News Archive

NHS Blood and Transplant are urging people in Dorset to give blood as new targets reveal 1,589 new donors are needed in the county to save lives over the next year. Nationally one million more blood donors are needed over the next five years to ensure patients receive the right type of blood to save and ...

The organisers of Dorchester Beerex, West Dorset Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) and charity partner Dorchester Casterbridge Rotary club recently divided up profits from the February festival with the Dorchester Youth and Community Centre (DYCC) being this year’s main benefactor receiving a cheque for £9711.00. On receiving the vital funds Kate Parkham, the centre’s Youth Work ...

Officers investigating reports of an assault in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward. At around 12.25pm on Monday 16 May 2022 it was reported that a man was seen assaulting a woman who was sitting in a vehicle in the car park at Littlemoor Shopping Centre. The woman drove off ...

Detectives investigating an alleged robbery in Weymouth have made five arrests. It was reported that between 9.50pm and 10.05pm on Saturday 4 June 2022 a local man aged in his 40s was cycling on the Rodwell Trail behind the Weymouth Outdoor Education Centre when he was attacked by a group of teenagers. His baseball cap and ...

Carers can sign up for a discount card for benefits at cafes, days out and for everyday services, to help those looking after a family member or friend who would not manage without them, Dorset Council have told KeeP 106. National Carers Week, between 6 and 12 June, highlights the role carers play in the community ...

Officers investigating a suspicious incident in Dorchester are appealing for witnesses to come forward. Dorset Police received a report at 4.55pm on Thursday 26 May 2022 relating to a suspicious incident in the area of Cornwall Road and Albert Road. It was reported that a school pupil was approached by a man, who grabbed them by the ...

West Dorset MP Chris Loder has urged the Government Efficiency Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg in the Queens Speech debate on Wednesday 18th May to break down the barriers to opportunity for small and medium sized businesses in public sector procurement and made the case for greater investment in the South-West. This followed a summit in Dorchester on ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward following alleged criminal damage to vehicles in Weymouth. Between 5.30am and 6am on Sunday 29 May 2022 it is reported that damage was caused to six vehicles that were parked in Park Street. It is reported that damage was caused to wing mirrors and a ...

West Dorset MP Chris Loder has held a Road Safety Summit with Dorset Police, local councillors and local residents on the B3157 ‘Coast Road’ between Burton Bradstock and Chickerell. On Friday 13th May, Mr Loder was joined by members of Dorset Police, local Parish Councils, local residents and Chesil Bank’s Dorset Councillor Mark Roberts. Mr Loder said; ...

Dorset Council’s army of volunteer digital champions is growing to help meet the growing digital skills need in the county. Six new recruits have come on board to join the council’s team of digital champions to help even more of the county’s residents get online. Research has shown that nearly a third of Dorset’s residents don’t have ...

Volunteers’ Week, led by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), takes place from 1-7 June and Dorset HealthCare is recognising the valuable contribution local volunteers make to its community hospitals and services. During an exceptionally difficult couple of years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people from all walks of life have given up their time ...

To celebrate Volunteers’ Week 2022 (1 to 7 June), Wessex Water has revealed nearly 500 of its employees have taken part in volunteering activities in the last 12 months. Wessex Water gives its employees one paid ‘Water Force’ volunteering day every year to support a project, charity or community group of their choice. In total, 482 people ...

Detectives are appealing for witnesses to come forward after a moped rider sustained a serious leg injury when a pedal cycle was hurled at him in Weymouth. The incident happened at around 6pm on Monday 30 May 2022 when the victim was riding along Littlemoor Road, travelling from Dorchester Road. After going under the Upwey railway ...

Officers are appealing for anyone who witnessed suspicious activity to come forward following a burglary at a hotel in Weymouth. Between 6.30pm and 7.45pm on Tuesday 17 May 2022 a room at The Russell Hotel on The Esplanade was broken into. A quantity of cash was stolen from a handbag. Police Constable Charlie Andrews, of Weymouth police, said: ...

Officers investigating a burglary in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward. At around 5.30pm on Saturday 28 May 2022 a resident of an address in Ranelagh Road returned home and was unable to access a room as it was being blocked shut by an unknown man. The man subsequently left the ...

