Leonardo helicopters in Yeovil has announced a new £360 million contract to deliver support to the UK’s fleet of Navy and Army Wildcat helicopters. Somerset has failed to secure millions of pounds of investment for local bus services. Plans have been submitted to convert a former restaurant in Yeovil into flats. Higher prices are on the way at your local chippy and Glastonbury has been named the best music festival in the UK and the second-best in the world.
Leonardo helicopters in Yeovil has announced a new £360 million contract to deliver support to the UK’s fleet of Navy and Army Wildcat helicopters. The order has secured 340 industry jobs for the next five years and boosted the Yeovil factory. Meanwhile, Leonardo says it’s still awaiting a decision on the contract to supply its AW 149 as a new medium-lift helicopter to the British military. Managing Director of Leonardo in Yeovil Nick Whitney says it’s an order they have to win.
Somerset has failed to secure millions of pounds of investment for local bus services. The County Council’s been told that it will get £11 million of the £163 million that it had asked for. The government says the money will make buses run more frequently and make fares more affordable.
Plans have been submitted to convert a former restaurant in Yeovil into flats. If the application is approved by South Somerset District Council the first and second floors above the former Amrit Indian restaurant on the corner of South Western Terrace and Middle Street would be turned into five flats.
Higher prices are on the way at your local chippy. With the price of potatoes, fish and energy all going up, a bag of fish and chips is costing more. The manager of Whites fish and chip shop in Chard, Estella Neal, says it getting harder to make a profit out of selling fish and chips.
Glastonbury has been named the best music festival in the UK and the second-best in the world. The online gaming site, Slingo, analysed fifty festivals and put Glastonbury well ahead of the Parklife, Boomtown, and Reading festivals both in terms of performers and location.
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.
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