Purbeck Two-Tier School System Approved
Members of Dorset County Council have agreed to change the school system in Purbeck from three- to two-tier.
Since 2008, the county council has been carrying out a review of schools in the area to tackle 1250 surplus places and improve standards. Following a series of public consultations, statutory notices were published in May to close the four middle schools, expand the 13 first schools into primaries and expand the Purbeck School to become an 11-18 school.
And at a meeting of Dorset County Council today, by a large majority, members voted in favour of the proposals.
Source : http://www.purbeckgazette.com/news/info.aspx?f=218
New domain name
We will be updating the website to use a new domain name over the following months, the virtual swanage domains will still work as before but http://www.virtual-swanage.co.uk/ will be the main domain name for the website.
Peppercorn A1 class No. 60163 Tornado in Swanage
We have updated the gallery with 4 new photos of the Peppercorn A1 class No. 60163 Tornado steam train visiting Swanage Station.
http://www.virtual-swanage.co.uk/gallery/searchthumbs.aspx?qu=11&tp=ca
The Purbeck Gazette under new ownership
Local business man, Colin Baines of Wondernet and Nico Johnson, Editor of The Gazette, have combined forces and have launched a new company, Purbeck Media Ltd. As of April 1st 2010, Purbeck Media Ltd took over ownership of well-established local paper, The Purbeck Gazette.
This change in ownership will see The Gazette come back under local control after several years under the wing of national Newspaper company,
Tindle Newspapers Ltd.
Both Colin and Nico intend to continue expanding The Gazette as the main local paper for our area, ensuring you have somewhere to advertise your businesses, events and festivals, as well as continuing to offer you somewhere to have local editorial printed.
With the widest distribution in the area and the highest number of readers, Colin and Nico see the future of The Gazette as being very bright indeed, so please do continue to support us with advertising and we will ensure that we continue to offer you real value for money, an excellent distribution and a wide readership.
You can contact us with enquiries at our office, 17b Commercial Road, Swanage, Dorset. BH19 1DF, by calling 01929 424239 or by emailing ed@purbeck-gazette.co.uk
Here’s to the future!
The Purbeck Gazette
Editor - Nico Johnson
ed@purbeck-gazette.co.uk
Main office - 01929 424239
www.purbeck-gazette.co.uk
Gallery Updates
We have added 10 new photos by local photographer Andy Farrer to the gallery. See Andys photos on http://www.virtual-swanage.co.uk/gallery/photographerthumbs.aspx?p=5
Save the Swanage and Wareham rail link
From their facebook page:
Purbeck desperately needs your help to support the running of the line between Wareham and Swanage.
There are obvious benefits in opening up the line, no least of all being able to offer commuters continuous travel from Poole or Weymouth and therefore the whole UK and beyond. In turn this will get cars of our congested roads.
BUT, £3m is needed to be able to support the line.
At this stage we need your support in terms of votes. We need to be able to show Network Rail that there is sufficient support for it to be economically viable for them to invest in the infrastructure needed to fully open up the line.
You can do this by joining our Facebook Page and signing up as a fan. The more fans we can have for this page the more likely Network Rail will invest.
Without this support the dreams of many will disappear and the line will never see its full potential.
The next stage will then be to try and raise the money needed!
Visit their website on: http://swanagewarehamraillink.wordpress.com
Facebook group on: http://www.facebook.com/swanagewarehamraillink
Vandals cutting livestock fences
Vandals have been cutting wire fences on the sides of Dump Road in Swanage.
The fences have been cut leaving a gap which the horses and other livestock in the field could use to escape onto Dump Road which could potentially cause an accident or the death of one of more horses.
If anyone sees someone damaging the fences please can they call the police on 01929 422004 or 01202 222222
A new load of bollards for Swanage
ANGRY traders fear planned bollards will cause a bottleneck outside their Swanage stores, making it impossible for emergency services to get past. They also fear the work, rescheduled to start in Institute Road next week, could run into the Easter holidays, damaging trade.
Source: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/districts/purbeck/5051718.Bottleneck_fear_on_Swanage_bollard_plan/
Google Street View now covers Swanage
Google have launched their streetview mapping system to cover nearly all of the UK.
You can take a look around Swanage and see the area with the 360 deg views from the google mapping car
A few to get started:
Church Hill, Survey Person, Pier, Tourist Info Centre, Swanage Railway, Corfe Castle
Site updates in Local Area
We have updated the local area home page with new content and updated other pages with new information
http://www.virtual-swanage.co.uk/localarea/default.aspx
