In response to the crisis arising from the extensive and persistent flooding on the Somerset Levels this winter, Somerset Community Foundation is accepting donations to relieve the immediate hardship individuals, families and communities are facing and support their recovery over the coming weeks and months. Support is already being distributed,but we need to ensure we do everything possible to alleviate the immediate crisis and support a swift recovery. Full Story: Read More
Mendip pledges to take a tough stance on smoking
Mendip District Council has underlined its commitment to protect local communities from the harm caused by smoking by signing up to the Local Government Declaration on Tobacco Control. The declaration, which has been signed by many other local councils throughout the country, recognises the enormous damage smoking does to communities and pledges that the council will work alongside other local authorities to tackle smoking through the work of the Somerset Health and Wellbeing Board. Full Story: Read More
Informed comment on the flooding on the Somerset levels
It is all very well for Chris Smith, Chairman of the Environment Agency, to prattle on about “difficult choices”, and to tell us that “more must be done to protect the Somerset Levels”. But the flooding crisis over which he is presiding is one which he, at the behest of the EU, has deliberately allowed to happen. Allowing the flooding of the Levels was a matter of EU policy, introduced by a 2007 Directive and consciously adopted by the Environment Agency in 2008, which then sought to increase the frequency of flooding in the area. Full Story: Read More