NEWCASTLE Airport’s first direct flight to Perth took off last Monday, ending the need for Hunter travellers to drive to Sydney for westbound journeys. The three-times weekly service, operated by a 150-seat QantasLink Airbus A319, aligns with the NSW Government’s recently announced Visitor Economy Strategy 2035, which commits to improving access to and from regional […]

THE Hunter-Central Coast Renewable Energy Zone project has received planning approval after a review of environmental impacts and consultation. The project has an intended network capacity of one gigawatt (GW) and stretches from the Upper Hunter in the north to the Central Coast in the south. It is set to be the first renewable energy […]

Rev Maree Armstrong, priest of St John’s Stroud, hosts morning tea. Local Stroud farmer Dawn Tawse. Brother Christopher-John, flanked on the left by Brother Bruce-Paul, Linda Simpson and Melissa Davey-Dew, and on the right, Rev Maree Armstrong. MORE than 80 visitors gathered at Stroud’s mud brick monastery on Saturday 30 August, for a peaceful and […]

A PERMANENT water supply is expected to be restored to Wingham by early December, with contractors working to install a new pipeline under the Manning River. The previous pipeline, which had supplied water to Wingham from Bootawa Dam since the 1960s, was damaged when it crossed the river during the May flood, unexpectedly cutting off […]

A FESTIVAL will be held to celebrate and support the region’s koala population on Saturday, 20 September at Tinonee Recreation Reserve. “There will be a fun, festival atmosphere for the whole family to enjoy,” MidCoast Council said in a statement. “There will be stalls and games to keep everyone entertained along with free koala tree […]

MIDCOAST Council plans to spend more than $68 million on roads this year. Despite the eye watering number, Deputy Mayor Jeremy Miller says it isn’t enough to get the road network to “where the community expects”. “We know that we need to invest an additional $35 million into our roads each year to keep them […]

THE proposed boundary for the long-awaited Great Koala National Park (GKNP) was announced on Sunday, with conservationists celebrating and the forestry industry in panic mode. The GKNP, which will cover an area between Kempsey and Woolgoolga, will add 176,000 hectares of State Forest to existing reserves to create a 476,000-hectare National Park. The announcement indicates […]

THE Federal Government has announced it will deliver 20,000 Home Care Packages in the next eight weeks. A further 20,000 packages are set to be released between November and the end of the year, with the remainder of the promised 43,000 to be delivered by mid-2026. The Australian Government subsidises organisations to provide home care […]

WORK is continuing to progress the repair of The Bight Bridge at Wingham and Tiri Bridge following their destruction in the May 2025 floods. Both bridges were severely damaged during the record flood event. MidCoast Council has investigated a number of options and are working with the Disaster Recovery Authority and other government agencies to […]

SPARE a thought for the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). They may float 400 kilometres above Earth at 28,000 km/h, eating their dinner out of pouches while gazing down at the swirling blue planet below – but they have one very down-to-earth problem: laundry. Or rather, the complete lack of it. That’s right. […]