Local News Thursday 9th December

Thursday, 9 December 2021 06:00

TSB is closing its Yeovil branch. The bank, on the corner of High Street and King George Street, will shut on April 12th next year. The County Council has blamed a lack of funding at Somerset’s schools for pupil suspension rates being so high. Covid booster jabs are now on offer locally to people in their 40s. Somerset Waste Partnership is claiming success with its ‘Recycle More’ initiative and a shop in Chard has raised £1,000 for the League of Friends at Chard Hospital.

TSB is closing its Yeovil branch. The bank, on the corner of High Street and King George Street, will shut on April 12th next year. Yeovil is one of seventy TSB branches nationwide that are being closed. TSB says with people banking online, the number of customers visiting their banks has fallen dramatically.

The County Council has blamed a lack of funding at Somerset’s schools for pupil suspension rates being so high. It follows figures from Ofsted that show pupil suspensions at Somerset’s schools are nearly double the national average.

Covid booster jabs are now on offer locally to people in their 40s. The move is aimed at slowing the spread of the Omicron variant and getting as many people as possible vaccinated by the end of January. Meanwhile, a dedicated Covid Helpline in Somerset, set up as a single point of contact at the start of the pandemic, has now taken more than 17,000 calls. The phone number for Somerset Coronavirus Helpline is 0300 790 6275.

Somerset Waste Partnership is claiming success with its ‘Recycle More’ initiative. It says that since the launch of the blue bag collection scheme in October last year, 5,600 tonnes of additional waste has been sent for recycling, including 1,000 extra tonnes of plastic.

A shop in Chard has raised £1,000 for the League of Friends at Chard Hospital. The Original Factory Shop on Great Western Road raised the money through selling charity Christmas cards and hosting a charity bingo night.

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