News Archive

The Thomas Hardye School is celebrating another outstanding set of A Levels results. The overall pass rate was 99% with over one quarter of passes at grade A or A* – a remarkable achievement in a comprehensive school. The results confirm Thomas Hardye’s position as a leading provider of post-16 education with a national reputation. Most ...

Two local communities are just one step away from having approved neighbourhood plans for their area. Final versions of the Broadwindsor Neighbourhood Plan and Milborne St Andrew Neighbourhood Plan were submitted to Dorset Council for examination and referendums were held. Residents voted on whether to accept or reject the plans on 8 August 2019. In both ...

The Pavilion in the Park, the Great Field in Poundbury, has now received planning approval from Dorset Council. It is expected that building will start in the Spring of 2020. A revised plan was submitted earlier this year and, despite several objections, approval has been given. The building is set to hold a café and community space. The ...

A Bridport women who went missing in the early hours of this morning had been found. The 46-year-old was last seen at her home in Court Orchard Road at 12.15am on Thursday 15 August 2019 when she went to bed. She was reported missing at 3.07am when it was discovered she was no longer there. Following a ...

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is reminding people of the fire risks of having oxygen therapy systems in the home. Oxygen therapy is used by people with severe respiratory conditions, to provide air that contains more oxygen than normal. Specialist equipment – which can include cylinders and portable units – is used to pipe ...

Officers investigating an assault on a man in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses to come forward. At 1.37am on Saturday 10 August 2019 officers were called to Maiden Street by the ambulance service after a man was found unconscious in the road following an assault. The victim, a local 18-year-old man, was taken to Dorset County Hospital ...

Statistics show that one smoke alarm may not be enough to provide you with the best chance of escaping a fire in the home. Most people know that working smoke alarms save lives. They provide the vital early warning that allows for a safe escape a tragedy avoided. But, despite the majority of homes (95 per ...

Brewery Square played host to Tomorrow’s Museum for Dorset at the outset of its tour around the county while its High Street premises is undergoing renovation works. Tomorrow’s Museum for Dorset arrived at the Square on October 19 2018, until June 1 2019, and welcomed almost 10,000 visitors during its eight month tenure. With a year ...

Domestic abuse victims in Dorset will receive an enhanced service after an independent charity was awarded a major contract to support the county’s victims of crime. The Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset has recommissioned Victim Support to run the service for another three years. The £1.6m contract, which starts on October 1, means ...

Weldmar Hospicecare launch ‘Make A Will Month’, offering a free Will writing service during October. Weldmar Hospicecare has launched their first ‘Make A Will Month’, taking place this October, where local people can take advantage of a free Will writing service with a number of local solicitors. It’s estimated that just over half of all adults in ...

With just less than a month to go until this year’s Dorset County Show, the organiser has unveiled the new main ring attraction for 2019. Dorchester Agricultural Society has revealed that for the first time this year, the main ring will host Jason Smyth, ex-world championship motocross rider, and his Adrenaline Tour which includes a performance ...

Fire crews from across the area were called to a grain dryer fire. Crews from Dorchester, Weymouth and Yeovil attended the incident this morning near to Piddlehinton. The fire was extinguished using 2 hose reel jets. There were no reports of injuries. This item was supplied by the Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service.

The site is part of the Join Our Dorset initiative, which sees the local NHS Trusts and councils working together to attract new recruits to Health and Social Care. The aim of the new microsite is to bring together all the information potential employees would need when searching for a new job, and give them a ...

Officers are appealing for the public’s help after dangerous drugs were stolen from a vet practice in Weymouth – almost three weeks after an identical break-in. At 2.24am today (Thursday 8 August 2019) Dorset Police was called to reports of a suspicious man in the garden of an address in Dorchester Road. Officers attended and discovered that ...

Brewery Square celebrates birthday with operatic evening! Brewery Square hosted its annual birthday celebrations on Wednesday, August 7, featuring The String Quartet and The Magic of Opera. Guests enjoyed complimentary canapes, prosecco and Pimms, as well as gin from Morrish & Banham’s Still On The Move mobile gin bar, providing its own blend of gin distilled on ...

The Coroner for Dorset is seeking the assistance of the public to find the next of kin of a man who died in Weymouth. Derek William Miles, who was 77 years old, died at his home in The Maltings on Saturday 3 August 2019. His death is not suspicious and no police investigation is needed into his ...

