It’s a common complaint: “how could the Council let people build that, and not even notify anyone?” That’s partly down to a misunderstanding of what “notification” means under the RMA: it’s not just about letting people know, but also the start of a long and complex process involving hearings, lawyers and possible appeals, and it only occurs […]
Take a break from watching polls and start watching birds with The Great Kererū Count. Forest & Bird have teamed up with local company Thundermaps to create an easy way for all of us to track these magnificent yet near-threatened native pigeons, using the Thundermaps smartphone apps or web application. Kererū are vital to the health of our […]
Saturday is your last opportunity to make your voice heard on the future of…no, I’m not talking about the elections, but about something more specific to Wellington. In a very condensed consultation process, WCC is seeking your input on the proposed transformation of three blocks Victoria St, between Dixon and Abel Smith streets. And that […]
There are signs that this election could have a good turnout. Advance voting is about twice what it was at the same stage in the last two elections, and there have been over 35,000 new enrolments since I posted about poor enrolment figures: nearly 1500 in Wellington Central alone! However, one thing that can still put […]
At this stage of the election cycle we are drowning in polls. While each media outlet treats its own commissioned research as holy writ, they all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it takes something like Danyl McLauchlan’s tracking poll charts to smooth out the noise and calibrate them against actual election results. Even with that, there’s a growing […]
You could be forgiven for thinking that all Wellingtonians are obsessed with politics. Advance voting started today, and already some voters are proudly sporting their “YES I have voted” stickers. Yet thousands of Wellingtonians have still not enrolled to vote. Who are these disenfranchised people, and why have they not enrolled? Luckily, the Electoral Commission has […]
Plenty of Wellingtonians are getting excited about the arrival of the rapidly-growing quasi-taxi service Uber. They offer the convenience of a smartphone app, the potential for better service and flexibility, a promise to disrupt what is often seen as a monopolistic industry, plus fancy cars and All Blacks. For that, they’ve been rewarded with billions of dollars of […]
We’ve already previewed the LUX festival, but now we’re a bit over halfway through and the weather’s looking kind, it’s worth reminding you to See. It. Now. You have until Sunday. We had a wander around last night, and the atmosphere was (appropriately) electric. Quite apart from the installations themselves, the experience of being around so […]
Just a reminder that voting in FishHead magazine’s DineOut awards 2013 closes this Friday the 19th. Get in now and vote for your favourite restaurants, bars and cafés throughout the Wellington region, and you’ll be in to win a coffee grinder and a year’s supply of Havana coffee.
On top of all the recent openings, there are several more bars, restaurants, cafés clubs and other new places to look forward to in the next few months. One surprising and welcome trend is the re-emergence of central city fish and chip shops. An outfit called Fish n’ Chips on Tory looks (at the time […]