JANUARY

IT WAS a good start to the year as orphaned wildlife in Somerset was soon to have a new creche at Secret World.

The new area provided animals with a new safe place to keep warm in East Huntspill, thanks to the support of businesses and volunteers.

Work had started on the orphan room which was set to be ready in time for spring arrivals including baby badgers, abandoned in the cold.

PLANS FOR the expansion of Brue Farm in Highbridge were soon to be under way after planning permission was submitted by Hallam Land Management’s to build 49 homes there.

Back in 2013 outline planning was agreed for constructing a new suburb of the town with hundreds of homes on a 64 acre site at the farm with development planned to include a school and other facilities.

A BURNHAM Marie Curie volunteer was encouraging others to give their time to the charity.

Zoe Ryder started volunteering

15 years ago after her father, Leslie, died from cancer in March 1999, and was looked after by Marie

Curie nurses.

This March was the charity’s 30th annual Great Daffodil Appeal, where people give a donation and wear an iconic daffodil pin, running for the duration of the month.

FEBURARY

TOUCHING TRIBUTES were paid to a popular primary school teacher who died suddenly aged 39.

Nick Riddiough, executive principal of Willowdown Primary Academy and Woolavington Village Primary School, died unexpectedly

Hundreds of messages of condolence and flowers were left at the schools’ gates as the two schools mourned.

Kevin Crossley, chief executive officer of The Collaborative Academies Trusts which the schools are part of, led the tributes to Mr Riddiough, calling him “generous, caring and talented.”

A BADGER cub had a lucky escape after it was found cold and alone.

The cub was cared for at Secret World Wildlife Rescue in East Huntspill, after homeowners in Yeovil discovered her in their garden at just

a week old.

They left her for a while to see if the mother would return, but with no luck, the cub was named Opal and was being hand-reared by animal

carers at the animal centre.

BURNHAM and Highbridge Town councillors called on their district counterparts to decrease charges for a much cherished Punch and Judy performer.

Burnham and Highbridge Town Council members said they wanted the act to be charged a nominal fee of £20-a-year by Sedgemoor District Council, rather than the standard £15 each time he performed on the beach.

MARCH

A LONG neglected piece of land in Highbridge was set to undergo a much needed makeover thanks to three housing developments.

More than £14million was invested in the town as part of redevelopment plans.

For six years, the Market Hotel had been in ruins following two fires and the cattle market land to the front of the property had been fenced off.

Owner Derek Mead felt the best way to use the land was to turn it into a community facility run by YMCA Somerset Coast.

BURNHAM-ON-SEA Area Rescue Boat scooped up an award at Sedgemoor Business Excellence Awards.

The Customer Engagement Award was awarded to BARB Search and Rescue and they received a £1,000 bursary to help them continue with teh work they do.

Mark Newman, from BARB, said: “The £1,000 bursary will make a huge difference and will be put to use by boosting our flood relief capabilities.

“BARB Search and Rescue has high running costs and therefore help with funding like this is hugely appreciated and will be put to immediate good use.”

A SWAN was rescued and treated after it swallowed discarded fishing lines, a hook and weights in Burnham-on-Sea.

Volunteers from Secret World Wildlife Rescue and BARB Search & Rescue teamed up to retrieve the injured bird on Good Friday at Lakeside Holiday Village after a member of the public raised the alarm.

The mute swan had swallowed a fishing hook and a large quantity of fishing line, left by an angler despite strict rules about doing so.

APRIL

A BURNHAM-ON-SEA history teacher was crowned Miss Bristol in a competition held at the Grand Mercure Hotel in the city.

Emily Sanders, 23, had previously won the Miss Somerset contest and said she was relaxed about this one.

The Burnham beauty attended King Alfred’s in Highbridge and said history teacher, Martin Ellis had made a lasting impression on her as she went on to take a degree in history and modern languages concentrating on German.

Miss Sanders excelled in the competition and one of her strengths was the charity section of the judging.

IT WAS a cause for celebration, as both schools in the Huntspill Federation were rated Good by Ofsted.

West and East Huntspill Primary schools were inspected back in February.

The result graded the schools good in all five categories of effectiveness of leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare, outcomes for pupils and early years provision.

There was a record breaking turnout for Burnham-on-Sea's sprint marathon as more than 300 competitors turned out to take part.

Adults completed a 250 metre swim, a 10km bike ride and a 2.5km run, while youngsters endured a shorter course.

Winning the super sprint event was Thomas Kerfoot.

AN ORPHANED baby bunny, who was discovered under a pile of building sand, was released back into the wild.

The rabbit was just a week old when it was found in his nest along with two siblings in the sand pile on a driveway in Dunball.

The owner of the driveway dug into the sand and found the three orphaned babies, and took them to Secret World Wildlife Rescue in East

Huntspill.

