A RESPECTED travel writer has protested to West Dorset District Council about planners’ refusal to allow the Downhouse Café at Eype to continue. Brian Jackman has travelled the world for 40 years and one of his favourite haunts is Nikki and Dean Exton’s café on National Trust farmland at Higher Eype. Mr Jackman said: “I find it [...]

THE BEST SITE around Bridport for a new household recycling centre and waste transfer station is Broomhills, just off the A35. So concludes the final stage of an independent review of seven possible locations, published this week by Dorset County Council. THE MUNICIPAL SEVEN From west to east:  Miles Cross 1, Miles Cross 2, Eype Junction, Broomhills [...]

PHOTOGRAPHS and stories from along the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and East Devon are being sought to help explain the past and perhaps shape the future. The last Labour Government gave Dorset and Devon county councils, plus numerous partners, £376,500 to explore how seaside communities might adapt to meet the challenges of coastal change. Dorset [...]

SO, in the end, after flocking in at the rate of two a minute, more than 400 people went to  Bridport Town Hall to discuss the seven sites short-listed for a new waste management centre in the Bridport area. Dorset County Council’s exhibition about the sites answered some urgent questions, but raised others. THE MUNICIPAL [...]

HUNDREDS of people from the Bridport area have been shunning the hot weather in favour of such hot topics as vermin, odour, traffic, planning context, and nature conservation. Yes, Dorset County Council’s exhibition about possible sites for the future location of Bridport’s waste management facility has been pulling in the crowds. The show in Bridport Town Hall attracted about 230 people [...]

Editor’s Note: Steve Spear is a member of the pressure group NOWTS, formed in Bradpole to campaign against Dorset County Council’s idea of putting a Waste Transfer Station (WTS) at Gore Cross. What follows below is a lightly edited version of a piece issued for general distribution, and it makes some interesting points, particularly about Lilac Farm, previously written about [...]

A FORMER dairy farm could become a new household recycling centre and waste transfer station for the Bridport area. Lilac Farm, which lies just east of Bridport off the A35, is to be evaluated in depth by Dorset County Council’s independent planning consultants, Nicholas Pearson Associates. The county council has spent years – and hundreds of thousands of [...]

A SHORT film for the 2010 General Election campaign in West Dorset has been made by David Partridge of the Bridport Peace and Justice Group, and the Eype-based film-maker Dave Young, whose recent film about the Electric Palace in Bridport was popular on The Guardian website. Political Masterpiece stars Mr Partridge – and well, you [...]

DORSET’s role in the run-up to D-Day will be remembered when members of the World War Two Living History Association encamp near Bridport at the end of May. It’s 66 years since the US 1st Infantry Division left Dorset to invade Europe and defeat Hitler. The event at The Hyde in Walditch has two aims: to honour [...]

A NEW review of possible sites for a Bridport waste transfer station has put “a big nail in the coffin” of Dorset County Council’s controversial choice of Gore Cross.  Top Tory councillor Ronald Coatsworth, who is chairman of West Dorset District Council and county councillor for the Bride Valley, said DCC should now change its [...]