Councils

Southland District Council will submit a merger proposal for local government reform — even though most of the people it asked said not to. Councillors voted on Wednesday to back a Head Start proposal for two councils to govern the region: a Southland-Gore unitary council and an Invercargill unitary council. The

Someone keeps turning Invercargill's Gala St fountain into a bubble bath — and it's costing ratepayers more than $5000 a year to clean up. The soap suds prank, a recurring nuisance at the city centre fountain, requires staff to neutralise the foam with vinegar around 50 times

Southland councils have been scrambling to finalise their Head Start proposals before the August 9 deadline, with the Gore District hedging their bets across two. Invercargill City councillors voted today (August 6) to move ahead with their unitary authority model proposal for Southland, including Gore. But it wasn’t without

Gore District Council is staying in the room on local government reform — but making clear it hasn't agreed to anything yet. Following an extraordinary council meeting today, Gore agreed to keep exploring reform proposals from both Invercargill City Council and Southland District Council under the Government's

Te Anau Airport Manapōuri has been losing money since Southland District Council bought it in 2002. Whether that changes soon depends on what comes out of an RFP process that closed on June 12. The six-week request for proposals, managed by development agency Great South, sought private capital and expertise

Police were called twice in June after staff at Invercargill City Council were subjected to abuse — the latest sign that anti-social behaviour towards council workers is getting worse, not better. The council's most recent health, safety and wellbeing report recorded 23 incidents involving verbal abuse and threatening behaviour

Invercargill's new regional museum is being built with accessibility as a design requirement, not an afterthought. The Museum of Southland — due to open to the public in 2027, with construction scheduled to complete later this year — has been developed in consultation with Arts Access Aotearoa, Well Child Network,

Something went wrong at Greenpoint Cemetery. A councillor is angry about it. And no one will say what happened. Cr Andrea de Vries raised the incident at a council meeting on Tuesday, telling staff she had been contacted about a "pretty traumatic experience" at the cemetery near Bluff.