Chris Morris

Dunedin city councillor Lee Vandervis insists he is not an angry man, but he knows he has to change.

The Dunedin City Council is calling for a beefed-up Government effort to prepare for an oil and gas disaster, including more funds and equipment on stand-by to respond to any spill.

Port Otago subsidiary Chalmers Properties has withdrawn plans to fight the Dunedin City Council over a condition of consent attached to its recently-approved harbour-side subdivision.

The Dunedin City Council looks likely to consider asset sales as part of a push to accelerate debt repayments and free up a balance sheet that continues to be squeezed.

The Dunedin City Council faces one of its most difficult budget balancing acts yet, as it juggles an $8 million hole in its books and the need to keep investing in the city, Mayor Dave Cull says.

Dunedin and Wanaka are rallying their online troops as the race to become the southern hemisphere's first ''gigacity'' enters the home straight.

Southern leaders have responded with a mixture of sympathy and scorn to deputy prime minister Bill English's claim councils are fuelling poverty in New Zealand.

Dunedin city councillors yesterday signed off the draft long-term plan, charting the city's strategic direction for the next decade, before public consultation beginning next month. Chris Morris reports.

More desperate Dunedin families could be be driven into ''slum housing'' as a result of a Housing New Zealand plan to dispose of 68 state houses in the city, Dunedin South Labour MP Clare Curran says.

A Dunedin building owner hopes a $250,000 investment in his ageing Princes St property will help breathe new life into a ''dead piece'' of the city.

The discovery of dozens of barbed wire lengths across a vehicle track at Warrington Domain has left one long-time resident worried about the safety of others.

A cluster of investment is to be unleashed on a dilapidated part of Dunedin's Princes St, and could see the city's oldest pub reopened.

The Dunedin City Council's last long-serving senior executive has signed off from his general manager's role.

Debt levels will remain higher for longer, but rates increases will be trimmed, if a revised Dunedin City Council budget to be considered next week is accepted.

This is a story about the one that got away.

Concerns about a cocktail of booze, students and the Cricket World Cup have prompted Dunedin police to seek a temporary alcohol ban in the area around Forsyth Barr Stadium.

Dunedin and Queenstown could be linked by a new tourist trail targeting wealthy Chinese visitors, if a $4 million farm accommodation development in Wakari is approved, the man behind the project says.

Sky TV's drone camera has been grounded until the Cricket World Cup following a run in with another aerial vehicle in Dunedin.