Local News

A five-year-old girl from Exeter and two ten-year-old girls from Tavistock have won the top prizes in this year’s art and writing competitions held by the Devon branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE Devon).

The charity received the highest ever number of entries from primary schools in Devon, many of whom took part for the first time, including several in Exeter and Plymouth.

After careful deliberation, the top prize in the Key Stage 1 category of the art competition went to 5-year-old Florence Farnell from Bowhill Primary School in Exeter. Her charming...

July looks set to be ‘hectic hedgehog’ month for the RSPCA after calls about the prickly creatures peaked during this time last year.

From a total of 10,644 calls about hedgehogs made to the RSPCA’s national helpline throughout 2018, the number of calls spiked in July at 1867. Calls from the South West region1 totalled 10002 in 2018, 156 of which were made in July.

Across 2018, an average of 5.7 hedgehogs per day were admitted to one of the charity’s four specialist wildlife centres, but in the peak month of July, this rose to an average of 12.4 per day or one every two...

Even though the summer season is only just underway, East Devon District Council has already received many compliments about Queen’s Drive Space’s events in Exmouth, with customer comments ranging from: “What a fantastic space”, “Fantastic facilities, lovely food! Good job guys!” to “Great events and great food!”

A programme of three Royal Opera outdoor screenings, which took place in June and early July, has already proved a hit with audiences. Almost 800 people enjoyed watching top quality performances by the Royal Ballet of Romeo and Juliet, as well as the Royal Opera’s Carmen...

What is the natural world worth? Can you put a price on birdsong?

These are among the questions to be addressed by a new project at the University of Exeter, which aims to discover how economics can help protect the environment.

Economics and conservation are often seen as unrelated, but the project will try to place an economic value on biodiversity so it can be taken into account and become part of individual, corporate and governmental decision making.

Dragon Capital and the University have together committed £1.6m over the next five years, and a newly appointed...