Officers investigating criminal damage to a car in Dorchester are appealing for witnesses to come forward. Sometime between 10pm and 10.15pm on Saturday 21 May 2022 damage was caused to the wing mirror of a red BMW 3 Series that was parked on Cambridge Road. It is suspected that the damage was caused by two teenage boys ...

A teenage boy has been arrested in connection with an alleged assault in Wool. It was reported that at around 3pm on Saturday 22 January 2022 a 14-year-old boy was assaulted in Wareham Road. He sustained bruising and did not require hospital treatment. Following enquiries by officers, a 13-year-old boy from Dorchester was arrested on suspicion of ...

Bill Sivewright, CEO of Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance was delighted to attend an event on Wednesday 25th May, to thank the charity’s volunteers for all their hard work, dedication and support in aid of the charity, prior to his retirement on 21st June. Bill spent the afternoon expressing his gratitude and talked about how valued ...

Dorset Council can announce a strong step forward in its work with Registered Provider Housing Associations, responding to the growing need for affordable housing. In the year to March 2021, 301 new affordable homes were built by Housing Associations or acquired by the council. In the last year, to March 2022, there was success in raising ...

Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner David Sidwick will be joined by the Chief Constable Scott Chilton next Monday in a Facebook Live chat to talk about policing in Dorset. They will be discussing the progress of the Commissioners ‘Police and Crime Plan’ and the Chief Constables ‘Vision for Policing’ as well as taking questions. Join them at ...

At the end of April, the new Weymouth Information Shop quietly opened its door on St Mary Street in the heart of Weymouth. Immediately, people were walking in asking for information, help and advice. Now affectionately known as ‘The WIS’; this is a convenient and accessible hub of information for residents and visitors of Weymouth. The ...

A man has been arrested in connection with an alleged burglary in Weymouth. It was reported that between 8pm on Friday 13 May and 1am on Saturday 14 May 2022 a burglary occurred at an address in Stanley Street. Items of jewellery were allegedly stolen from the property, as well as an Amazon Kindle and a ...

Officers investigating a fatal road traffic collision near Dorchester are appealing for witnesses or anyone with dashcam footage to come forward. Dorset Police received a report at 2.17pm on Tuesday 24 May 2022 of a single vehicle collision involving a white Triumph motorcycle on the A35 Puddletown bypass near to Tolpuddle. The rider of the motorcycle – ...

Dorchester’s Brewery Square will be welcoming visitors to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in style with a weekend filled with music, food, and activities. The Square has lined up a host of special musical numbers to mark the occasion on Saturday 4th June. Local sensation Grace Lovelass will give a special national anthem performance at 12pm, ...

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service held its annual awards ceremony on Thursday 12 May. After two years of online ceremonies due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2022 saw a welcome return to a physical event, held for the first time at Tidworth Garrison Theatre. The event recognised staff achieving 20 years and 40 years of public ...

West Dorset MP Chris Loder has hailed a “major step forward” as the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing and Communities has allocated Dorset Council £135k to rewrite the local plan only weeks after a crunch summit the MP held in Dorchester with the Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, in which Mr Loder expressed ...

New analysis has found that Dorchester is the easiest place to pass your driving test first time, in the UK. The study by learner insurance experts Ingenie examined the pass rate percentage of major driving test centres in the UK – those that have conducted at least 1,000 tests since April 2020 – to determine the one with ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses to come forward after a reported assault in Weymouth town centre. Dorset Police received a report at 12.24am on Saturday 21 May 2022 of a fight involving a man and a group of people in the area of The Crown Hotel in St Thomas Street. Officers attended and the group dispersed. It ...

A woman is due to appear in court in connection with a reported fail-to-stop collision in Dorchester. It was reported that at around 1.10pm on Tuesday 21 December 2021 a collision occurred involving a silver Mercedes, which was stationary, and a silver or grey Mini Clubman in the car park outside Parkhouse Pet Supplies on the ...

Dorchester’s large vaccination centre will close this week as the Dorset COVID-19 vaccination programme moves into its next phase. The centre, in the offices of the NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group at Vespasian House, opened in December as part of the pre-Christmas push to get booster jabs into arms. Improving access to the vaccination for the people ...

