FOR JUST six hours visitors will be allowed to walk across the mosaic floors of Dorchester’s Roman Town House. The ancient tesselated pavements of the best preserved Roman Town house in Britain can normally only be seen through the windows of a modern protective structure. But this August – between 2 and 4pm on Wednesdays [...]

VETERAN theatre critic Marion Cox found herself at the receiving end of comedian Gina Yashere’s wit when she spotted her making notes during Dorchester Festival’s comedy night. Grabbing the notes, the keen-eyed comic demanded: “Why are you writing down my jokes – are you a standup? What is your name?” “I’m a theatre reviewer,” Mrs [...]

WEST Dorset District Council’s controversial plans for a new HQ in Dorchester have gone out to tender. The council today published a notice inviting construction companies to bid for the job of building a new 4-storey office block, library and adult education centre on the Charles Street site in Dorchester town centre. The value of [...]

FORTY-FIVE jobs will be created in Dorchester if planning permission is given for a new 76-bed budget hotel instead of flats. The developers of Brewery Square were planning quite soon to start building a block of 48 apartments above shops and a basement car park. But an offer came in for the space that was [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

A PUBLIC meeting about West Dorset District Council’s controversial plans to spend £10 million on a new Dorchester HQ is to be addressed by the former leader of Salisbury District Council. Liberal Democrat councillor Paul Sample has already written on this site about his “White Elephant” experiences in Wiltshire and what he sees as the [...]

  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 [...]

DORCHESTER’S Roman Town House will be lit up by a moving image projection that tells its unique story for hearing-impaired people. Dorset County Council is working with Bridport-based arts company PVA MediaLab to appoint an artist-in-residence for the project, called ‘Domus’, using an award of £5,000 from the Big Lottery Fund. The artist will work [...]