Dorset County Hospital are on the lookout for some more volunteers to join the Friends of DCH team. The Friends of Dorset County Hospital were founded in 1956 to provide comfort and help to patients at the old DCH, their relatives and friends. They also provide a service to patients and visitors, visiting the wards twice ...

If you are looking for something exciting and fun to do during the holidays that will suit all ages and you don’t want to break the bank then there are 2 great FREE music events taking place at Maumbury Rings in Dorchester which will be right up your street! ► The first is the Anonymous Festival, ...

Earlier this morning (Tuesday) a crew from Dorchester fire station were mobilised to an overhead power-line sparking over a field of straw stubble in Cerne Abbas. This was beginning to cause multiple seats of fire surrounding the power-line. Crews dealt with the fires from a safe distance until the lines were isolated by the power company and ...

Dorset Police releases results of 2019 firearms and ammunition surrender. 82 items were handed in to Dorset Police during the firearms and ammunition surrender which ran from 20 July – 4 August this year. The national campaign, instigated by the National Ballistics Intelligence Service (NABIS), was supported by other forces around the country, including Devon & Cornwall ...

Detectives investigating the death of a man on Portland say a witness has come forward following an appeal. Officers were called to High Street, Fortuneswell, at 5.30am yesterday, Sunday 4 August, following a request from the ambulance service for assistance as they treated a man with a head injury. Sadly, the man – aged in his 50s ...

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service is urging builders and contractors to ensure that their scaffolding is secure, following a recent incident. Firefighters were called when youths were seen on a roof in Dorset. Fortunately no rescue was required on this occasion. Group Manager Katie Cornhill said: “When we inspected the area, we established that access ...

Thousands of revellers gather for Music By The Lake with Weldmar Hospicecare at Kingston Maurward. Almost five thousand local people visited Kingston Maurward across the weekend for the first ‘Music By The Lake’ event, which has raised thousands of pounds for Weldmar Hospicecare. Organised jointly by Weldmar and Kingston Maurward, packed audiences enjoyed live music from Elton ...

Everyone is invited to Brewery Square’s birthday celebrations, taking place on Wednesday, August 7 at the £100 million development. An evening of opera and open-air theatre will from 5.30pm, and the schedule is as follows: • 5.30pm – enjoy the sounds of The String Quartet, and canapes and prosecco are available to purchase from Morris & Banham ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses or anyone with relevant dashcam footage to come forward following a fail-to-stop collision in Weymouth. At approximately 6.35am on Wednesday 24 July 2019 it was reported that a cyclist was involved in a collision with a red Honda Civic near to the Russell Hotel on The Esplanade. The cyclist, a local ...

Local school children from The Prince of Wales School have fought off competition from 42,000 other children to be winners in the 2019 Better Energy School Awards! The school’s entries ‘Together We Can Change The World’ and ‘What Shall We Do With All This Plastic?’ were jointly declared the Regional Winner in the ‘Totally Creative’ category ...

Don’t miss out on having your say on changes to dementia services. There’s just two weeks left to have your say on NHS Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group’s (CCG) review of the dementia pathway, which sets out proposed changes to improve services from the point of diagnosis to end of life care. Dr Paul French, CCG lead for ...

Four new recruits have joined Superfast Dorset’s army of Digital Champions. The latest volunteers mean Dorset’s councils can offer help with computers, tablets, smartphones and getting online at even more locations across the county. David Jones has over 30 years’ experience in IT and will be helping people at Charmouth library, near Lyme Regis. He said: “I ran ...

The roadside litter campaign was launched in Dorset last year aimed at people who throw their rubbish out of car windows. ‘Don’t be a TOS53R’ was designed to send a hard-hitting message to drivers and their passengers that our roads are not a network of litter bins – and that the owner of a vehicle ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses to come forward following an attempted burglary at a mobile phone repair shop in Dorchester. At approximately 4.30pm on Tuesday 23 July 2019 a staff member was serving a customer in Fix-It on South Street when they heard a noise coming from the stairs at the back of the shop. The staff ...

The Prince of Wales School in Dorchester said farewell to one of its longest serving Teaching Assistants with a very special assembly. Mrs Julie Webb has been a Senior Teaching Assistant at The Prince of Wales School in Maiden Castle Road, Dorchester for over twenty years. Julie, who is known for her artistic and culinary skills and ...