Plans to redevelop the Dorset County Hospital (DCH) site have been submitted to Dorset Council following feedback from patients, staff and the wider community. DCH has been earmarked funding from the Government’s New Hospital Programme to build a new Emergency Department and Critical Care Unit. The Trust also has aspirations to build a new two-storey main ...

Following the success in 2021 of the Sunflower Trail at Maiden Castle Farm near Dorchester, the organiser Hazel Hoskin has told KeeP 106 that they will be running the major fund raising event again this year. The farm will create a spectacular sunflower trail which will raise funds for the DCH Kingfisher Ward and Cherkasy Hospital ...

Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance held their 11th annual Coast to Coast Cycle Challenge on Sunday 15th May. Hundreds of cyclists took part on the day, cycling either the 55-mile route from Watchet Harbour in Somerset to the beautiful Dorset seaside resort of West Bay, or a shorter 11-mile route which started at the Royal Oak ...

Officers investigating a burglary in Weymouth are appealing for information or footage from the public to help their enquiries. Between 8pm on Friday 13 May and 1am on Saturday 14 May 2022 a burglary occurred at an address in the Stanley Street area. Items of jewellery were stolen from the property, as well as an Amazon Kindle ...

The very best in policing were recognised as Dorset Police held its annual awards ceremony. The event at The Dorset Museum in Dorchester highlighted the efforts of those who go above and beyond for the cause in their contributions to the Force. Categories included the Community Engagement, Partnership and Collaboration Award, the Public Confidence Award and the ...

Dorset Council are now making payments to households in council tax bands A to D who pay by direct debit. The majority of payments will be processed during the period 11 – 13 May – over 77,000 households. Recipients will receive written confirmation of this payment in the coming days, and payments take approximately 3 working ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses or anyone with dashcam footage to come forward following a serious injury road traffic collision in West Dorset. Dorset Police received a report at 2.22pm on Saturday 7 May 2022 relating to a single vehicle collision involving a green Kawasaki ZX motorcycle on the B3157 Coast Road at Swyre near Bridport. Emergency ...

Dorset Council’s annual meeting was held tonight (12th May 2022). The meeting was held at County Hall in Dorchester and began with the election for Chair. Cllr Pothecary and Cllr Ezzard were nominated and, following a vote with 44 against 29, Cllr Val Pothecary was elected as chairman of the Council. Cllr Pothecary subsequently read and ...

2022 sees the return of the Operation Heathland Campaign run by the Urban Heaths Partnership (UHP), a drive to ask all visitors to Dorset heaths and forests to help protect them. The public are being encouraged to create and share their own photos and videos clips across social media, to say why they’re supporting #Operation ...

Foster carers from across Dorset have been recognised at an awards ceremony in Weymouth. The glittering ceremony was organised by Dorset Council to recognise the hard work and dedication of foster carers in the county. Awards were given out to those who had been foster carers for a significant length of time including one for someone who ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses to come forward following criminal damage to farmland near Dorchester. The damage is believed to have been caused by so called ‘nighthawkers’. Nighthawking is the theft of archaeological artefacts from land under the cover of darkness. Metal detectors are commonly used by trespassers. Over the weekend of Saturday 7 May and Sunday 8 ...

Officers investigating an assault in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward. At around 9.15pm on Wednesday 11 May 2022 a man aged in his 50s was walking in Bayard Road when he saw a group of teenagers kicking a fence and went to challenge them about their behaviour. The man ...

Music lovers turned out en masse for The Occasional Singers Baroque Masterworks concert, recently held at St. Mary’s Church in Dorchester. The choir chose to support Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading charity specialising in finding preventions, treatments, and a cure for dementia, and raised £1,800 thanks to the generosity of those in attendance. The Occasional ...

West Dorset MP Chris Loder has urged Housing Secretary Michael Gove to instigate an urgent review of the Dorset Local Plan in order to discontinue the proposed 4,000 home North of Dorchester development proposal at a meeting in Dorchester on Friday afternoon. Having invited the Housing Secretary to Dorchester earlier this year, the MP met with ...

A single motorcyclist came of their bike whilst traveling along the B3157 Coast Road on Saturday afternoon (7th May) shortly after 2pm. It’s believed no other vehicles were involved in the incident which happened between Burton Bradstock and Swyre. A crew from South Western Ambulance Service were first on scene and requested further support from the ...