The surviving bunny was taken under the care of volunteer Vicki Thompson and was named Solo.

MAY

CONGRATULATIONS were in order as the Burnham-on-Sea Food and Drink Festival scooped highly commended at the Countryside Alliance Awards ceremony.

Festival representatives Beverley and Sarah Milner Simonds travelled to the House of Lords

to receive the award from Secretary of State for environment, food and rural affairs, Liz Truss.

Nicknamed the Rural Oscars, the awards were a celebration of rural produce, skills, enterprise and heritage.

The Champions’ reception was held in the Cholmondeley Room at Westminster and saw over 40 businesses from across England and Wales attend.

A MAN from Highbridge who helped thousands of Jews flee Nazi Germany was set to be honoured with a new statue after George Osborne promised funding for the memorial.

Highbridge-born Major Frank Foley, who has been dubbed ‘the British Schindler’, tore up the rulebook in order to provide travel papers for Jews

facing persecution after Adolf Hitler’s rise to power.

He used his official position as a passport control officer in Berlin to aid their escape.

The Chancellor said a memorial in Dudley, where Major Foley retired, would be supported with the proceeds of fines from banks caught up in the

Libor rate-rigging scandal.

ALTRUISTIC abseilers raised more than £3,000 for good causes by propelling themselves from the dizzying heights of one of Taunton’s tallest buildings.

More than 50 people went ‘over the top’ of County Hall’s seven storey C-Block to take part in the charity abseil organised by Somerset County Council chairman, Christine Lawrence.

The event went ahead despite heavy rain, with Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue Service on hand to make it happen and happen safely.

JUNE

PREPARATIONS were well underway for the Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations in Burnham-on-Sea.

Plans were coming together for three days of family entertainment on the seafront and the beach from to celebrate the milestone birthday of Queen Elizabeth II.

The council-funded event would have included a tug-of-war competition, a concert and a youth parade.

This was the second celebration this year for the Queen’s 90th.

YOUNG Gracie-Mai Fagan presented Burnham RNLI with a huge cheque for more than £1,300 after a superb fundraising effort.

Several months before, Gracie Mai had her almost ankle length hair cut off for the Little Princess Charity.

However, the sponsors for this selfless act helped her raise £12,680 which she split equally between the Macmillan Cancer Support and RNLI charities

When on holiday at Burnham-on-Sea with her family, Gracie-Mai attended the town’s very own RNLI Lifeboat station to hand over the collected funds.

TWO Burnham-on-Sea volunteers were presented with a prestigious volunteering award from

Denise Timmins, DBS officer for South Somerset Association for Volunteering and Community Action.

Mike and Denice Perrin, volunteers for St. Margaret’s Hospice, won the Sedgemoor Star Volunteer Award, and were also put forward for a chance

to win the overall Somerset Star Volunteer Award.

Mike and Denice started volunteering for St. Margaret’s Hospice in 2000, Denice as a volunteer in the Burnham shop, and Mike was one of the volunteer drivers.

JULY

TWO Highbridge toddlers put some older runners to shame as they completed the Weston-super-Mare ‘Race for Life’ in under an hour.

Layah Phillips, 4, and Harry Parr, 3, managed to cruise round the 5km course in under 60 minutes and raised over £750 for Cancer Research.

They completed the course with parents Jen Parr and Hannah McGrath, who say they could not have been more proud.

A STATE-of-the-art outdoor gym facility in Highbridge costing tens of thousands of pounds was among several grants handed out by Sedgemoor District Council at the Grants Committee.

Communities across the Burnham and Highbridge area would benefit from grant funding following a council committee meeting.

The largest grant handed out was £30,000, which was set aside to enable the building of an outdoor gym facility in Apex Park, Highbridge.

TWO young first aiders have been praised for their heroic actions after saving their grandmother’s life after she fell and hit her head.

Callum, who’s autistic, and Ellie-Mai Drewett, aged nine and six, were being looked after by their grandmother Susan Stockwell, 69, but they

ended up taking care of her after she fell and suffered a head injury.

The children were both St John's Ambulance Badgers, and set about making sure Susan was okay.

The kid's first instinct, in line with their training, was to dial 999 and ask for an ambulance, but Susan refused, and asked Callum to call his grandad, Will Huggett for help, instead.

AUGUST

AFTER suffering through her own battle, a woman took to the skies to spread awareness about the devastation of cancer.

Charlotte Stiles and her friend Kelly Rothin, both from Burnham-on-Sea, were about to take the plunge in a 15,000ft skydive.

The brave duo aimed to raise as much money as possible to aid Cancer Research UK, as both had lost a family member to the illness.

A TRIO of baby barn owls had a lucky escape after being found among straw in the back of a lorry.

