David Loughrey

The Dunedin City Council says it has got on top of its building consent processing, following delays earlier this year that angered the city's builders.

They were there to honour the fallen, but there were no brass bands, no 100-gun salutes, no nationalism and no xenophobia at the Cenotaph in Dunedin's Queens Gardens last night.

Two Dunedin politicians heard news from the coal face of social services yesterday, as they took in the views of the city's churches.

A South Dunedin community backlash has forced the Dunedin City Council to delay its decision on the sale of a public car park, after the bungled process infuriated both a theatre and the area's business association.

A Dunedin man who has leased a post office box in South Dunedin for the past three decades has objected to a New Zealand Post decision to move the boxes away from the main shopping centre.

Precast aggregate concrete panels that grace the front of the 1970s-era John Wickliffe House in Dunedin's Exchange have become the latest battleground in the city's heritage conservation debate.

It has stood for 135 years - of late a haven within a hub of retail activity - but yesterday the Caledonian Bowling Club learnt its fate.

Motorcyclists hit by an increase in annual registration fees are cancelling their rego over winter, or paying a higher rate by registering their machines for shorter periods.

It was winter in Dunedin this week. It was cold. It rained. David Loughrey took the opportunity to walk the streets as the mercury dropped to 4degC, and ponder the effect on a city young and old.

The Ministry of Justice has named South Island company Amalgamated Builders as main contractor for the $3.2 million upgrade of its temporary High St building.

The co-owner of a quarry cutting into Dunedin landmark Saddle Hill has appeared in court documents making what appears to be an ominous threat to mine ''the entirety of Jaffray's Hill''.

In a restless search for the heart - and soul - of Dunedin, David Loughrey plunges back in time to the altar of his youth. He finds something strangely precious, lost in the haze of the past and quietly fading from view, in a small suburban church.

It is an event that has been credited with a feat not far removed from moving a mountain.

University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic students have heralded a recent decision to continue a bus discount initiative they say is a small saving that makes a big difference.

A trainload of chocolate-mad children rumbled out of the Dunedin Railway Station yesterday, as the classic Crunchie bar train robbery advertisement came to life.