Tracey Roxburgh

At least four sites have already been identified as having the potential to house a private, independent school in Queenstown, with backers saying they had a "groundswell" of support.

Eight people were rescued from Doubtful Sound at 11am on Saturday when the 12m catamaran they were in sank in poor weather.

The Arrowtown Trust failed to win the supreme award in the TrustPower National Community Awards, but trust chairman David Clarke said it was always going to be a "tall order".

Milford Dart Ltd's proposal to dig a road tunnel through mountains in two national parks was likened to communist dogma practised in the Czech Republic - for happier tomorrows, we are sacrificing today - by a Glenorchy resident yesterday.

An Auckland-based company has applied for resource consent to establish a "24/7" gym at Hawthorne Dr, Frankton, in a building owned by Diversified NZ Property Fund Ltd.

The cost to Milford Dart Ltd for hearings into its proposed $150 million Dart Passage Tunnel was "outrageous", coming in at a total of $70,000 for 10 days of hearings, MDL director Michael Sleigh told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.

A Queenstown resident yesterday compared the "minor" effects of the proposed Dart Passage Tunnel construction to terminal cancer and told Department of Conservation hearings chairman Paul Green and assistant Chris Visser "I'll see you at the funeral".

An overwhelming sense of disbelief has been voiced this week during Queenstown hearings on the controversial Milford Dart Ltd proposal to construct a $150 million, 11.3km tunnel through two national parks.