Four pink helpless birds were brought into Secret World Wildlife Rescue, in East Huntspill, by the driver of the lorry.

The man had loaded up his lorry with straw bales at a farm as normal, but then when he arrived at his delivery address he heard chirping and was surprised to see the babies moving around in the straw.

Sadly, one of the babies was too weak and died soon after.

The three survivors went into the care of experienced owl-rearer Trudi, a Secret World animal carer.

BURNHAM-ON-SEA RNLI smashed its fundraising target for purchasing a new D-Class lifeboat.

The RNLI started the appeal in June 2015, aiming to raise £48,000 in 12 months.

Volunteers put in a great deal of effort holding events, demonstrations, bucket collections and putting out collection boxes.

The hard work paid off and enabled the RNLI to purchase the new lifeboat which was named Burnham Reach and was due on station in

September, with the official naming ceremony set for April next year.

BOSSES at an organisation dedicated to attracting more tourists to Somerset carried out the dying wishes of their previous chairman.

Hugh Cornwell was appointed chairman of Visit Somerset three months after the death from leukaemia of his predecessor, Bob Smart.

John Turner, chief executive of Visit Somerset, the official destination management organisation for the county, has revealed that Mr Smart had put Mr Cornwell forward for the post.

SEPTEMBER

BURNHAM-on-Sea’s Liam Phillips was gearing up to take gold in the Rio Olympic games with the full backing of his family.

Liam, who grew up in the seaside town, was in Rio preparing for the BMX cycling competition and is gunning for a gold medal.

The Burnham lad who was world number one in the sport and world champion, was hotly tipped for a medal at the event, which would be his third appearance at the Olympics.

THE RNLI lifeguards hung up their outfits for another year after a busy year patrolling beaches in Burnham-on-Sea and Berrow.

Hailed as a great success, the lifeguards worked alongside Sedgemoor District Councils’ beach management team of beach wardens and clean surroundings staff to ensure the safety of beachgoers, in and out of the water.

The RNLI lifeguards will resume their duties next year during the busy summer season in July and August.

MORE than 260,000 premises in Somerset gained access to ‘superfast’ broadband – and the number was set to rise, it was announced.

Somerset County Council’s cabinet on Monday received the latest update on work to bring superfast broadband to the county.

Councillors were told the Connecting Devon and Somerset (CDS) programme has now given more than 316,200 premises access to fibre broadband, with more to follow.

OCTOBER

THE devastated owner of a caravan site thanked the community for their support after a huge fire caused an estimated £1 million worth of damage.

Phil Davies, chief executive officer at the family-run Highbridge Caravan Centre, said he could not thank the fire service and community enough for their help after the business burst into flames on October 1.

A BURNHAM-on-Sea woman celebrated her 105th birthday.

Katie Owen was joined by friends and family for a special birthday party at Broughton Lodge care home on Berrow Road in Burnham.

Her son John, who lives in Burnham, as well her children and grandchildren attended the party on Friday, October 7.

APPRENTICE star, Alana Spencer was to take centre stage at the Burnham-on-Sea Food and Drink Festival.

NOVEMBER

HSBC announced plans to close its branch in Burnham-on-Sea next year.

The bank informed members of staff and its customers that the College Street branch will shut its doors for the final time in January next year.

A HISTORIC building in Highbridge was set to be knocked to the ground after a demolition order was issued.

The owners of the former Highbridge Gospel Tabernacle Church in Newtown Road lodged a demolition order for the building to Sedgemoor District Council.

A BURNHAM-on-Sea couple appeared on a new television programme My Kitchen Rules.

Beverley Milner Simonds and Sarah Milner Simonds had to cook a three-course meal for their rival teams and judges, Michelin-starred chef Michael Caines and culinary legend Prue Leith.

A BURNHAM-on-Sea man raised more than £18,000 for charity after climbing up to the base camp of Mount Everest.

Dave Clarke took on the challenge to raise money for Some-where House Somerset, the therapeutic service based in Burnham-on-Sea.

DECEMBER

BURNHAM United’s state-of- the-art £250,000 clubhouse was officially unveiled.

The clubhouse, which aimed to become a focal point at the popular sports venue, has been named after Albert Laurence and was opened for the first time to the public on Sunday.

IT WAS announced that Highbridge is set for a jobs boom with new businesses preparing to set up shop in the town.

The Highbridge Enterprise Centre is set to expand in 2017 year with nearly half a million pounds being spent on the expansion.

The £490,000 expansion is scheduled to be completed by September 2017, providing 234 square metres of new space.

BURNHAM and Highbridge residents got their skates on as they took to Burnham’s Christmas ice rink.

The Lynton Road ice rink opened for the Christmas period on December 17 and will now be-come a permanent fixture after Burnham-on-Sea Events Social Team purchased the ice rink.