Company says latest Solid Energy cuts not a 'slash and burn exercise'.

A motorcyclist has died after a collision with a truck on the West Coast this morning.

Elisabeth Easther strikes gold for visitors to the West Coast's former mining town.

Labour has called the mental health system "increasingly desperate" after a man suffering from depression went missing for the second time in less than two months.

Bronwyn Sell finds the natural wonders of the West Coast can match the Big Five of any safari.

Police say it will take a while to complete their investigation into the Gloriavale Christian Community after it was revealed five children were taken into CYF's care.

Punakaiki's pancake rocks are enough to make Elisabeth Easther flip out.

An alleged drug-driver was caught with a weapon and a stash of drugs after a member of the public raised concerns about her driving on a West Coast highway.

Five tourists from Asia, only in the country for a matter of hours after flying into Christchurch, crashed on a West Coast highway over the weekend.

Gold mines built the town now famous for its carnivorous snails, says Elisabeth Easther.

The West Coast should be offering to take 200 Syrian refugees, says West Coast-Tasman MP, Damien O'Connor.

The worst winds since Cyclone Ita battered the West Coast last year are forecast to hit the area tomorrow - the first day of the whitebait season.

The West Coast fishing season opens at dawn tomorrow, but one of the biggest whitebait buyers in South Westland says he is not holding his breath for a bountiful season.

At least two classrooms at South Westland Area School, in the small West Coast town of Hari Hari, were destroyed in a fire last night.

Solid Energy acting chairman Andy Coupe admitted it was "unlikely" that any sale, or sales, would cover its outstanding debt.

Drink-drivers tested police patience throughout the West Coast at the weekend.

Mr Key said Solid Energy had $300 million of outstanding debt and was in a "precarious position".

Illicit drug use is rampant in the West Coast workforce, with methamphetamine the drug of choice, according to recent tests.

The shed was "completely destroyed" by the time the fire was discovered, police said.

Firefighters are trying to confirm if anybody was stuck inside a building on fire on the West Coast this morning.

South Island's Agassiz Glacier has been "un-named" as part of a global campaign to remove the use of the name of Agassiz, a Swiss geologist who believed not all races were created equal.

Bronwyn Sell stays in an ocean-front room on the West Coast.

Catholics are being called en-masse to attend Mass in Ross to save the town's last remaining church from closure.

Two women seen showing "extreme intoxication" in a Greymouth bar has led to the premises losing its licence to sell alcohol.

The owner of a helicopter that "rolled over" on take-off in the mountains behind Hari Hari on Saturday, seriously injuring the pilot, does not yet know what caused the crash.

Safety inspectors are being sent to the remote site of a chopper crash which seriously injured a young pilot on the South Island's West Coast at the weekend.

A decade-long project to save endangered giant snails from a West Coast coal mine will finish next year.

Bottom-trawling fisheries have been banned from a 10,000 hectare area off the West Coast of the South Island.