In this week's Newbury Weekly News...

In this week’s Newbury Weekly News, West Berkshire has been named as the seventh worst local authority in the country for the proportion of schools that “requires improvement” according to figures compiled by the Department of Education.

The figures took a snapshot of Ofsted inspections up to December 31 last year and found that 28 per cent of the district’s schools were recorded as still in need of improving by the national schools inspector.

In other news, a lifesaving charity has been promised VAT relief by the Conservative Government in chancellor George Osborne’s annual budget.

It means that some of the £4,000 spent by the West Berkshire Rapid Response Car charity when purchasing new vehicles can be used to make modifications to make the cars equipped to attend medical emergencies.

Also this week, plans for the Green Park Station are back on the table.

Plans for the railway station, which will be located on the Reading to Basingstoke line close to Madejski Stadium, have been resubmitted for the third time and require approval from both Reading Borough Council and West Berkshire Council.

Meanwhile, an old name has has returned to Newbury town centre – The Elephant at the Market Place.

Sharp-eyed historians have already noticed that there was an Elephant and Castle pub in the market place in the 1851 census.

In this week’s Hungerford edition of the Newbury Weekly News, town crime may have hit its lowest possible rate.

The suggestion came during the annual Town Meeting from a senior member of the neighbourhood police team.

Insp Warren McKeown warned: “The crime reduction we’re currently enjoying is going to start slowing down at some point.”

In Thatcham this week, a Thatcham charity has welcomed a £1m Government pledge to fund live saving devices.

Dr Nick Young of Heartstart Thatcham said that providing more defibrillators would save more lives but added that more money would be needed for a more effective scheme.

And on the Hampshire pages, a Reading university professor who has overseen the digs at Silchester’s Roman site for almost two decades has been awarded Archaeologist of the Year 2015.

It follows an online poll by a prestigious archaeological publication.

Our Newburyi3d images of cars sees an Audi TT roll off the page this week.

Download the app from App Store or Google Play to take the vehicle out for a spin wherever you have your mobile device and a copy of the paper.

Our commemorative coverage of the First World War continues, looking at the impact of conscription in West Berkshire.

Introduced to Britain for the first time in 1916, conscription was used to help make up recruitment numbers after the war extended beyond the generally held view that it would be over by Christmas 1914.

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.