Stories by Brendon McMahon

A nearly $300,000 resilience project to ensure the West Coast is strategically connected in the event of a full-scale civil defence emergency is ramping up.

The confusing structure of the region's civil defence organisation has been questioned by West Coast Regional councillors.

The inquiry into the removal of a fossil from where it lay at the mouth of the Little Wanganui River for 23 million years until someone hacked it out with a rock saw has stepped up a notch.

The Waiho River is severely threatening one of the area's largest farms, its farmer says.

The Department of Conservation says it will be ramping up control of feral goats on the West Coast.

Cabinet has still not seen the business case for a $56 million flood protection scheme for Westport.

The first stage of the much anticipated $12 million Waiho River flood protection project is expected to begin this week.

Ngāi Tahu board member Rob Wilson proposes considering the usefulness of possums for the local economy with an incentive for hunters to help control their numbers.

Much of the Department of Conservation's national predator control work in 2023 will be concentrated on the West Coast, and most of that by way of aerial 1080 poison.

The ongoing use of 1080 poison to control predators on the DOC estate is finite, the West Coast Conservation Board has heard.

Ongoing staffing pressures has again delayed the reopening of 24-hour acute care in Westport.

Authorities are investigating the removal of a locally treasured whale fossil from the mouth of the Little Wanganui River, near Karamea.

West Coast Regional Council chief executive drops bombshell at inaugural meeting, giving notice of her intention to leave.

A "few" kea die as a result of poison pest control operations but there is a longer term benefit overall to protecting the parrot, DOC says.

The West Coast Regional Council still has no clarity on the status of the lower Waiho (Waiau) River flood protection project at Franz Josef, which received a $24 million 'shovel ready' injection by…

Work to urgently bolster Westport's historic flood defences will not start until land tenure is sorted out.

Members for the West Coast Regional Council have been rolled in preliminary election results. One loser says it's a move towards "Trumpism" - the other side says they "got rid of the greenies".

Gloriavale Christian Community is welcoming the decision by the High Court to grant an injunction ordering Westland Milk Products to continue to collect its milk.

Worry about the delivery speed for the postal voting papers is shared by the Greymouth mayor as ballot papers trickle in with just five days remaining.

The $2.8 million Hokitika seawall extension is being reviewed by council to justify the funding it has already received from the government - amidst calls to abandon the scheme.

Seven months after mothballing Reefton's only rest home facility, Health NZ West Coast says the facility can not reopen due to lack of staffing.

Bilingual road signs and a "no bloody idea" comment by the chairperson of the West Coast Regional Council generated some heat in cyberspace over the weekend.

The special purpose road to Jackson Bay could be abandoned if Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency tries to devolve it to the Westland District Council, retiring mayor Bruce Smith says.

Bilingual road signs are coming to the West Coast, hot on the heels of school signs which are already being replaced to include the word 'kura'.

A Greymouth school plea for the NZ Transport Agency to do something about traffic on the road outside has been characterised as "emotional" but it has been backed by the West Coast regional transport…