Laura Mills

There was relief but also recrimination in Westport yesterday as an exhausted community tried to get back to work after this week’s shock flood.

The West Coast’s Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika has been postponed for a year — the first time it has not been run in 34 years.

Grass is yellowing, cicadas chorusing, water tanks emptying, and tans deepening as the West Coast approaches the three-week mark without any significant rain.

Much of the West Coast is just months away from having a back-up internet cable, hopefully ending blackouts that have hit businesses and even prevented 111 calls.

Twenty-one Westland petrels have crash-landed so far this summer, and six have died, despite the street lights being turned off in Punakaiki, near where they nest.

West Coast leaders are united in their calls for KiwiRail to restart the TranzAlpine service, amid fears it may not resume service for at least another month.

The West Coast needs to double its weekly vaccination rate and reach at least 3200 more people in just over three weeks if it is to meet Government targets.

Greymouth Mayor Tania Gibson says road blocks on the alpine passes may buy more time to get vaccination rates up on the West Coast, with fears Covid-19 is already circulating in the South Island.

The streetlights are about to be turned off in Punakaiki for the second year running, to help protect Westland petrels.

People could be stopped from harvesting paua at Jackson Bay after iwi said stocks had been decimated by people coming in from Central Otago.

People could be stopped from harvesting paua at Jackson Bay after iwi said stocks had been decimated by people coming in from Central Otago.

National Party list MP Maureen Pugh says she is going to be talking to a doctor and she looks to schedule her first Covid vaccination.