Local News

South West Water has been ordered to pay £205,000 in fines and costs for discharging sewage into the Fal estuary in Cornwall. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.

On 26 August 2013 untreated sewage overflowed from the water company’s Newham sewage treatment works near Truro into the Fal, an internationally important shellfishery, Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

The illegal spill occurred after a piece of redundant grating fell and partially blocked an inlet at the works, causing sewage to back up and overflow...

The creation of a brand new natural recreational area and haven for wildlife in Teignbridge has begun, after the first spade was put in the ground on a £250k project to create the new Dawlish Countryside Park.

Last year, on Thursday 24th November 2016, Teignbridge Planning Committee approved plans for the creation of a new Countryside Park in Dawlish. The 26.4 hectare (65 acre) site (around the size of 26 rugby pitches) was purchased with money from developers, known as Section 106 payments and Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), on new developments across three council areas of...

The winter habits of Britain’s basking sharks have been revealed for the first time.

Scientists from the University of Exeter have discovered some spend their winters off Portugal and North Africa, some head to the Bay of Biscay and others choose a staycation around the UK and Ireland.

Little was known about basking sharks’ winter behaviour as they spend little time at the surface and are often far from land, so the researchers used cutting-edge satellite tracking to carry out the most detailed ever study of their migrations in the north-east Atlantic.

It was once...

An ‘off-the-cuff’ farmland bird survey in East Devon last week suggested how habitat improvements can help some of our most threatened birds. Devon Wildlife Trust land advisor David Rolls was visiting three farms in the Otter catchment in one day. As it was the beginning of the Big Farmland Bird Count, organized each February by the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust, David decided to do a short survey on each land-holding. All three sites contain areas of wetland that are being improved for wildlife through DWT’s Upstream Thinking work, funded by South West Water. The 30-minute survey...