Bringing you the news, sport, travel and weather for Devon and Cornwall

A woman's hysterectomy was postponed four times at a hospital experiencing extreme pressures.

A farming show is told to "move with the 21st Century" and let women attend its prize-giving dinner.

Richard Whitehouse
Local Democracy Reporting Service

Cornwall Council is proposing to use £159m to help build an access road for a planned new town and other works towards the major project.

Reports going to next week’s cabinet meeting detail the next stages in the council’s intervention in getting proposed new developments under way on land at Langarth, near Threemilestone.

The council has already agreed to buy plots of land for 154 homes but is now moving forward with other parts of the development.

Planning permission is already in place for 2,700 homes and various associated developments on land in the area but none of the separate developments have got under way.

Earlier this year the council announced that it was intervening to try to kick start the developments which are a key part of its housing targets included in the local plan which runs to 2030.

The council is aiming to bring together all the developments and use them to create a “new town” which could have about 8,000 people living there – similar in size to Liskeard, Launceston or St Ives.

The cabinet will debate the proposals next Tuesday.

BBC Radio Devon

Seven people have been arrested in Brixham as part of a crackdown on illegal money lending in the town.

Members of the England Illegal Money Lending Team, working with Devon and Cornwall Police and Trading Standards officers, executed search warrants at five addresses.

They seized documentation, electronic devices and a quantity of cash.

Six men, aged between 33 and 45, and a 27-year-old woman, were arrested on suspicion of offences including illegal money lending, money laundering and perverting the course of justice.

Cornwall Live

A dog is currently being tested for Alabama rot in Cornwall after a suspected case of the flesh-eating disease led to the death of another pooch, external.

The killer condition is reported to have claimed three animals in the county this year. Its latest victim had been walked at Tehidy Woods, near Camborne.

Plymouth Live

Plymouth-based Royal Marines have helped make a second major drugs bust in under a fortnight – this time seizing £1.6m of narcotics on the infamous 'smack track' in the Gulf., external

Dan Downs
Weather Forecaster

A few clear spells are possible overnight, but skies will be mostly cloudy and a little light rain or drizzle may edge in from the west later into Tuesday evening.

Minimum temperature: 5 to 8C (41 to 46F).

Wednesday looks set to remain mostly cloudy with a little light rain or drizzle around, but a few brighter spells are possible too.

The south-easterly breeze will pick up later.

Maximum temperature: 7 to 10C (45 to 50F).

BBC Politics

A Devon Conservative MP who backs calls for a second Brexit referendum says time is running out for Prime Minister Theresa May to decide on her next actions.

Totnes MP Sarah Wollaston said she was "feeling very worried about the fact that in 108 days we run out of road".

Image source, PA

Facebook

The Facebook post is the latest in a series from Cornish Trading Standards staff warning about the dangers of children swallowing the small batteries.

North Devon Gazette

The organisers of Ilfracombe’s Christmas decorations have warned the town’s Christmas tree may have to be removed if vandalism continues, external after its tree had been "attacked repeatedly" since it was put up two weeks ago.

Rob England
BBC News Online

A political group in the South West has called on the government for "more information and more engagement" over Brexit.

A letter has been sent to the minister for housing communities and local government from members of the Heart of the South West group, external, which is made up of 23 local authority and NHS organisations from Devon and Somerset.

Members said they were "concerned about the potential increased demand on local authorities in areas such as Trading Standards and environmental health" post Brexit, especially due to existing funding restrictions.

A spokesman for the group said it was "frustrated by a lack of information from Westminster" which was "hindering the local assessment of the likely impact of Brexit" on the area.

Image source, Getty Images

Josh Clayton disappeared on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly where he had been working in September 2015.

Chloe Axford
BBC Spotlight

A geologist is to visit the site of a cliff fall near Bude to examine how safe it is, Cornwall Council says.

Tonnes of rock fell away at about 16:00 on Monday.

Deborah Smith was at Lynstone Road and managed to film the rock fall.

She said she was "definitely shocked" to see the fall but it was not going to put her off walking in the area.

Image source, Deborah Smith

Cornwall Council said staff had already inspected the cliff path "to make sure there is no immediate danger to walkers" and the South West Coast Path running through an open field in the area was still open to the public.

But it did say people should remain vigilant when walking along the coast path and "report any significant cracks"; as well as ensuring they kept a good distance from the base of the cliffs.

