Nature-rich peatland habitats are to be better protected under plans set out by the Government today (Monday 31 March), which would ban burning on peat in the uplands, improving health and wellbeing of people in nearby communities. This is a very welcome statement from the government today. It recognises the value of our precious peatlands […]
Environmental groups, local organisations and concerned residents, demonstrated on April 3, 2025, outside Bournemouth’s Civic Centre where the Planning Committee were meeting, to oppose the granting of planning permission for a waste incinerator in Canford. The demonstrators held placards, signs and banners which showed their opposition to the incinerator. There were also drummers and singing. […]
On Saturday, March 29, 2025, Extinction Rebellion Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (XR BCP) and Extinction Rebellion Wimborne (XRW) joined forces in a powerful protest at Poole Quay, marking the second anniversary of the Poole Harbour oil spill caused by French oil company Perenco. The demonstration featured the rhythmic beats of XR BCP’s drumming band, striking […]
Dear Editor I write as co-producer of the award-winning West Country Voices’ film, ‘Phosphates: Too Much Of A Good Thing?’, which was shown at last year’s Frome International Climate Film Festival. I bring the good news that this exciting and inspiring Festival is taking place again soon! Read the update below. I hope to see […]
Celebration lunches, chocolates and a glass of fizz will be on the menu this Sunday, 30 March, as families get together for Mothering Sunday. But for one group of women in Plymouth, the table will be bare – except for leaflets, stickers and other material demanding an end to child hunger and poverty. Six local […]
I’m incandescent, furious, overflowing with rage at Dartington Trust’s ability to continually make the wrong decisions, decisions that show they are out of touch with pretty much everything. In particular, it has just been announced that they plan to revoke the wonderful Agroforestry Research Trust’s lease on their extraordinary temperate forest garden on the Dartington […]
“Tax our wealth” – that’s the message from millionaires across the UK who are taking their campaign out on the road ahead of the Government’s Spring Statement. Patriotic Millionaires UK has commissioned a fleet of mobile billboards to tour towns and cities across the country to tell people and constituency MPs: a tax of two […]
UPDATE: The latest from Martin. Not great. “This afternoon our landlords have released a public statement (https://www.dartington.org/forest-garden-update/) which contain a number of misleading statements which we feel we have to correct. “We have had constructive and productive discussions with Martin over the past week.” No, we had one meeting on Weds 19th March when positive noises […]
The River Wye catchment area has been subjected to significant ecological harm due to intensive poultry farming, with rising levels of phosphorus pollution leading to toxic algal blooms and the collapse of aquatic ecosystems. The River Wye, once voted the nation’s UK’s favourite river, is on the brink of ecological collapse due to pollution primarily […]
The stark and ancient beauty of Dartmoor is world-renowned. Its power to stir a deep emotional connection in people was evidenced by the thousands who converged on the moor in January 2023, fighting for their right to roam freely across those wild landscapes and camp under those wide starry skies. Now a new festival – […]
One iconic image that is unique to Dorset is its fingerposts, the old road signs featuring a white or occasionally red metal roundel or finial. Since the Dorset CPRE grant scheme was launched in 2017, the charity has paid out £22,337.50 towards the restoration of 160 traditional fingerposts, helping to keep these local treasures and […]
A record-breaking 74 Tiverton Tree Team volunteers turned up on February 8, 2025, to help create a new wildlife recovery zone on the banks of the river Exe just outside Tiverton. At the top of the site, running parallel to the existing Devon hedge, a 200 metre line of hawthorn, blackthorn, hazel, dogwood, elderberry, dog […]
When numerous small plastic pellets were spotted littering the beach at Charmouth in west Dorset, a diverse group of people, united by their love of this special place, began to delve in to the problem. After a tortuous investigation, two kinds of pellet were identified on the beach at Charmouth: nurdles, the pre-production raw material […]
We needed some good news, so it’s great to be able to report that Wes Streeting has given the go-ahead for the much-needed Women and Children’s Hospital to be built at the Treliske site, on the edge of Truro. I first spoke to Roberta Fuller, the Programme Director for the scheme, in late 2024, when […]
Local residents joined Extinction Rebellion (XR) Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole (BCP) and XR Wimborne, who once again gathered outside Bournemouth’s Civic Centre to demonstrate against the building of waste incinerators in the area. They are concerned about the detrimental effect of the proposed incinerators on local residents’ health, the local environment and increased global warming. […]
