News in Midsomer Norton and Radstock

So many ways you could help out at Midsomer's great local heritage station. Marketing, mugs of tea, helping out at the station shop - even one day can make a big difference.

The team told Nub News like most Volunteer based charities, they rely heavily on a relatively small core of staff to keep operations running, and they are particularly short of volunteers in our Catering & Retail operations, where at present there only having a small (and ageing) group of volunteers.

Liberal Democrats claim only they can chart a positive path through the "perfect storm" threatening Bath and North East Somerset Council.

With just over 14 months until the next local elections the party ramped up the attacks, saying they trust Tories less than snake oil salesmen and dismissing a Labour councillor's criticism as a "rambling set of irrational thoughts".

As the government warned that NHS waiting lists will not start to fall for two years, latest figures reveal that at the end of December 2021, there were 30,751 people on the waiting list at the Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust. Worryingly 1,193 people have already been waiting for more than a year for an appointment.

While Covid has pushed the NHS like never before, on the eve of the outbreak of the pandemic, there were already record high numbers of people on the NHS waiting list in England - a high of 4.4 million patients. Nationally, the standard of 92% of people seen within 18 weeks of a referral has not been met since 2016.

Cancer charity We Hear You (WHY) is once again offering 'WHYoutdoors', a free six-week nature-based therapy for people living with and beyond cancer in Wanstrow, near Frome, and Bath Skyline. The next courses run in Wanstrow from Wednesday 9th March to 13th April and in Bath from Thursday 21st April to 26th May. Sessions run one day per week from 10am to 3pm, in the company of two WHYoutdoors leaders, who are also WHY counsellors.

WHYoutdoors facilitator Barbara Gonzalez says: "WHYoutdoors aims to help participants develop a closer relationship to nature, deepen their own self-awareness and share their experiences with peers making meaningful and supportive connections. "

Cancer charity We Hear You (WHY) said goodbye to Chief Executive Officer Melissa Hillier on 31st January, as she takes up a new role at The Research Institute for the Care of Older People (RICE) in Bath.

Melissa Hillier joined the charity in 2015 and has overseen a significant expansion of the charity's services and staff, as well as a rebranding project that saw Positive Action on Cancer (PAC) become We Hear You (WHY) in 2016.

The people of Midsomer Norton were treated to good weather on Saturday 12th February to celebrate the first wassailing event since 2019.

The fun started Saturday morning with an arts and crafts session for the children to create their own king and Queen crowns. In place of two children being crowned this year all children were made wassail royalty.

In case you missed it, the finalists have been announced in this year's prestigious Somerset Business Awards and they include Bridges of Midsomer Norton.

Judges faced a tough time whittling down a record-breaking number of entries in this year's awards, which are run annually by the Somerset Chamber of Commerce.

Bath and North East Somerset's Faith Foundation has launched a financial appeal to help it stay afloat this year.

The organisation, which promotes and encourages social cohesion and dialogue between religious groups, needs to secure £1,000 for it to cover its costs over the next 12 months.

Personal Injury - The Basics

Over the next four weeks Lauren Martin, from the Personal Injury team at Thatcher + Hallam Solicitors, will be sharing information about an area of law that is known as 'personal injury'.

Radstock residents are urged to make sure that no child goes hungry this spring, as Metro Mayor Dan Norris visited Somer Valley Foodbank at St Nicholas Church Cafe in Radstock.

The cost of living crisis is getting worse with inflation at the highest rate for 30 years and a record increase in household energy bills expected from April.