Local News

Local fundraisers in Exeter have won recognition for reaching the 13,000 milestone that funds a Guide Dog partnership twice in one year. Earlier this year the Exeter & District Fundraising Group funded guide dog Winter to help a person with sight loss, and now they’ve done it again with guide dog Gucci.

As a result of reaching the £13,000 milestone, the group have been able to fund a working partnership between guide dog Gucci and a person with sight loss.

It costs around £57,000 to train and support a guide dog partnership throughout the life of the dog. Guide Dogs...

Tesco will begin providing sunflower lanyards at all of its stores. The move is one of several to promote disability inclusion for customers and colleagues in 2020. Tesco has become a signatory to the Valuable 500 group of companies and pledged to create another 27 Changing Places toilets next year.

The sunflower lanyard acts as a discreet sign that the wearer has a hidden disability and could require additional assistance. Tesco colleagues will be able to offer help such as speaking face-to-face to allow lip reading, packing bags and taking them to the customers' cars or reading...

Christmas party season is well underway at The Volunteer Inn in Ottery St Mary, but this year diners aren’t getting their traditional Christmas crackers.

Instead, landlord and landlady Mike and Jacqui Down have come up with an environmentally friendly alternative; a paper Christmas bag containing a joke, a paper hat, plus some homemade chocolate ‘bark’, all prettily wrapped in tissue paper and personalised.

Mike said: “We feel that Christmas crackers are really wasteful - the majority of the toys are made from plastic and are thrown away almost immediately.

“We...

Castle Drogo will be open for Christmas for the first time since a major conservation project began seven years ago to make the building watertight.

Although the building work now has the end in sight, there is still much work to be done to restore the castle’s grounds and interiors back into the Drewe’s family home, which is likely to continue into 2020. However, the building is now watertight, meaning that Christmas can return to the castle once again.

From Saturday 30 November until Monday 23 December, Castle Drogo will be open and decorated for Christmas, inspired by...