillors signalled they would also put $375,000 aside to go toward creating evacuation routes in at-risk areas until the new standards were released, after an amendment moved by Councillor Clayton Mitchell.