News in Sidmouth

The A3052 at Four Elms Hill near Sidmouth is partially closed.

This is due to a crash involving a motorcyclist near Four Elms Fruit Farm.

Plans for a new drive-thru McDonalds as part of a massive new service station right next to the A30 are once again set for approval – despite planning officers slamming the proposed design.

The fast food giant hopes to open as part of a scheme that would also see a roadside service and petrol station built for the site at Straightway Head Junction, next to the Daisymount roundabout, just outside Ottery St Mary.

Can a play about a gay early twentieth century fisheries pioneer, who died in the Spanish flu epidemic, resonate in these times of the Covid-19 virus?

Sidmouth Sea Fest believes it can.

The owner of a Sidmouth restaurant has decided to use his decades of fine dining experience to offer Sidmouth residents 'something different for dinner'.

Matthew Weaver of Sidmouth's Fort Restaurant and Cafe is now taking orders for his new Friday Evening Fine Dining Take Away Experience.

I live in an extraordinary ordinary community, just like yours. Up and down the country, every hamlet, village, street, borough, estate and block has rallied around its most vulnerable.

This pandemic has made us look more inwards, has forced us to reexamine our relationships with neighbours. The familiar faces over the garden fence or front gate, once only nodding acquaintances, are now our comfort and support.

An online questionnaire put together by the Vision Group for Sidmouth and the town council's environment committee has shown how people have not only managed during lock down, but also how we all might be able to manage – and perhaps manage better – once lock down is eventually over.

Over 180 people, both residents and businesses, responded to the set of questions over the course of a week at beginning of May.

A new interactive list gives, for the first time, the number of local coronavirus cases by area.

People in Sidmouth can now see the total number of cases reported in the East Devon area.

A local supermarket has donated a pallet of food to the Sid Valley Food Bank to help it support the more than 170 people relying on it during the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent UK lock down.

Sidmouth's Lidl this week donated a pallet of Mexican food kits which the food bank will give out to recipients along side the usual staples.

Located in the heart of what would normally be a buzzing seaside town on the brink of high season; Sidmouth's The White Horse Cafe is reopening its doors today (7 May).

The restaurant, which has been shut for the past seven weeks due to the Covid-19 crisis, is hoping that by offering a takeaway service customers can enjoy their food safely whilst bringing in some much-needed business.

Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce is pushing for 'a level playing field' for local businesses to help them compete with online business which do not pay business rates.

The chamber made the comments after the Government announced yesterday that it has postponed a revaluation of business rates until 2022, 'to ensure businesses have more certainty during this difficult time'.