It’s beginning to look as though Labour are either determined to demonstrate either that they are a) metrocentric (as opposed to London-and-wealthy-donor-Conservatives) or b) that they simply do not have any understanding of what goes on in the lower population-density rural areas of England. First there was the more-than-clumsy mishandling of the farmers’ inheritance tax […]
Press release from Andrew George, MP for West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly: The government’s announced planning policy risks putting “greed before need” and is “destined to fail”. Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, launched changes to the National Planning Policy Framework, which the government says will meet its ambitious housebuilding targets – one and […]
Dear Editor, It has always been so easy to throw stones at authorities for their lack of vision and forethought, but who here are the real villains? We are informed by Dartmoor National Park Authority (DNPA) that they can no longer afford to keep the visitor centre at Princetown open. This centre has been serving […]
You almost had to feel sorry for the far right. Having planned an afternoon rally in Torquay on Saturday, November 30, the handful who turned up found themselves vastly outnumbered by a crowd of around 200 counter-protesters, mainly from local unions and anti-racism groups. Outside the town hall, amid dozens of banners and placards proclaiming […]
If you’ve looked at a local news website lately, you may have got the feeling that something’s not quite right. Seeking stories about your own area, you click on an interesting headline and find yourself reading about a completely different place. You probably see a lot of content about motoring, shopping and so on, but […]
Next year, Exeter will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of being twinned with Bad Homburg in Germany. The town of Bad Homburg lies at the foot of the Taunus mountains, about a 15 minute drive north-west of Frankfurt. It is a beautiful spa town with a castle and splendid woodland surroundings. It is considered to […]
Plymouth City Council are still not listening to community concerns or valuing our trees. Eighteen months after the reputation-trashing act of eco vandalism carried out by Plymouth City Council (PCC), where they cut down more than 100 trees at night, it seems that no lessons have been learned by our decision makers. The council might […]
Discussions about building a proposed waste incinerator in Canford were deferred by Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole’s (BCP) planning committee in September 2024. There is no confirmation, yet, about when it may be discussed, but the committee was due to meet on November 7, 2024. On that day, concerned residents, environmental groups, and local organisations came […]
Highlighting a week of protests and actions in London and across the UK focused on the “Achilles heel” of the fossil fuel industry setting our planet on fire: their insurers. Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) major national campaign, demanding that the insurance industry stops insuring the climate criminals setting the world on fire, hit the streets of […]
South Hams District Council recently welcomed South West Water to the council chamber to discuss the ongoing issues of sewage discharges and the cryptosporidium poisoning in Kingswear and Brixham. It’s fair to say that anticipation was not high amongst many councillors. After all, we had invited chief executive Susan Davey, but she was too busy; […]
The Friends of the River Teign held their launch event on October 13 on Shaldon Beach, alongside the River Teign. The event was attended by Newton Abbot MP, Martin Wrigley, (Lib Dem) who carried out a water quality test, one of a series to be carried out through the winter by the group. The event […]
I am happy to admit that having camped extensively as a girl guide in my youth, I have no plans to wild camp again in my twilight years, even though there genuinely is nothing to beat that enveloping, cossetting stillness and powerful sense of connection to the land to be felt beneath the star-studded velvet […]
News that the long-awaited Women and Children’s Hospital promised for Cornwall may never be built has been described as “shocking and disappointing” by St Ives Liberal Democrat MP Andrew George. The £291m project – part of the previous government’s New Hospital Programme (NHP) – aims to combine maternity, neonatal, paediatric and obstetric and gynaecology services […]
Friends of the Dart has found evidence of illegal dry spills in 14 different areas of the River Dart dating from 2021 to 2023, the worst of which occurred in Rattery where a total of 15 hours of sewage was found to have been released into the river. What is a Dry Spill? A dry […]
Dear Editor, My example of what I believe to be an unjust car parking fine. At 10.25am I received a parking fine of £100 for parking in a disabled bay with no Blue badge displayed in my car. I had been having a coffee in Castlepoint Shopping centre, Bournemouth, for 30 minutes that morning. There […]