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 [...]

DORSET Wildlife Trust and the Kingcombe Environmental Studies Centre have decided to work together to boost environmental education and participation in nature conservation in Dorset. Trustees of the charities see this as an important opportunity for two organisations with similar aims. Dorset Wildlife Trust has greatly expanded its educational work in recent years, helping many people [...]

News that stays news THE ARTIST John Skinner, when he lived in Bothenhampton, used to say to me: “Why can’t we have the kind of news which says: ‘Today John Skinner finished a xxxxing fantastic painting – and here it is’. “That’s the kind of TV news I’d like to see.” I used to agree with [...]

SO, THIS MORNING, the Bridport News and the View From Bridport began their Wednesday wrestling bout. In the blue corner, the BN – 40p, published by Newsquest (owned by the giant American corporation Gannett), 64 pages (including 10 of the crucial property pages),  physically smaller than the VF.   In the red corner, the VF, published by [...]

  WEST DORSET District Council is making a big effort to win support for plans for the revamp of Dorchester town centre, and below – word for word – are two press releases issued today. Why word for word? Because on big issues like this, hours and hours of effort goes into producing press releases, and if you regard them as rhetorical [...]

THE Bridport News and the Lyme Regis News will appear in future on Wednesdays. The move is announced on the papers’ website but not (that I can see) in the papers themselves. The shift means the two Newsquest publications will come out on the same morning as the free newspapers View From Bridport, View From Beaminster [...]

 An open letter to readers of Real West Dorset OVER the last few days I’ve been stopped several times by people keen to tell me that they have discovered Real West Dorset – and they enjoy it. I have also had several emails from people saying they like reading it. I can’t quote from some [...]

THE NEW owners of Dorset’s View From series of local newspapers are Jerry and Rosemary Ramsdale, who also own the Mariners Hotel in Lyme Regis. The couple have six children and a holiday home in Lyme. They bought the 17 century Mariners hotel and restaurant in November 2007, and have since refurbished it. Mr Ramsdale runs a magazine [...]

  (Note added Tuesday evening, January 12: This article has been edited to reflect comments made by Toby Granville, editor of the Dorset Echo. For more details of Mr Granville’s concerns, please see below) PHILIP EVANS founded the View From series of free weekly newspapers covering Lyme Regis, Bridport, Beaminster, Dorchester and Weymouth that have now – as [...]

AT LEAST three parties are known to have been interested in buying the View From series of free weekly newspapers which cover Lyme Regis, Bridport, Beaminster, Dorchester and Weymouth. The company’s founder Philip Evans announced just before Christmas that he would have to put his Dorset titles into administration and see shut them down unless a buyer could be [...]