More than 100 workers at Affco's Wairoa meatworks have been laid off, just weeks after returning to work.

Wairoa police will meet with the town's mayor and the local MP next week after the second gang-related shooting in five days.

Police and the armed offenders squad will be out in force in the northern Hawke's Bay town of Wairoa tonight.

A woman police constable was attacked by a motorist she pulled over for drunken driving.

Armed police remain on alert after a gang confrontation in Wairoa last night ended with a man being shot in the face.

Bar patrons took a drunk man outside because they thought he was about to vomit, not realising he was choking on a pie, the coroner has found.

Guy Sainsbury came across a group of people who had seen a vehicle 80m down a bank, and decided to look around the area himself.