Searchers looking just north of Hokitika for one of the rarest vertebrate animals in the country have struck gold.

The West Coast is about to get a slew of new chief executives in key roles, with interest from overseas in the top ranking positions.

An elected member of the West Coast District Health Board who worked in mental health for 41 years, has hit out at suicide prevention.

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.

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.

Report from nine years ago warned Northern Buller residents to move within a decade. Problem is, residents say they never got it.

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.

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.

More than 20 jobs will be lost when Downer closes its West Coast offices at the end of August.

Human remains were found in the rubble of the ruined remote property yesterday.

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.