A little local trouble

A weekly round-up of rural news

South West Water is to pull the plug on a popular fishing lake on the Devon and Cornwall border. Lower Tamar Lake is to be drained by SWW to get around flood prevention regulations and save on inspection and maintenance costs. It will be reduced in size from 51 to 10 acres. The proposal has angered locals, for whom the lake is a favourite fishing, walking and bird-watching spot. An added problem is that tons of fish will have to be removed. They will either have to be placed in the nearby Upper Tamar Lake or destroyed. Allan Wright, who lives next to the lake, says it has never even come close to flooding: "The whole thing is utterly ridiculous."

South West Water is also in trouble in the Devon village of King's Nympton. Not only did their water supply dry up during the recent hot weather, but when it did come out of the taps it was sludgy and chocolate brown. Villagers are threatening not to pay their water bills.

A swarm of bees that had plagued a country church for months has finally gone. For two months the congregation at St Mary's, Birdsall, north Yorkshire had had to put up with constant buzzing in the rafters and Vicar John Woods sometimes had to shout to make himself heard. The churchwarden, Robin Holmes, said the main irritation had been when a dead bee dropped on someone's head. But last week the bees swarmed away, leaving a scattering of their dead brethren over the pews.

Police are continuing their investigation into the alleged deliberate discharge of 150,000 gallons of slurry at a university-owned farm near Aberystwyth. An end-of-term party for agricultural students was taking place at the time.