A £150,000 bridge repair project will see motorists facing a 16-mile diversion. Repairs to the B1166 Gravel Causeway bridge over the River Welland, at Crowland, are due to get under way on Wednesday, January 4. Initially the five span concrete bridge, built in 1953, will be open to traffic and managed by temporary traffic lights, but a full closure to ...

Work to repair a sewer which collapsed in two separate places could keep part of a Spalding main road closed until Monday, January 9. The junction of Winsover Road and Bourne Road (A151) with Hawthorn Bank has been closed since before Christmas. That followed a closure next to the Eight Gates level crossing in Winsover Road. An Anglian Water spokesman ...

A new farm shop and café is planned in Deeping St Nicholas. Vine House Farm owner Nicholas Watts is keen to invest £500,000 and take on more staff to make the business bigger and better. A keen conservationist, Mr Watts has sold goods including bird food and farm products from the premises for more than a decade. Business has steadily increased to ...

Organisers of the Holbeach Music and Beer Festival have handed over £6,000 profit from the 2016 event. The funds raised have been donated to the Holbeach United Community Sports Academy and will go a massive way to helping with the running costs. The Community Sports Academy provides a footballing home for nearly 200 young footballers with teams ranging from Under 6 to Under ...

South Holland schools have been praised for significantly improving the quality of leadership, management and teaching. The words of approval came from Chris Russell who is the regional director for Ofsted in the East Midlands. Lincolnshire County Council had identified in 2013 that pupil outcomes in primary schools in rural areas of South Holland were too low and standards in ...

Spalding High School’s deputy head girl Rosie Stevenson is on a fundraising mission to ensure her place on a trip of a lifetime. The 17-year-old has been selected to spend a year as a volunteer in Honduras for Project Trust where she will spend 12 months working as a teacher in either a primary or secondary school. Rosie, who is ...

A Holbeach mum who pocketed over £50,000 by claiming false benefits and targeting vulnerable pensioners has been ordered to pay back just a token amount of £1. Maria Pridmore (36) was jailed for three years in August after she admitted a string of frauds. They included pocketing more than £16,000 worth of housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support. ...

Paying for council services in South Holland is about to become quicker, easier, more varied and available at more than 30 new locations. South Holland District Council is providing more ways of paying for services like council tax, planning, licensing, rents and garden waste collections. As part of its ongoing Moving Forward strategy, flexible payment solutions are available now, with ...

A proposal for a 78-home development on Grade One agricultural land seeks to exploit a “loophole” in legislation, it has been said. Woodgate Farms Ltd has submitted the outline proposal to South Holland District Council for a field south of Roman Road in Moulton Chapel, a village of around 900 residents. The field is behind Moulton Chapel Motors, which would ...

UPDATE: Met Police have found the 16-year-old Holbeach girl at the centre of an appeal by Lincolnshire Police Lincolnshire Police said on Thursday afternoon (Dec 29) that Ellie Adams had been located by their colleagues in the capital and were grateful for everyone’s assistance.   Wednesday, 7pm: Police are appealing for a 16-year-old Holbeach girl not seen since Boxing Day ...

A dog-hosting business in Spalding is promoting its benefits in light of a government health warning issued on Wednesday.(Dec 28)  Public Health England says eight out of ten of people aged 40 to 60 either weigh too much, drink too much or don’t exercise enough. Its One You campaign is reaching out to provide free support and tools to help them live more ...

Have you made your New Year’s resolution yet? If the answer is no, why not consider taking on a challenge in aid of youth charity Sea Cadets? For the first time, we have places available for a whole host of exciting charity challenges. The money you raise could really make a difference, as 93p in every £1 that we receive ...

Mary Hamilton-Goya doesn’t want her intelligence insulted by a suggestion that ‘Leave’ voters in the referendum were unaware of the consequences (VMail, December 15). Ok! She refers to ‘we, the people’ voting to leave the EU. Less than 40 per cent of registered electors voted leave. Of those who actually voted, there was a modest majority in favour. Hardly enough ...

In response to Ms Hamilton-Goya of Long Sutton (VMail, December 15), I’d like to say that quite simply, if people are going to be ignorant to the workings of the British voting system, maybe it’s not a matter of the aforementioned people being insulted, but rather, being ignorant members of society. You state that Brexit should be a legally binding decision, ...

Mark, Sarah and Ella Le Sage, along with the trustees of The Rightside Trust and Ella’s Project, would like to thank everyone who donated or supported our work over the last 12 months. We are entirely a voluntary organisation and could not complete any of our work without the wonderful work and support of our volunteers, collection points and those that ...

Reference the new speed cameras on the new A16 from Peterborough to Spalding, I think that there should be speed cameras on the old A1073 (James Road). Drivers use this road as a rat run to overtake the slower lorries on the A16. The speed that cars and white van men go is well in excess of the 50mph. There ...

I suspect my reaction to your front page story of December 15 (Is That Justice?) was similar to that of many of your other readers – shock and disappointment that the man found guilty of assaulting a police officer was merely fined for his behaviour. Ordinary, decent people know that breaking the law in such a violent way should incur ...

Education inspectors have ruled the new Spalding Academy requires special measures after visiting just six weeks after a full leadership change at the school. An Ofsted report published on Friday (Dec 16) recognises “newly appointed leaders have drawn up plans for improvement quickly and precisely”. However, it deems little improvement has been made at the school since the previous inspection ...

A man who carried out a campaign of hate against his ex-partner and her family has been jailed for four years. William Gray targeted the family of Lauren Cousins after the couple’s relationship came to an end. He attacked Ms Cousins’ 70-year-old grandfather while he was fishing leaving him in fear for his life after three times pushing him into a waterway. ...

2016 saw the centennial anniversary of the battles of Jutland and The Somme and raised the public’s awareness of the sacrifices made on behalf of all our futures. The sheer scale of casualties incurred is staggering and almost too difficult to envisage but is, nevertheless, true. Whilst the survivors of those battles are now gone and the survivors of the ...