News in Shepton Mallet

Voneus, the rural broadband specialist, has announced that its superfast broadband services – offering speeds of 30Mbps to 50Mbps – are now available to homes and businesses in Wanstrow, with services to Batcombe going live at the end of June.

Residents signing up for the service will get their installation and broadband router for free, while NHS workers and those signing up for a two-year contract will also receive the first three months of their service free-of-charge.

The B3136 Bath Road, in Shepton Mallet, is set to be closed next week to enable a structural examination to take place of the viaduct.

The road is scheduled to be closed on Tuesday (June 23) between 8am and 5pm from the junction with Cowl Street to the junction with Windsor Hill Lane.

Following consultations with businesses, Shepton Mallet Town Council has decided against the temporary pedestrianisation of the High Street.

As Shepton Mallet Nub News reported last week, the town council was considering the plan to aid social distancing as shops reopen following the coronavirus lockdown.

Mendip District Council is supporting stallholders in Shepton Mallet with a rent-free offer this summer in a bid to boost businesses and build back confidence in our high streets.

All those operating from a Mendip-managed market will trade for free throughout June and July. The decision will then be reviewed on a month-by-month basis, for up to six months.

A total of 19 schools in Somerset, including ones in Shepton Mallet and Evercreech, could have new speed limits outside their grounds by the end of the summer.

Somerset County Council pledged in its February budget that all schools in the county would have advisory 20mph speed limits in force outside them by 2022.

Mendip District Council keeping free parking at its pay and display car parks in Shepton Mallet until August 6.

The move means that the Commercial Road, Great Ostry and Regal Road East car parks remain free to use for a further seven weeks.

A planning application has been submitted to increase the number of travellers' caravan pitches at a site in Emborough.

The application to Mendip District Council for the use of land as a nine-pitch travellers' caravan site at Old Gore Wood, Old Gore Lane, Emborough, has been made by Mr S Essex.

One of the team who helped organise the Black Lives Matter gathering in Shepton Mallet has said the pinning up of offensive posters outside of her family's business has just made her more determined to keep going with the cause.

Deb Rossiter, who lives in Evercreech, found the golliwog posters pinned up outside of the storage business she runs with her husband Joe in Pylle this morning (June 16).

Time to tidy up those tales and perfect those poems that inspiration drove you to write during lockdown, or maybe you need to delve into past writings and dust them off?

The clock is ticking and time is running out. The Wells Festival of Literature's competitions for short stories, a book for children and open poetry are about to close.

A man has come forward following a public appeal to trace someone Avon and Somerset Police officers investigating an incident in Aldi, Shepton Mallet, last month hoped to speak to.

Officers are grateful to him for getting in touch and would like to thank everyone who contacted them with information or shared the appeal.