Southland

Community Trust South has a new board member. Erin Moogan has been appointed to the trust, which manages investment portfolios and distributes grants across Southland and the wider region. The appointment is one of 25 made across nine of New Zealand's 12 community trusts, announced by Associate Finance

Environment Southland went behind closed doors on Thursday to discuss selling down its stake in South Port — and walked out without making a decision. The regional council, which owns 66 percent of the Bluff port, held a public excluded session at its investment committee meeting where two papers were discussed

Police are telling Invercargill residents to lock up and strip their cars bare as vehicle thefts spike across the region. Southland Police have apprehended several offenders already, but Sergeant Kelvin Templeton says the offending is still active enough to warrant a public warning — and a clear list of what people

Garston Hops, a family-owned hop-growing business operating near the southern limits of what's commercially viable on the planet, took the top prize at the 2026 DHL Export Southland Gala Dinner on Friday night. More than 200 exporters, businesses and supporters gathered at Ascot Park Hotel for the biennial

Invercargill Airport has named a new runway take-off point after Burt Munro — and the fit is hard to argue with. MUNRO became operational on Thursday, giving pilots the option to depart from an inset point on Runway 04 without backtracking the full length of the strip. It cuts the taxi

Southern Institute of Technology has signed new partnership agreements with three Chinese universities after its CEO joined a government-led education delegation to China in late July. Bharat Guha was part of an 11-institute polytechnic delegation that visited Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou from July 26 to 31, travelling alongside Tertiary Education

The resource consent for the Datagrid Hyperscale Data Centre at Makarewa will not be reviewed. An independent hearing commissioner made that call on September 4, rejecting a request from the Southland Sustainable Resources Coalition to scrutinise the consent conditions under section 128 of the Resource Management Act. SSRC's

Environment Southland is using emergency powers to mechanically open Waituna Lagoon to the sea, after water levels stayed dangerously high for weeks. The lagoon has sat above 2.3 metres for the past five days and above 2.2 metres since late July. That sustained high water is hitting nearby