Rebecca Ryan

A $17million loan by the Waitaki District Council to help fund a 10,000ha expansion to a North Otago irrigation scheme was approved yesterday.

More than $760,000 has been raised through grants and community efforts for the Waimate District Community Complex project.

Installation of Oamaru's first CCTV network is getting under way.

The Waitaki District Council plans to use a drone to photograph the Kakanui coast to document coastal erosion at sites of concern.

Police are seeking witnesses to a single-vehicle crash in Oamaru on Wednesday night.

The closure of Oamaru's prefabricated courthouse this week after air-quality problems made staff unwell is yet another example of why the facility is ''grossly inadequate'', Oamaru lawyer Michael de Buyzer says.

The cost of closing Oamaru's historic courthouse has been more than double what an Oamaru-commissioned report says it would cost to strengthen it to 100% earthquake standards.

Support for the Kurow Rugby Club has been ''coming from all directions'' after five players and one supporter were involved in a serious crash early on Sunday.

Oamaru acts rocked the Theatre Royal in Timaru on Friday night with soloist Joseph Balfe and four piece band Oamaru Kudos emerging the winners at the Smokefreerockquest regional final.

Vanessa Kelly-Brown was one of the front singers of Deep Obsession, which made New Zealand music history with three consecutive No 1 hits. She has toured internationally, opened for Boney M, Hanson, S Club 7, Vengaboys and Five, appeared in Shortland Street and Xena: Warrior Princess, and for the past eight years has been living in Oamaru. Rebecca Ryan caught up with her this week.

Brothers Norman and George Berry went to war side by side, they fought together at Passchendaele, served their country again in World War 2, both farmed in North Otago and they are buried next to each other in the Oamaru soldiers' cemetery.

The name of the woman who died in Tuesday's fatal crash between a truck and a car on State Highway 1 north of Hampden will not be released until she has been formally identified, police say.

A Dunedin woman is dead after a head-on crash between a truck and a car on State Highway 1 north of Hampden yesterday morning which closed the road for nearly six hours.