Hamish MacLean

A week after Craig Rowland fled the Canadian city of Fort McMurray, he counts himself as one of the lucky ones.

The Waitaki District Council and KiwiRail will meet today to discuss how a temporarily closed pedestrian railway crossing at the Oamaru Public Gardens could be upgraded to meet national standards and reopen.

The Waitaki District Council has added a second day of verbal submissions hearings on its draft 2016-17 annual plan after receiving more submissions than expected during the public consultation.

Police are appealing for the public's help after power was knocked out in part of North Otago last night. 

Dunedin ultra trail runner Glenn Sutton has set the bar for runners on the Alps 2 Ocean cycle trail.

The twittering of 300 birds transformed the Drill Hall in Itchen St, Oamaru, into a rolling, chirping harmony at the weekend.

A cultural exchange of sorts brought a Queensland couple to North Otago yesterday.

Hot and dry northwest winds whipped a burn-off of "tree slash'' into an out-of-control blaze in North Otago yesterday afternoon.

A soundshell and concerts in the park could be in the future for the Oamaru Public Gardens.

Tertiary education in Oamaru has a future, but what that future is looks unclear.

The former chairman of the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust has resigned, amid a shake-up of the trust's board.

His parents started preparing for his funeral, and family travelled to Starship Hospital in Auckland to say goodbye, but Daniel Milliken did not die.

Frustration levels are down since the summer crowds of freedom campers left Kakanui, but the community is still split on freedom camping, Waitaki district councillor Melanie Tavendale says.

Oamaru Hospital's emergency department will be "unsafe'' if the Southern District Health Board follows through on a proposed 10% funding cut in 2017-18, management says.

A ‘‘deadlock'' in contract negotiations between Waitaki District Health Services and the Southern District Health Board could be broken after a clinically-led review is completed at Oamaru Hospital in April, the district health board says.

Work on the new $22million Observatory Retirement Village overlooking Oamaru is ‘‘tracking well'', project manager Michael Forgie says.

For more than three decades, Alexander Bell (60) has instilled his love of art in North Otago's primary school children, but when pupils return to Oamaru North School on May 2, Mr Bell will not be coming back.