Carer Support Dorset, who support unpaid carers across the Dorset Council area, is celebrating today after being awarded £9,600 in funding from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest funder of community activity in the UK. Carer Support Dorset will use their funding to run a series of arts workshops across the county during Carers Week ...

Officers investigating an alleged assault in Dorchester are appealing for a witness to come forward as he may have important information. At 8.16am on Saturday 7 May 2022, Dorset Police received a report of a disturbance in the area close to North Square. It was reported that a man, who was on the floor, was being ...

The Coroner for Dorset is seeking the assistance of the public to find the next of kin of a woman who died in Weymouth. Rachael Jones, who was 42 years old, died at her home address in Lennox Street on Thursday 5 May 2022. Her death is not being treated as suspicious and no police investigation is ...

Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance is holding its ever-popular Coast to Coast (C2C) Cycle Challenge on Sunday 15th May 2022 and is hoping that the public will come out in support of those taking part. The event, which is not a race, involves cycling through some of Dorset and Somerset’s most beautiful countryside. With a mixture ...

Dorset HealthCare has a new face in charge, after making Dawn Dawson its Acting Chief Executive. Dawn, the Trust’s Director of Nursing, Therapies and Quality, has taken over the reins from Eugine Yafele, who has left to take up a new role in Bristol after more than three years at the helm. The Trust – which provides ...

Two direct trains per hour will once again run between Weymouth and London Waterloo, following the introduction of South Western Railway’s (SWR) new timetable on Sunday 15th May. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic one train per hour has run on the route to reflect the reduced number of people travelling by rail, but SWR ...

Officers investigating an assault in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward. A man and woman were walking with their dog in Abbotsbury Road at around 8.15pm on Sunday 1 May 2022 when they became involved in a verbal exchange with two female teenagers. A short time later, the couple were ...

A Dorchester-born actor is returning to his hometown next week for a special screening of his latest movie – dubbed by one newspaper ‘the film Putin doesn’t want you to see’. Former Thomas Hardye School pupil Tom Prior, who has previously appeared in films including Kingsman: The Secret Service and Oscar-nominated The Theory of Everything, is ...

Officers from Weymouth & Portland Police and a crew from South Western Ambulance have been dealing with a road traffic collision on the A354 at Fortuneswell, Portland. The road was closed for a number of hours whilst emergency services dealt with the situation, which involved two cars around the Hambro Road area. The incident occurred shortly after ...

Dorset Police is pledging its commitment to involve and communicate with residents to bolster its neighbourhood approach to policing. The Force has renewed its local plans under the Neighbourhood Engagement Commitment (NEC) initiative so communities can communicate as effectively as possible with their local neighbourhood team. The NEC establishes minimum standards and common objectives that each ...

The Litter Free Dorset Challenge has returned this May. Over the course of the month, 177 Dorset residents will be taking part in litter picking challenges of their choosing, working to clean up their local areas prior to the summer season. This year’s challenge will see people of all ages taking part. 70% of participants have ...

Exeter-based Jurassic Fibre has revealed that two new South West locations on their network roll out have gone live. Residents and businesses in Crediton and Dorchester, now have the opportunity to receive full fibre connectivity, offering internet speeds of up to 950Mbps for homes and 10Gbps for businesses via their Dedicated Internet Access product. And the ...

A man who violently assaulted a woman at an address in Weymouth has been jailed. Saul Samuel Randall, aged 23 and of Weymouth, was sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday 22 April 2022 to seven years in prison for offences of inflicting grievous bodily harm, affray and assault by beating as well as a charge ...

Two teenagers are due to appear in court in connection with a reported robbery in Weymouth. Dorset Police received a call at 4.43am on Wednesday 27 April 2022 relating to an alleged robbery at the junction of Knightsdale Road and Newstead Road, near to The Marsh playing fields. The victim, a man aged in his 20s, ...

Dorset Council report that they will be working with local partners and contractors on the urgent placement of rock protection around the southernmost point of the Chesil Cove Seawall, at Chiswell in Portland, during May 2022. Following a recent assessment, it was discovered that the wall in this area requires urgent attention. The planned rock protection ...