Monday 24th November

Monday, 24 November 2025 05:00

By Steve Haigh

A church leader has warned that “irrevocable damage” will be caused to town centres if Somerset Council starts charging for Sunday parking. Fifty new homes are to be built in Castle Cary following a successful planning appeal. A call has been made for a memorial to the victims who died in a plane crash on the Blackdown Hills 80 years ago...and more.

A church leader has warned that the introduction of Sunday car parking charges in Somerset will do “irrevocable damage” to town centres. Somerset Council held a consultation in September and October on implementing Sunday parking charges across all its car parks. But Judith Butler, a pastor at Kingdom Faith Church in Taunton, says implementing the charges will damage Somerset’s struggling high streets, with fewer people using the car parks to shop, eat out and attend religious services. The results of the consultation show that 93 per cent of respondents either disagree or strongly disagree with charging for Sunday parking. Somerset Council is due to decide on the issue before the end of December.

Fifty new homes are to be built in Castle Cary following a successful appeal to the Planning Inspectorate by developers Castle Cary LLP. Their application to build off South Street, close to the town’s cemetery, was turned down by Somerset Council’s planning committee in January. But after a planning inspector visited the site, the decision was overturned. In his report, the Inspector dismissed concerns that the new homes would harm the town's conservation area, saying the site was "almost wholly screened" by mature trees and other vegetation.

A call’s been made for a permanent memorial to the twenty-seven people who died in a plane crash on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset 80 years ago. The flight had taken off from the Merryfield air base near Ilminste with mostly military personnel on board when it crashed near Hare Lane at Castle Neroche on November 22nd 1945. Diana Hughes, whose father, Major Harry Staunton, was one of those killed, is asking for a permanent plaque to be put up in Buckland St Mary church in memory of all those who died.

A ten-million-pound upgrade of Bridgwater's Dunball roundabout, that's led to a year of disruption, has been completed. The junction connects junction 23 to the town. Somerset Council says the new 'through-about' will help ease congestion in the town.

Wells MP Tessa Munt says people living with chronic fatigue and ME are desperate, calling on the government to speed up investment into care and research into the condition. The government has spent over £6 million on ME research over the last five years. Still, a plan to tackle ME published in July admitted that resources to turn the research into action were inadequate.

A top international award has been given to the school in Wincanton. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Primary School has been presented with a Live Simply Award by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development for its efforts in supporting struggling communities around the world.

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Friday 23rd January

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Tuesday 20th January

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