Home Start West Dorset is a charity working with families with a child under five, who are in need of practical help and emotional support. Helen Horsley, Manager of Home-Start West Dorset said “This year we are celebrating 10 years of helping local families, without volunteers we could not offer the service we do and make ...

A man has been sentenced after admitting causing a serious injury collision on the A354 Weymouth Relief Road. Ben Mykhal Holmes, 31 and of Lytton Road, Bournemouth, was sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday 19 July 2019 after admitting careless driving. He was disqualified from driving for two years, handed a £650 fine and told he ...

A retired consultant from Dorset County Hospital has published a book recording the development of children’s medical services over the past half-century. Richard Purvis, 78, and originally from East Lothian in Scotland, worked at Dorset County Hospital as a Consultant Paediatrician for 40 years, starting in 1973. Full of fantastic photos and anecdotes, A History of Dorchester ...

Temperatures are set to hit up to 29c in Dorchester today (Tuesday) with overnight lows not set to fall below 18c. Dorset is currently at Level 2 on the Met Office Heat-health watch (issued at 0845). This is triggered as soon as the risk is 60% or above for threshold temperatures being reached in one or ...

Officers investigating the theft of a tractor from a farm near Blandford are appealing for anyone with information to come forward. The tractor was taken from a barn at a farm in the Spetisbury area in the early hours of Saturday 20 July 2019. The light blue tractor is a distinctive model, an 8210 Generation 3 ...

A report being presented to Dorset Council Cabinet on 30 July outlines its financial position and forecasts at the end of the first quarter of the financial year. Significant savings have been achieved over recent months as a result of Local Government Reorganisation. Despite this, the council is currently forecasting an overspend for this financial year ...

Last week Dorset council voted to support Safe Passage (Dorset), provided that the government fully funds the programme. Safe passage is calling upon every local authority across the country to commit to accepting a minimum of three unaccompanied or vulnerable refugee children per year every year for the next ten years. These will be children from ...

Officers are issuing an urgent warning to the public after offenders gained access to a veterinary practice in Weymouth and stole a quantity of dangerous drugs. At 8.27am today, Friday 19 July 2019, Dorset Police was called to reports of a burglary at Moorcroft Veterinary Practice in Dorchester Road. A cabinet that securely housed the practice’s dangerous ...

Officers investigating a burglary at a farm in West Dorset are appealing for anyone with information to come forward. The burglary occurred on the night of Wednesday 17 July 2019, sometime after 8.45pm at a farm in the Maiden Newton area. It was discovered this morning, Thursday 18 July 2019, that a green Honda quad bike has ...

This Saturday 20th July sees the Open Day at the Dorset Police, Winfrith, HQ. From 11am – 4pm we will be opening up Dorset Police HQ (DT2 8DZ) to the public! Come along and meet: Dog unit | Drone unit | Traffic unit | Safety camera team | Neighbourhood policing team | Firearms unit | ...

Local people are being given the chance to shape health and wellbeing services in Dorset. Local councils and NHS services are working together on a shared plan which sets out health and wellbeing priorities over the next few years. The plan will look at a variety of things that affect the health and wellbeing of residents ...

Harry Burton’s evocative photographs of the discovery of The Tomb of Tutankhamun are currently on show at The Tutankhamun Exhibition in Dorchester. Tutankhamun’s Photographer is a special mini exhibition featuring a selection of gravure prints originally used in the book of an exhibition of Harry Burton’s famous photographs held in Chicago and New York. The ...

A Dorset sheep farmer has been prosecuted and fined after failing to adequately care for her animals and leaving dead sheep on her land. On 15 July 2019, at Weymouth Magistrates’ Court, Karen Harper (aged 51) of Charlton Marshall, near Blandford, Dorset, was today sentenced with a Community Order to carry out 180 hours of unpaid ...

Hundreds of people flocked to Dorset County Hospital in the weekend’s sunshine to enjoy its first Summer Spectacular. The event, held on Saturday 6 July, has been hailed an overwhelming success, raising more than £2,500 for the hospital’s Chemotherapy Appeal, and other good causes. The Grand Raffle alone raised £1,000 for the appeal. Deputy Mayor of Dorchester, David ...

