News in Shotley Peninsula

A peninsula councillor has voiced his frustration after it emerged dozens of road improvement projects in Suffolk will not be finished due to rules around councillors' highways budgets.

A cross party taskforce at Suffolk County Council last year recommended that any highways locality budget – an £8,000 sum each councillor gets for small-scale road improvement works in their division – that was not spent by December 31 of the year before an election would be reclaimed for the transport budget to ensure it was not wasted.

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The star leads them to Jesus' home in the town of Bethlehem, where they worship him and gift him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Astronomers link the star to unusual celestial events, such as a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn or Jupiter and Venus. See where you can see this tonight.

2020 has been a memorable year for all the wrong reasons, but it looks like the cosmos will ensure that it ends with an astronomical highlight on December 21.

This is, of course, the usual date of the winter solstice when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted furthest from the sun and we have the shortest day. From this point, the days get longer as we head optimistically into 2021 and 2020 starts to fade into a surreal memory.

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Today's Shotley sunrise: 08:00

Angry Shotley pier supporters have expressed their outrage after learning dozen of planks and other historic pieces of wood are to be sold off by an Essex timber yard for other projects.

Despite many people on the peninsula expressing an interest in taking off-shoots, of unwanted wood from the pier as it was being renovated, the Shotley Pier directors agreed to allow Ashwells, a firm based in Upminster, were told to take metres of the old pier away.

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Today's Peninsula sunrise: 07:59

The owners of an Essex timber yard have made an amazingly generous offer to supporters of the Shotley pier project who were left disappointed and outraged when huge chunks of wood from the historic structure were taken away without them getting the opportunity to salvage bits as mementos.

Janine and Deb Davies-Tutt, the bosses at Ashwells Timbers were so moved by the Nub News article (full story here...) and the reaction by a wide variety of people in response, they have offered to gift off-cuts free of charge.

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Today's Peninsula sunrise: 07:59

The Shotley peninsula has remained under Tier two restrictions despite rapidly rising COVID-19 infection rates across Suffolk and pressure on hospitals, care homes and social care in the lead up to Christmas.

Today's decision by central Government to keep Suffolk in the High Alert tier (or tier two) means that the current restrictions will continue until the next national review.

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Today's Peninsula sunrise: 07.58