The family of a Greymouth toddler are relieved after a man was arrested for his murder.

Dillon Tucker, 28, had denied the charges but changed his plea before a defended hearing was about to start in the Greymouth District Court.

A Greymouth logging contractor has been busy retrieving selected rimu logs toppled by Cyclone Ita in April last year, that landed more or less on his doorstep.

Although a new trial date was yet to be set, Greymouth lawyer Marcus Zintl said it would probably be in early 2016.

Texas-based company has applied to prospect 1.6 million square kilometres offshore of New Zealand - including off the West Coast.

Department of Conservation waits to resume ownership of the Pike River Mine.

A 52-year-old Christchurch man on the run from police after reports of dangerous driving, forced a Westland Milk Products tanker to stop at Dobson on Saturday evening.

A Franz Josef Glacier man yesterday apologised to his partner for the way he treated her as he pleaded guilty to a raft of assault charges.

A man who says he has seen so many bad driving incidents he decided to install a dash-mounted camera, spotted a rental car driving on the wrong side of the road.

West Coast Rugby League captain Adrian Rodney Loe was labelled an "aggressive and unpleasant drunk" by a judge for head-butting a man at the pub.

Donald McKenzie Harcourt appeared for sentence in Greymouth District Court on animal welfare charges, dating back to 2012, relating to his Crooked River farm.

Jason Dale Rowling, 27, was yesterday sentenced in the Greymouth District Court to 200 hours of community work for wilful ill-treatment of an animal.

A District Court judge has slapped down a pending case against KiwiRail over alleged poisonous fumes in a South Island after the state-owned enterprise sought a hearing to dispute some of the facts.

A West Coast farmer had his milk supply contract cancelled after Westland Milk Products learned he was subject to an animal welfare investigation, a court was told.

Greymouth firefighters had little time to rest at the weekend, fielding nine calls from Friday afternoon until early today.

A fox terrier came off second best in Blaketown yesterday when it took on a much larger dog.

It was a case of like mother like daughter in the Greymouth District Court yesterday as two members of the same family were convicted of shoplifting.

A Blaketown man who was convicted of receiving thousands of dollars of goods from a series of burglaries around Greymouth, was yesterday jailed for nine months.

A father and son were knocked out in an unprovoked attack outside the Recreation Hotel in Greymouth on Saturday night.

"It was like hooking a hook on an angus bull and slapping it on the backside."

Gloriavale could lose millions of dollars in taxpayer funding over its opposition to identification numbers for preschoolers.

Three years after Solid Energy bought the moribund Pike River coalmine for $7.5 million, its saleable assets have been valued at just $1.48 million.

A rental vehicle was clocked doing 119kph in the 80kph zone near Paroa as the speeding driver headed to the Greymouth Railway Station to return the car.

A 70-year-old pig hunter was knocked unconscious after tumbling 10m down a waterfall in the upper Buller Gorge yesterday while in hot pursuit of his prey.

The inquiry into the sudden death of Cobden toddler Leith Hutchison, who died in April, is ongoing as police await forensic test results from overseas.

A West Coast man killed in a fatal crash near Christchurch on Sunday evening was a former Pike River miner.

A jet boat crash led to a South Island man suffering a fatal cardiac arrest as he was being treated for his injuries, a coroner has found.

A worker has been taken to hospital after being injured in an accident at the Pike River mine site this morning.

Tyler Corkin Keene had been due to defend charges on Friday, but he was found to be living with one of the main witnesses involved in the hearing.

Shanar Ruiha Yorke, 36, of Cobden, appeared in Greymouth District Court on Friday on charges following an argument with a taxi driver.