In this week's Newbury Weekly News...
However, Newbury MP Richard Benyon has said that the situation has led to “political hysteria” and added:
Nobody is complacent. The NHS is under severe pressure and it always will be.
“We are never going to treat every case in the target time, but for every five patients for whom it takes over four hours to be treated there are 95 that are treated.”
Also this week, concerned Crookham residents have started an action group to protect a site of special natural beauty from being quarried.
Grundon is carrying out initial site investigation work on Waterside Farm to source building materials when nearby reserves run out.
Residents have vowed to fight the proposals, which they say will destroy a site of natural beauty.
In other news, a select few from West Berkshire saw in 2015 with honours, having been recognised in the New Year’s Honours list.
Read the reactions of a headteacher from Hamsptead Norreys who was made a dame, a professor from Peasemore made CBE, an athletics volunteer from Greenham appointed an MBE and the chairwoman of Newbury and Thatcham’s Neighbourhood Watch who was awarded the BEM.
Meanwhile, the chief executive of the NHS, former Newbury resident and St Bartholomew’s School pupil Simon Stevens, has praised the West Berkshire Community Hospital, describing it as a role model for how the health service could be delivered.
In an exclusive interview with the NWN, he also hinted at the possibility of the hospital being expanded in the future to take on more services.
Dinosaurs will be brought back to life in this week’s Newbury Weekly News thanks to our innovative new app.
Use the Newbury i3d app and watch the Tyrannosaurus burst out of the page, which you can then send stomping and chomping wherever you are.
Our commemorative series marking the beginning of the First World War continues with a look at the Bazett family.
Frank Bazett was involved in both World Wars in between his record-breaking five terms of office as mayor of Newbury.
But while Frank survived to continue the family’s thriving law firm, his brothers Hugo and Gilbert were both killed in the First World War.
With the start of a new school term our regular education pages are back on the board, and this week the new head of national group the Girl’s Schools Association talks of the “social apartheid” between independent and state schools.
Headteacher of Newbury based independent school St Gabriel’s who was recently made president of the body says that it is to time to rethink the “elite and privileged” notion of independent schools.
Full interview, together with all of the usual schools news and head teacher Q & A in today’s education supplement.
As always, there’s also a roundup of the week’s entertainment and sport, and of course this week’s £25 free fuel giveaway.
All this, plus more, in the Newbury Weekly News, on sale every Thursday.