Cautious optimism is growing that Lake Hood can make it through the summer without an algal bloom.After back-to-back summers with algal bloom health warnings at the lake, the Ashburton District Council hoped the recent weather along with management of the man-made lake last year will hold off another health warning…

Boy racers churning up rural roads are costing Carterton ratepayers thousands of dollars each month.Mayor Ron Mark said, eventually, “these idiot racers, these clowns, are going to get it wrong and someone is going to get killed”.At a council meeting on Wednesday, infrastructure manager Johannes Ferreira said incidents of unauthorised…

The New Plymouth mayor has described compulsory changes to speed limits outside schools as “ideologically-driven nonsense” that will cost ratepayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement and jeopardise child safety.The Government is requiring streets outside schools with permanent 30km/h speed limits revert to variable speed limits, allowing speeds of…

A significant drop in visitor numbers and hundreds of thousands of dollars down the drain means Hawke’s Bay’s Splash Planet will close five weeks early.The outdoor water park – which is usually open until the end of March – will instead shut its doors this weekend.Hastings District Council says by…

By Susan Edmunds of RNZ  Some borrowers refixing their home loans have the opportunity to cut 10 years or more off their mortgages and save hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. A year ago, the average one-year special home loan rate was about 7.3%, according to Reserve Bank data.…

Queenstown burger joint Fergburger has dismissed a staff member after a tourist was given a receipt containing a racial slur. A photograph of a receipt, dated for Sunday, was posted to social media by a Taiwanese tourist.It had the words “ching chang” on it.In a statement posted to Facebook last…

A North Dunedin petrol station has the first crypto ATM in the city — just do not ask its owner how it works. Chicago-based Coinflip has begun rolling out Bitcoin ATMs across Southland and Otago. It installed one at the Caltex petrol station in Great King St, North Dunedin, about…

The mood inside Callaghan Innovation is grim, scientists say, as they scramble to secure themselves a future in New Zealand.The axe has so far fallen on 63 jobs at Callaghan, which is to be disestablished in the government’s overhaul of the science sector.While those roles will be gone in the…

An Auckland landlord has been ordered to pay a family more than $30,000 after they were stuck living in an “unlawful” property with a sewage-soaked carpet, among several issues.   The family’s experience of living at the Albany Heights unit was detailed in a recently released Tenancy Tribunal decision — where adjudicator…

By Farah Hancock of RNZ Text messages and letters reveal a behind-the-scenes struggle to pass the coalition government’s contentious Fast-track Approvals Bill, despite concerns it broke Parliament’s rules about benefiting private companies. The government was warned that including private projects like mining and housing in the legislation would make it inadmissible…