NSW urged to buy thousands of flood-prone homes in western Sydney

Call comes as insurance bill from recent floods nears $550m and state says buybacks have very significant social and economic costs'

Urban planners and water scientists have urged the New South Wales government to offer to buy back thousands of homes in flood-prone areas of western Sydney, as overdevelopment sets a trajectory for the number of uninsurable houses in the city to surge.

Infrastructure NSW has acknowledged residential property buybacks would be effective" to mitigate flood risk in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley and across western Sydney, but the government agency has said such a scheme would incur very significant social and economic costs".