Hamish MacLean

The capital value of farms in the Clutha district has jumped nearly 25% while the value of the rest of the district's property remained more or less unchanged.

Whether the road to Nugget Point should be sealed is being debated by both tourists and the Clutha District Council.

Southland farmers will not know until next autumn the full story about what killed hundreds of dairy cows this winter.

Hundreds of Clutha farmers are being urged to work together to improve the water quality of five of the district's troubled river catchments.

The Clutha District Council has put three Clinton properties up for sale because of non-payment of rates.

Gore Mayor Tracy Hicks says he expects his council to support a proposed submission on Environment Southland's plans to improve air quality.

The Clutha District Council will offer assistance to Westpac to keep its Milton branch open.

Poet Laureate Hone Tuwhare's legacy has been drawing people to the Catlins, where he lived for the last 16 years of his life, producing four books.

More patients needing bed care hospital services are being treated in Balclutha's Clutha Health First rural hospital than previously.

A familiar welcome to the town of Lawrence will disappear before the end of summer.

The woman who resigned from a school board of trustees saying her concerns over the effects of Wi-Fi in classrooms were not being taken seriously is a shareholder and director of a Balclutha internet service provider.

The Mayor of Gore has cautiously welcomed the $8.65million sale of a Southland dairy farm by Solid Energy to a foreign buyer.

Security at staff bases will be improved and new, smaller exercise yards built in a $3.4million upgrade at the Otago Corrections Facility at Milburn next year.

Tenders closed this month on the first rating sale in the Clutha district since 2011, but there is no indication a sale has been made.

The kettle drum rolled, then the crack of percussionist Rob Craigie's ''thunder'' saw the pupils of Rosebank School jump back in their seats and sit to attention for a 40-minute concert of classical music.

The business part of the ''Battle for our Birds'' took just over three hours at the Catlins Maclennan Forest on Sunday.

A tractor fire in West Otago this month marked the beginning of a new era in a fire-fighting family dynasty.

Balclutha's Joan Hasler got a first-hand look at Cambodia's poverty and its slums last month.

A $1.5m government programme is aimed at convert more than 200 commercial boilers in Southland from coal to woodchip waste from the region's logging industry.