Local News Wednesday 24th May

Wednesday, 24 May 2023 07:00

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.