Fresh search planned for missing Alexandra woman Denise Potter

Denise Potter has been missing for over two years. Photo / NZ Police

Search and rescue workers will launch a fresh hunt for missing Alexandra woman Denise Potter next week.

Potter, who was 53 when she disappeared, has not been seen since she went missing from the garden of her daughter's Dunedin home on March 30, 2015.

Searches involving police and hundreds of volunteers failed to find any trace, she has not used her cellphone or bank cards and there have been no leads since on her whereabouts.

Police said yesterday a large-scale urban search and rescue exercise was planned in relation to her disappearance.

A police media spokeswoman said the exercise would take place in Dunedin on November 10 in the area where Potter was thought to have gone missing.

Such exercises were used to help LandSAR volunteers upskill and work new technology.

Missing person cases never closed and police were always keen to do anything they could to shed light on a person's disappearance, she said.

More information about the exercise would be released closer to the time, the spokeswoman said.

A similar exercise was held on Stewart Island last year, based in the area where hunter Josef Freiman went missing in 1991.

Mr Freiman disappeared on a hunting trip with three friends and he has never been found.

The exercise failed to find any leads on his disappearance.

Potter's husband Steve Potter told Fairfax he welcomed the move, saying ''anything that will help has to be beneficial".

He said the disappearance was out of character.

Steve Potter said he struggled to live in the Alexandra home the couple had built together "due to the memories", and ended up staying in a flat the couple owned.

A memorial was held for Potter in Alexandra in June 2015.