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Friday 15 December
 Two community-led initiatives that help people in some of our more disadvantaged neighbourhoods have been awarded funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
Plymouth Food Cooperative Connections has been awarded £252,500 to host food support schemes to help address the cost-of-living issues in Plymouth while Nudge, the community benefit society based in Union Street, has received £470,940 to lead a partnership on work to open up empty buildings in Stonehouse to new community uses.
Cooperative Connections is part of a city-wide approach to addressing issues of food insecurity within Plymouth. The new funding will see:
- a mobile van fitted out as a shop to support setting up new affordable food clubs
- social supermarkets that are open twice a week and run by volunteers
- small-scale manufacturing of sauces, jams, chutneys and preserves from left-over fresh fruit and vegetables.
 We’ve released a pair of beavers into the re-wilding enclosure at Poole Farm and they have already started to make changes to the landscape.
The male and female are unrelated orphans from Scotland and their move to Plymouth is part of the Green Minds project, a Council initiative that has overseen a number of urban wilding projects.
Beavers create wetland habitats that are great for birds, fish and invertebrates and they also slow the flow of water during and after rain, which can help reduce flooding downstream. In dry spells they keep water levels higher.
The beavers’ behaviour and changes they make to the landscape will be monitored to show how their actions can reduce flooding further downstream and create habitats for wildlife in the Bircham Valley.
 Christmas is a time for giving and receiving – but that can mean lots of packaging and unwanted stuff ending up in the bin.
We’ve put together a guide to help you dispose of your waste, recycle the right things and avoid missing your weekly collections during the festive season.
We’ve got lots of top tips about what should go in your brown and green bins and what to do with items such as artificial and real Christmas trees, broken fairy lights, Christmas cards, advent calendars, wrapping paper and batteries.
 A Plymouth green energy scheme has been recognised at COP28, the world's biggest climate conference.
The innovative Fifth Generation Heating and Cooling Network, which we have been developing in Millbay, won two prizes at COP28 – the Sustainable Infrastructure Grand Prize and the overall Green Solutions Awards Grand Prize, triumphing in a field of over 200 international entries.
The network will allow waste heat from cooling in buildings such as Plymouth Pavilions and Moxy Hotel to be reused for heating buildings in the area, supplemented by other renewable sources of heat. This very low carbon solution will help to significantly reduce emissions.
 Plymouth’s new Community Diagnostic Centre has moved a big step forward with the submission of a planning application this week.
The new centre in the West End will allow people to receive tests and diagnosis CT scans to detect disease or injury as early as possible.
In the meantime, a temporary CT scanner unit at Colin Campbell Court is already seeing 250 patients each week.
The new centre will also offer MRI, X-ray, lung cancer screening, ultrasound, audiology, ECG and point of care testing.
If approved, it is hoped construction will start next year and patients will benefit from the new facility in 2025.
 We've published a new plan for improving local bus services and helping Plymouth achieve its net zero goals.
The Bus Service Improvement Plan includes ambitious targets for improving journey times, reliability, passenger numbers and customer satisfaction and will ensure we are well-placed to respond to Government funding opportunities.
It identifies almost £328 million of measures to create a thriving bus network, with services that are frequent, reliable, fast, affordable, safe and clean.
They include new bus services, with a cross-city ‘loop’ route, the expansion of the multi-operator Skipper ticket to include local ferry and rail services, audio-visual announcements on buses and better co-ordinated timetables.
Charges for some waste disposal at Chelson Meadow to be dropped
Council commits additional funding for adult social care facility
Plymouth backs consultation on Devon coroner proposals
Land deal to unlock jobs at key Freeport tax site
Dental Taskforce working to improve dental provision in Plymouth
City centre street traders fee frozen
Council bids for zero-emission buses
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