Enforcement Officers from the Dorset Waste Partnership (DWP) recently worked with Dorset Council’s Legal Services and the police to bring a fly-tipper to justice. Dominic Adrian Woods (31, from Weymouth) was found guilty of fly-tipping in Whitcombe by Weymouth Magistrates Court on the 3 July 2019 following a trial. Woods had already pleaded guilty to ...

Dorset Highways will be returning to Goulds Hill, between Martinstown and Upwey, next week. Two weeks work was completed earlier this month to rebuild and strengthen the edges of the carriageway and resurface a 1800m stretch of road. Tests of the surface material have shown that it is unlikely to perform as expected and needs to be ...

At approximately 4:35pm today (Thursday) two pumps from Dorchester and one pump from Weymouth were called to reports of a large fire in the Maiden Newton area. Upon arrival the crews found a caravan well alight involving two 7 kilo butane cylinders with a further cylinder nearby but uninvolved. Crews quickly got to work fighting the fire ...

SOUTH WESTERN AMBULANCE SERVICE TO END ITS CONTRACT FOR URGENT CARE SERVICES IN DORSET South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SWASFT) has announced it will be withdrawing from its contract to provide urgent care services across Dorset – including the NHS 111 service. The contract will be handed back to the local health partnership, which ...

Officers investigating a fail-to-stop collision near Dorchester are appealing for witnesses to come forward. At around 10.45pm on Wednesday 3 July 2019 a local woman aged in her 20s was driving her Honda Jazz in the outside lane along the westbound carriageway of the A35 Puddletown bypass near to Troy Town when a vehicle towing a ...

Officers investigating a fail-to-stop collision in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses to come forward. At around 3.30pm on Thursday 27 June 2019 a nine-year-old local girl was cycling along Bryants Lane when she was struck by a white car, causing her to fall from her bicycle. The matter was reported to Dorset Police at 8.15pm. The girl ...

Officers are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward following a burglary at a construction site near Dorchester. A report was received at 6.55am yesterday, Monday 8 July 2019, about a burglary at a construction site at Silverlake in Warmwell. Sometime over the weekend offenders entered the site and stole a large quantity of ...

Are you the next Mary Berry or Prue Leath? If so Taylors Animal Centre on the Kingston Maurward Estate would love to hear from you. This unique charity, run by RSPCA West Dorset, is celebrating a very special birthday this year. It’s been 15 years since the centre opened and at our popular, annual open day ...

Dorset Art Market will return to the Avenue Stadium in Dorchester on Saturday 27th July for the penultimate summer market this year. The market organisers said “This promises to be our biggest and best market yet, with more artists and an exciting range of works on sale. Feedback on the previous markets has been excellent, with ...

A Dorchester school is celebrating after securing a £1,000 grant from the One-Stop’s ‘Carriers for Causes’ scheme. The money will be used to make The Prince of Wales School’s Community Wildlife Area accessible for children with disabilities. Headteacher at The Prince of Wales School, Mr Gary Spracklen said, “the funding will help the school to upgrade ...

Officers investigating a fail-to-stop road traffic collision in Weymouth are appealing for witnesses or anyone with information to come forward. The incident occurred at around 5.30pm on Thursday 27 June 2019 outside of the bus depot on Commercial Road in Weymouth. A female pedestrian was involved in a collision with a car, described as being possibly ...

This morning at 4.21am the Service was alerted to a fire in an industrial unit on Dreadnought Trading Estate, Bridport. Initially crews from the town responded to this incident but they quickly requested support and there are currently 15 fire engines and support vehicles (approx. 75 firefighters) dealing with this incident. Fire crews from both ...

Dorset Council has brought together its new Climate Change Executive Advisory Panel for the first time. The panel was established following the declaration of a climate change emergency at Dorset Council back in May. It will work in partnership with organisations across Dorset to develop its climate emergency plan for Dorset. With a cross-party membership of elected ...

Officers are calling on the public to help them find a meerkat that has gone missing following a burglary near Dorchester. The meerkat is a two-year-old female and was being cared for at an address just outside the grounds of Kingston Maurward College when someone broke into the property between 4pm and 11.30pm on Tuesday 2 ...

Weldmar Hospicecare forecasts a significant increase in demand for its services by patients and families across Dorset The charity provides high quality care, love and support to terminally ill people during the last year of their lives, and to their loved ones. This care is provided completely free of charge in the comfort of patients own ...