A PLANNING application has just been submitted for the controversial £60 million redevelopment of the Charles Street site in Dorchester. Waitrose has agreed terms to relocate from its current store in Tudor Arcade and is now in detailed discussions with the project’s developer Simons. The full application includes a range of new shops comprising over [...]

THE VOTERS of West Dorset will be faced with a positive cornucopia of erudition when they make their final choice next Thursday. Three out of the five, a massive 60%, of the candidates have the title Doctor before their name. Can any other constituency in the land boast of such an educated bunch set before [...]

NO SOONER do I post a piece mentioning the shortage of literature from Big Ollie’s lot than one turns up on the doormat. A pretty rum offering it is too. On the front there are no less than five photographs of Little Dave Cameron. Stuck on the back is a single shot our very own [...]

WEST DORSET has a higher percentage of people working in the public sector than anywhere else in the South West, according to the Office for National Statistics. 18,100 people are employed by bodies such as Dorset County Council, West Dorset District Council, Dorset Police and the NHS. That’s 40 per cent of the district’s working population [...]

A BARN OWL called Bob, who’s been living in a box by himself for several years, has found a mate called Brenda. Bob was the solitary occupant of an owl box at Dorset Wildlife Trust’s Lorton Meadows Nature Reserve, near Weymouth. Now he’s been joined by Brenda, it’s reckoned that five or more eggs may [...]

THERE aren’t many better places to be at this time of year than glorious West Dorset, with Spring erupting all over the place, laying waste memories of that long, dreary winter. Nor is Holmbush car park in Lyme Regis the most romantic spot to be at 9.30 on a Spring morning, but it is from [...]

AS FAR as West Dorset voters seem to be concerned just a couple more notches on the excitement scale and they could work themselves up into a state of apathy. The candidates all seem to have all adopted profiles so low that they really should take to bandaging themselves from head to toe. That way [...]

VILLAGERS near Bridport are looking out for vandals who have churned up a cricket pitch used by schoolchildren. Eight times over the last 18 months, at irregular intervals but always on a Tuesday night, one or more cars has been driven over the cricket and football ground at The Weir in Nettlecombe. Steve Hibbs, chairman of [...]

IT’S A good question: which village in West Dorset has the highest concentration of artists? I would have guessed Nettlecombe, or perhaps Symondsbury, or even Chideock; there is much more to Chideock than speed cameras, traffic fumes, and signs outside The Clock House advertising its “ugly landlord”. But then, lo, over the hills comes another [...]

RESULTS of a town poll in Dorchester show the overwhelming majority of those who voted are against West Dorset District Council’s plan to spend £10.7 million on new council offices. There was a 15.4 per cent turn out for the poll. For new offices: 156 people. Against: 2044. The Liberal Democrats now want the council [...]