Yeovil Town will play National League football next season after beating Truro 2-0 last night to win promotion and the National League South title. Somerset Council says the cost of keeping Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre closed has risen to £140,000 a year. A holiday website has reported a 31 percent upturn in visitor numbers to Somerset...and more.
Yeovil Town finally won promotion and the National League South title beating Truro 2-0 away last night. Twelve hundred travelling Yeovil fans watched as Rhys Murphy and Alex Fisher scored in each half to give Yeovil the three points. Life-long Glovers supporter and Leader of Yeovil Town Council, Graham Oakes, says the promotion is not just good for the football club but the town as a whole.
Somerset Council says the cost of keeping Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre closed has risen to £140,000 a year. The money is being spent paying utility bills, running the heating ventilation systems and various forms of insurance. The Octagon closed in April last year, with Somerset Council voting to keep it shut until a new business case has been agreed to get it re-opened.
A new ‘Welcome to Chard’ stone has been installed at the entrance to Chard. The stone, at the junction of Fore Street and Silver Street, has been paid for by Historic England, as part of the one-million-pound funded Chard High Street Action Zone project.
A holiday website has reported an up-turn in visitors to Somerset following the airing of a Channel 5 series about the county. Somerset: Wonder of the West Country presented by Alan Titchmarsh showcased the best areas, people, and traditions of the County. HolidayCottages.co.uk says after the first programme aired in late February, a 31 percent increase in holiday bookings for Somerset was recorded.
A new operator is needed to run one of Chard’s best-known pubs. The 17th-century Choughs Hotel on the High Street is advertised at a rent of £34,000 per annum with an annual turnover of £550,000.
A father has been found guilty of murdering his two-week-old son at Yeovil Hospital. From Monday, no trains will be stopping at Crewkerne until further notice. Experts say the dry weather has created ideal conditions for wasps to multiply in significant numbers across Somerset. A rare railway carriage from the 1880s, believed to have been built in Somerset, is being given a new lease of life...and more.
Tourism leaders in Somerset are hoping to reverse last year’s downturn in visitor numbers now that the six-week-long school summer holiday is underway. A Chard woman who was driving a van without insurance that crashed has been given a 16-month driving ban. A Somerset hedgehog rescue centre says a lack of rain and hard ground conditions are making it difficult for hedgehogs to survive this summer...and more.
Somerset Council is planning to open twelve new Special Educational Needs units in mainstream schools. Yeovil Hospital is participating in a trial that could revolutionise the treatment of sepsis within the NHS. A 55-acre site in Chard, with plans approved to build 295 homes and a new football ground, has been put up for sale...and more
Somerset Community Foundation has launched a "Together for West Somerset Appeal" to help families affected by last Thursday's school coach crash on Exmoor. People in Somerset are being encouraged to improve their recycling of food waste. Free family cooking sessions are being held in Chard. A new children’s soft play area is soon to open in Yeovil...and more
A GoFundMe page set up to support families of last week’s Exmoor bus crash, in which a 10-year-old boy died, has raised over forty thousand pounds. A local councillor is calling for the introduction of speed cameras on the A30, from Yeovil to Sherborne. A group from a school in Ilchester have hiked 26 miles across the Jurassic Coast to fundraise in memory of a school colleague...and more
EDF has completed another milestone in constructing the new 'Hinkley C' nuclear power plant near Bridgwater. The Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire opens today with helicopters built in Yeovil on display. A road leading to Chard reservoir, shut two months ago for strengthening work to a dam wall, has re-opened...and more
Yeovil MP Adam Dance says he has serious concerns about plans that could see the closure of inpatient beds at Crewkerne Community Hospital. Ilminster residents are being asked to vote in a referendum on adopting a new neighbourhood plan for the town. An event in which people take part in a race against horses is returning to Somerset later this year...and more
A children’s play area in Ilminster has been closed on safety grounds after badger setts were found on the land. Somerset Council sold off £90m of property assets last year to help fight off bankruptcy. Crewkerne Community Hospital could be turned into a neighbourhood health centre...and more.