Clive Bibby: Our future in the Hands of Amateurs

This column is not meant to be an attack on the integrity of those in charge of regional business - simply an attempt at drawing attention to the inadequate responses by Council to our real needs.

Here on the East Coast, we lurch from one damaging climate event to the next yet the response from Council appears to be one of an ambulance parked up at the bottom of the cliff.

Clive Bibby: Communities should decide

Reports of a "sale by tender" of one of our most iconic livestock farming properties - Mangaheia Station, inland from Tolaga Bay -  is welcome news for most of us who have been nervously watching the process since it was listed for sale.

Foremost amongst the reasons for our satisfaction with the result is the fact that the property is now in the hands of two local farming families with long histories of adding value to everything they commit to.

It could have been so different!