Forty leading charities, organisations and academics have written to the House of Lords calling on them to seize their once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the lives of thousands of vulnerable young people this week, as they discuss an amendment to the Children and Families Bill that would allow care leavers in England to stay with their foster families to the age of 21. Currently most young people are forced to leave their foster homes at the age of 17, unless they are one of the lucky ones supported by their local authority or their foster carer can fund them to stay out of their...
If you have a family member or care for someone who makes involuntary noise, is likely to talk a lot, needs to move around, or gets disturbed by sudden loud noises you may think that going to the theatre isn’t for you. After all, theatres are usually seen as places where you need to keep quiet and sit still during a performance. A Relaxed Performance may be the answer, making it possible for you to have an enjoyable trip to the theatre without fear that other audience members will complain and make the experience potentially awkward and stressful.
Action for Blind People has developed The Living with Sight Loss (LWSL) course for people who are newly diagnosed, or anyone coming to terms, with sight loss. It aims to provide practical knowledge, information and support whilst empowering visually impaired people to gain confidence and independence.
The courses provide an opportunity to explore a range of different subjects from volunteering and peer support to emotional wellbeing and nutrition. They also provide an opportunity to meet professionals from a range of services such as Guide Dogs, RNIB, Social Services and the NHS to...
Dartmoor National Park Authority is asking the Government to think again about its proposals to allow farm buildings to be converted to housing, schools or nurseries without the need for planning permission.
The Government is consulting planning authorities across England on its proposals to allow the conversion or demolition of farm buildings to create up to three houses or a state school or nursery without planning permission.
It follows recent changes which already allow farm buildings to be converted into shops or offices, and for offices to be turned into homes,...
Keen cyclists from chartered accountants Francis Clark took to their bikes to raise money for charity by riding a relay across Devon and Cornwall.
Three teams made up of staff from the Exeter, Plymouth, Taunton, Torquay and Truro offices of the South West leading accountancy firm Francis Clark completed a gruelling relay cycling from Truro to Exeter to raise a total of £1,475 for four different charities.
The annual Inter-oOffice relay started from the Truro office where employees Darren Jasper, Adam Keogh, Richard Wadman, Nick Tippett and James West boarded bikes to cycle...
Online video is now six times more effective than print or online marketing and is proving to be a powerful marketing tool for many businesses, including those based in Exeter.
Featuring video content on a business website is now seen as a "must-have" say leading networking experts Cisco. They expect video to account for 57 per cent of internet traffic by 2015, nearly four times as much as regular web browsing and email.
Seventy-six per cent of businesses using the web to market their services plan to add a video to their sites, making it a higher priority than Facebook,...
Come and celebrate our gorgeous English apples at an Apple Festival taking place in the quaint farming village of Stockleigh Pomeroy.
The Romans first brought the apple to the UK and thanks to them there are now over 1,200 native apples for eating, cooking, as well as for cider making and crab apples for pickling. They have enchanting names such as: Acklam Russets, Barnack Beauty, Nutmeg Pippin, Knobby Russet… and many more.
The Apple Festival will be a great day out for all the family. Activities on the day include:
One of the biologists whose work on cell systems won him the Nobel prize for Medicine thought he was the victim of a practical joke when first hearing the news. German-born Professor Thomas Sὔdhof, aged 57, said: “I thought at first it was a joke. I have lots of friends who might play these kinds of tricks.” Sὔdhof along with Randy Schekman, 64, and James Rothman, 62, won a share of the 8m Swedish Kroner prize (£776,000) for their work into the internal ‘cargo delivery’ in cells. The scientists worked independently at separate institutions on how ‘vesicles’, bubbles of fat, operate in...
The number of homes sold in the South West is at the highest level since February 2008 as the housing market recovery continues to gather pace, says the September RICS Residential Market Survey.
The average amount of properties sold per chartered surveyor in the three months to September reached 19*. Although still historically low, this figure is higher than the UK as a whole and demonstrates the extent to which the market is now picking up in the region.
In tandem with increasing numbers of sales, prices continued to grow in the South West with 46 percent more respondents...
