Work has started building a new Breast Cancer Unit at Yeovil Hospital. One of the first summer music festivals takes place near Ilminster this weekend. Work is underway this week removing dozens of diseased and dead trees in Crewkerne. An appeal’s been launched to raise £20,000 to open a village shop in Hatch Beauchamp...and more.
Work has started at Yeovil Hospital building a new Breast Cancer Unit. The unit is being built as an extension to the main hospital and follows a successful appeal to raise two-and-a-half million pounds to pay for it. Head of Charity at Yeovil Hospital, James Kirton, says the appeal attracted huge local support, for which they are most grateful.
Work is underway this week removing diseased and dead trees in Crewkerne. It’s being carried out by the Town Council and follows checks that found dozens of trees at Bincombe Beeches Nature Reserve and elsewhere around the town infected with Ash Dieback disease.
One of the first of this summer’s big music festivals takes place near Ilminster this weekend. The Shindig Festival, with more than twenty bands and individual acts performing live, including headliners Sister Sledge, is being held on the Dillington Estate, starting this Friday through to Bank Holiday Monday.
An appeal’s been launched to raise £20,000 to open a village shop in Hatch Beauchamp. Locals are being offered community shares in the business as a way of raising the money. Andy Grant is leading the project. He says the shop will sell a range of products and also have a café, which is much needed in the village.
A Somerset farmer is nearing the end of walking for charity the six-hundred-and-thirty mile route of the South West Coastal Path. Mark Pope is raising money for two charities, the MND Association and St Margaret's Hospital.
A formal planning application has been made to carry out significant improvements to Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre, costing £15 million. The Halifax Bank in King George Street in Yeovil could be converted into 17 flats. A new young people’s centre opens in Chard early in the New Year...and more.
NHS Somerset reports a strong uptake of flu jabs, but some eligible people for free vaccinations haven’t come forward. Police are appealing for witnesses to an accident on the A303 in which a pedestrian was killed. A Crewkerne woman has gone viral on TikTok after being trapped inside a Lidl store in the town... and more.
Somerset Bus Partnership has welcomed a £24.7m boost for the county's bus services. Outline planning permission has been granted to build up to 100 new homes in Ilminster. An Ilminster man has been banned from keeping animals for seven years. Residents in Chiselborough have set up a group to try and re-open the village pub...and more.
Crewkerne Community Hospital is to lose half its inpatient beds. A review will be conducted of a project to make Bridgwater more pedestrian and cyclist-friendly. Chard Methodist Church is offering residents a free lunch on Christmas Day. Yeovil-based Screwfix is opening a new outlet in Minehead...and more.
Yeovil MP Adam Dance has warned that delays in ordering 30 new medium lift helicopters for the RAF is putting the future of Somerset’s defence industries at risk. Somerset's farmers are being urged to convert more cow manure into biogas to heat homes. A new visitor centre has opened at Ham Hill country park...and more
Parcel business, Evri, has been criticised by Glastonbury and Somerton MP Sarah Dyke over what she claims have been ‘widespread delivery failures’. Demand for mental health support provided by South Western Ambulance Service is running at record levels. A nine-year-old Somerset boy has completed 100 days of litter picking for charity...and more
New data shows that crime in the Avon and Somerset police area is at an all-time high. Ferne Animal Sanctuary near Chard has issued a warning to prospective pet owners ahead of Christmas. The owner of four pubs in Somerset has warned that many could be forced to shut unless the government reconsiders business rates...and more.
Toolstream in Yeovil has been put into administration, threatening the jobs of dozens of employees. NHS Somerset has issued a last chance call for people to get a flu jab after hospital admissions increased by 76% in a week. Police are investigating the theft of a bike valued at £7,000 in Sherborne... and more