Team spirit praised in community container clean-up


Foam insulation covered the sea wall at Selsey

Fragments of metal, pieces of insulation foam and plastic remain on West Sussex beaches after 11 shipping containers containing bananas and avocados washed ashore.

Communities praised the "team spirit" of volunteers and contractors as the clean up continued at Bognor Regis, Selsey and Pagham Harbour, after the containers fell overboard from the Baltic Klipper cargo ship in the Solent shipping channel on 6 December.

West Sussex County Council said six containers have been removed, but Gavin Jones who lives on Selsey seafront said there were "bits of metal poking up through the sand".

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch said the containers might not have been properly secured.

Seven containers washed up in Selsey, two at Pagham Harbour and two at Bognor Regis.

Selsey Beach Little Ninjas are among those who have helped with the clean-up operation.

(BBC article continues)

As an occasional poster in this forum ... My thanks to Chris from Nailsea for his kind reply ... My apologies if I have posted in the wrong place.

There were no reports of any casualties, West Mercia Police said

A major incident has been declared over what police have called a sinkhole at a canal in Shropshire, leaving boats either stricken in a gaping cavity or teetering on the edge of a drop.

Pictures appear to show that the structural integrity of a stretch of waterway in Whitchurch has completely given way, raising flooding fears.

Two narrowboats at the scene were said to have sunk into the hole shortly after 04:00 GMT, with another two at the edge. Water there looks to have drained away completely.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) said it was responding to a landslip and confirmed a canal was affected. Scott Hurford, area manager at SFRS, which sent 50 firefighters, said crews received reports at about 04:20 GMT that a canal bank had collapsed and there were large volumes of water in surrounding fields.

According to West Mercia Police, there are no reports of casualties at the scene, in an area of Whitchurch called Chemistry. The force asked people to avoid the area and seek alternate routes.

The Canal and River Trust described the incident as a breach on the canal, and said its priority was the safety of boaters and those in the immediate area. "We are carrying out initial investigations into the possible cause of the breach and will provide more details in due course," it said. "We will also seek to return water levels either side of the breach as soon as possible and are providing support to the boaters affected and those in the immediate area either side of the breach."

Mr Hurford told BBC Shropshire: "The information we've had back is that the canal bank failed and that's what put the emergency call in. The water from the canal has leaked out of the canal into the surrounding fields… There are up to 15 people who had to be moved out of the way to safety, and there's a number of canal boats that have been affected, some of those have gone into the field and some are at the bottom of the canal." He added: "Our job is the response phase, so we're there to save life, protect property and the environment, but we will support in the recovery phase."

Andy Hall, a councillor in Whitchurch, said: "We've got two boats at the bottom of the sink hole that have fallen down, and we've got two boats that are teetering on the edge that could go in at any time," he told the BBC. "Obviously [the fire service is] going to make those safe." He added: "[People] thought that there was an earthquake. To the right, we've got the field which has taken probably about a million gallons of water out of the canal." He said the fire service had put in a flood gate to stop the flow of more from the compromised waterway.

"The most important thing is that the canal itself has been secured by fire and rescue," he said. "Their biggest worry was that the canal was going to burst even more and flood residents in the town." He said that no one was on board "the two boats that went down", adding that people on the boats "teetering over the edge" had been helped to safety by fire crews. He said that contrary to speculation on social media, there had been no bridge collapse.

Lorraine Barlow, who lives on a boat called The Singing Kettle and was moored near the site, said: "About 04:20 this morning I could feel that there was something amiss, there seemed to be a current coming from underneath the boat, and bubbling, it sounded really unusual. Then I was tilting to the middle of the canal, I could feel the ropes were getting tight." She said she left the boat and could see the fire service as well as search and rescue teams. "There was no water on the canal," she said. "I was worried about the ropes and about my canal boat hanging there. It's an awful thing, I was worried about the other people."


Police have asked people to avoid the area

Major incident declared over canal 'sinkhole'

Chloe Hughes, West Midlands and Ellen Knight, in Whitchurch
    Published    22 December 2025, 09:46 GMT       Updated 17 minutes ago

A major incident has been declared over what police have called a sinkhole at a canal in Shropshire, leaving boats either stricken in a gaping cavity or teetering on the edge of a steep drop.

Pictures appear to show that the structural integrity of a stretch of waterway in the Chemistry area of Whitchurch has completely given way, raising flooding fears.

Two narrowboats are said to have sunk into the hole, into which water looks to have drained completely. Another two are at the edge.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service said it was responding to a landslip and confirmed a canal was affected. There are no reports of casualties, according to West Mercia Police.

The force asked people to avoid the area and seek alternate routes.

New cycle link to improve Wellington station access

A council is set to spend more than £600,000 on a cycle link ahead of the planned construction of a new train station.

Wellington's new railway station is anticipated to cost up to £20m and will be delivered north of the Lidl Supermarket, with access being provided through a new 161-home development.

Somerset Council has said it will spend as much as £607,000 over the coming months to ensure a new cycle link improves access between the future station and the town centre.

The funding for the design and construction of the improvement scheme comes entirely from a grant from Active Travel England, which forms part of the Department for Transport.

The planned cycle link will run between the Nynehead and Lillebonne Way roundabouts and will eventually provide an off-road cycle link between the town centre and the Chelston roundabout.

The Somerset town has not had a train station since the 1960s but its new one could be finished as soon as 2028.

A final decision on the housing development, through which the cycle path will run, is expected to be made by the council's planning committee in the spring.

Network Rail is due to submit its own separate application early in the new year for the station and associated infrastructure with a vision of a 2028 completion date.

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The best geometric fit for the names in 4 is Polsloe Bridge.

Yes, I thought that, too. 

"Why the railways often seem to be in such chaos over Christmas"

[snip]

Looking at the photos from the recent Travel watch south west AGM,it seemed a very mature group,

not sure how many are in full time employment,let alone attend college and had to put in a request for a day off.

[snip]

06:52 London Paddington to Great Malvern due 09:29 will be cancelled.
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