Ed Oldfield
Local Democracy Reporting Service

Image source, Via LDRS

Doctors are objecting to plans for a retirement village in Torbay because of the pressure extra elderly residents will add to local health and care services "already close to breaking point".

English Care Villages has submitted plans to Torbay Council for a 159-home “continuing care retirement community” at Sladnor Park, a former holiday park near the village of Maidencombe on the coast between Torquay and Shaldon.

The Maidencombe Residents' Association said the apartments would be too expensive for locals and the isolated site, two-and-a-half miles from the nearest urban centre at St Marychurch, would bring in outsiders who would increase pressure on health and care services.

Objections to the plan include one from Torquay GP Dr Roger Fearnley, who warned health services were already “close to breaking point” and said the development would attract people retiring from outside the local area. Other doctors in the areas have also criticised the proposal.

The developer said the retirement village would serve the area with a range of flexible accommodation and care options as the area’s population aged.

The application is expected to be decided on in the next few months.

BBC Politics

The government says it is backing the long-running campaign to get a new sports stadium built in Cornwall.

The comments, in the House of Commons, were in response to the Conservative MP for St Ives, Derek Thomas, who challenged ministers to do more for the Stadium for Council.

The £14.3m Stadium for Cornwall is planned for a site near Threemilestone, outside Truro, as a new home for the Cornish Pirates rugby team, Truro City Football Club and facilities for Truro and Penwith College.

Last week, Cornwall Council leader Adam Paynter said the government had to say whether or not it would spend £3m towards building the stadium match-fund local cash agreed in April.

Image source, Truro and Penwith College

Treasury Minister Robert Jenrick said he met Cornish council officials last week and would be working with partners in Cornwall and Sports England "to seek a means to bring the exciting project to a successful conclusion".

Rob England
BBC News Online

A family has renewed its appeal to trace its missing therapy puppy.

Pudding, a 16-week-old dachshund, ran away after being spooked near Puslinch Bridge in Kitley Woods, Yealmpton, at about 10:00 on Sunday 2 December.

Image source, Cheryl Burnett

The mother of Pudding's owner, Cheryl Burdett, said her family had been looking "around the clock".

Pudding is a therapy puppy for bereaved families at Ms Burdett's family funeral home in Plymstock.

Ms Burdett said she was "forever grateful" for the help they'd had in the search from friends and strangers.

"More than 300 people have very kindly given up their time looking" she said, adding some had even used drones and thermal cameras to search.

A reward has been offered by the family for the puppy's safe return.

BBC Radio 5 live

Image source, Dustin Lance Black/Instagram

Dustin Lance Black and his husband, Plymouth-born Olympic diver Tom Daley, became parents for the first time in June, having son Robbie Ray through surrogacy.

Mr Black, an Oscar-winning screenwriter, and Mr Daley used a gestational surrogate in California, and a different egg donor, to have Robbie Ray.

In a specially recorded podcast for BBC Radio 5 Live. he talks about there were "two women out there who made this possible"

Mr Black said he believed it was important for people to understand the difference between gestational and traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate's own eggs are used.

He added that the process made him rethink the couple's relationship with their egg donor, adding that he and Mr Daley were now planning to take Robbie Ray to meet her next year.

Johanna Carr
BBC News Online

A bloody T-shirt found on the body of a holiday island worker who died after going missing from a party on the Isles of Scilly was not forensically examined, an inquest has heard.

Josh Clayton's body was found on rocks 10 days after he disappeared on Tresco, where he had been working as a bar manager, in September 2015.

A post-mortem examination was carried out 15 days later and clothes he had been wearing were destroyed, Plymouth Coroner's Court heard.

Pathologist Dr Russell Delaney said he saw the T-shirt and blood staining from fluid was due to decomposition which was "not an unusual finding" in such circumstances.

Dr Delaney also said he found no evidence of "any significant injury" and the cause of death was "unascertained".

Det Chief Supt Steve Parker, from Devon and Cornwall Police, previously told jurors it was "highly unlikely" there would have been any forensic evidence on Mr Clayton's clothes but added: "I can't say categorically."

The inquest continues.

Image source, Handout

BBC Radio Cornwall

The A38 between Doublebois and Two Waters Foot is partially blocked in both directions due to a multi-vehicle crash near Trago Mills' Liskeard store.

There's queuing traffic.