Greymouth Star

West Coast median incomes have dropped while unemployment is up, Labour leader David Cunliffe said this week during a whistlestop tour of the Coast.

The owners of the boarded-up Greymouth house where a young man died after a high-speed car chase in late January say they want it demolished, but their insurer believes it can be rebuilt.

Last week's severe West Coast storm has brought an unexpected boon - free firewood galore just heading into winter.

Builders and building materials are in short supply on the West Coast, the result of a mad scramble to patch up roofs left gaping after an unprecedented storm cut a trail of damage over 400km from Karamea to Fox Glacier.

Greymouth businessman Lance Topliss is ruing the third storm to damage to his Tainui St premises.

Haast Hollyford Highway Ltd director Durham Havill is confident the proposed road on its own could ''easily'' draw close to one million visitors a year to the West Coast; double the current total tourist numbers to the region.

A cat found with two legs caught in a gin trap set in suburban Cobden will make a full recovery, but it is the second cat in six months trapped in the Cobden area.

Joanna Lam (24) was a woman with a ''big heart'' and an ''infectious smile'', according to her brother.

A fisherman rescued from his sinking boat near Greymouth on Friday had survived a similar incident on a vessel that caught fire three years ago.

About 150 scientists scoured Denniston Plateau at the weekend in the dead of night, and during a storm, in the hope of finding new species that could help derail plans by Perth-based Bathurst Resources to mine the plateau.