Local News

Devon County Council is to stop providing direct residential care for older people in most of its homes so it can help more elderly people live independently at home or in supported accommodation, and in other residential homes.

Half of the county’s day centres will close with the rest being retained, supporting the most vulnerable and people with disabilities.

Devon already buys 90 per cent of the residential home places it needs from the independent and private sectors.

But it spends nearly 30 per cent of its £70 million residential care budget on providing places...

A prime-time French TV show is filming an historic hard hat diver at Living Coasts in Torquay on Saturday.

Ray Ives, from Plymouth, is well-known in diving circles. The retired commercial diver, aged 77, previously went diving with the penguins to mark Living Coasts’ tenth birthday in 2013.

He will be using an old diving suit dating from the 1900s and a heavy brass helmet. Hand-driven pumps will feed air to him down a hose. He will clean the underwater viewing windows and hopefully interact with the penguins.

Thalassa is one of the long-running and most popular...

Devon County Council is carrying out £7 million of repairs on roads damaged during the wettest winter on record.

The County Council programme of work is underway on almost 250 repair schemes, restoring nearly 40 miles (63km) of roads across the county.

Devon received £7 million of Severe Weather Recovery funding to help with much needed road repairs. This was a share of £183.5 million made available by the Department for Transport in response to the impact of the severe winter weather

Since the grant allocation was announced earlier this year, Devon’s highways teams...

Cyclists across Devon are encouraging others to join them by taking to two wheels during Bike Week this week.

Bike Week is the biggest cycling event in the UK, and last year over half a million people nationwide were encouraged to join in events and rethink their everyday journeys.

During the week, which runs until Sunday (June 22) the Travel Devon Roadshow will be visiting the Magnolia Centre in Exmouth today (Monday) 16 June and Newton Abbot Town Centre on Friday 20 June, where the team will have cycling information on initiatives such as adult cycle confidence sessions...