Stories by Robin Martin

When the $50 million upgrade of the quake-prone Yarrow Stadium is finished, Taranaki rugby fans will still be using seats installed at the turn of the century.

A hotel management school is housing about 50 people - including children - for the Ministry of Social Development.

A masters surfing competition in Taranaki has been forced to introduce a new age-group category - for its first ever contestant aged over 80.

Ever wondered how you'd escape from a helicopter which has crash landed in water? Strapped in, submerged, and most likely upside down, you don't have much time to think.

From a population of just 300 breeding pairs in the late 1990s, the North Island kōkako now boasts 2000 pairs.

A Taranaki composting business has been told its understanding of how to legally manage fresh water is at the very least, unusual.

One of the country's largest trucking companies is struggling to identify a driver caught on camera performing a risky overtaking manoeuvre last year.

New Plymouth is suggesting a lack of submissions on its draft long-term plan must mean ratepayers "are fine" about a decade of huge rates hikes.

Hamish Hardy reached the milestone in just five busy years aboard the Taranaki Air Ambulance.

A Taranaki composting business at the centre of a consents renewal wrangle is sitting on a 20,000 tonne pile of contaminated waste that could take up to 40 years to safely break down.

Details have emerged of efforts by the Transport Agency and Heritage NZ to sideline a hapū grouping from consultation over the building of a passing lane on SH3 in Taranaki.

In a scathing Environment Court decision, the EPA has been ordered to pay $110,000 to an oil and gas company it prevented from disconnecting a floating production station off the coast of Taranaki.

The discovery of a partially-collapsed stormwater culvert underneath the only rail link into Port Taranaki is not unexpected but an example of a "nasty surprise", New Plymouth's mayor says.

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster says facial recognition technology is only used on photographs of unidentified suspects.

A composting business in Taranaki has been warned not to mislead consumers by saying all of its sites and compost products are certified organic.

The construction of 100s of metres of new raised boardwalk in Te Papakura o Taranaki will help to protect two of the highest wetland areas in the country.

The owner and founder of Pic's Peanut Butter Pic Picot was a keynote speaker at a "design thinking" conference in New Plymouth, which lauded user-friendly experiences as key to business success.

The return of professional rugby to Yarrow Stadium in New Plymouth has been delayed until 2022.

The Taranaki Regional Council has no regrets about taking prosecutions that resulted in $600,000 in fines being dished out in the Environment Court this week.

A battle for hearts and minds is underway in Taranaki between lovers of gas-guzzling classic American cars and the utilitarian electric-powered new kids on the block.

The leak at a plant in Hāwera was potentially lethal to staff, emergency services personnel and nearby residents and was New Zealand's worst fish kill event, a judge has observed.

A judge had his hands full dealing with ecological miscreants in the Environment Court at New Plymouth yesterday, some of whom should've known better than to find themselves in the dock.

The difficult recovery of a man's body, who died at sea while on a cargo vessel travelling to New Plymouth, has been described as "PPE on steroids".

A trial is underway on the edge of the central North Island's Pureora Forest that will challenge the popular saying "as blind as a bat".

A second manslaughter charge again three police officers charged over the death of a man in at a Taranaki police station last year has been dismissed.