The Princesshay Shopping Centre in Exeter has created a rooftop garden paradise for honey bees as part of a new environmental initiative championed and funded by landlord Land Securities. Forming part of a biodiversity strategy, one hive has recently been installed in the rooftop garden with another due to arrive in May and a third later in the year. The aim is to have five hives thriving in their new city location by the end of 2014. Princesshay is the first shopping centre in the Land Securities portfolio to launch a City Bee project.
Preparation has started on the build for this year's Devon County Show on 16-18 May. A team of eight contractors are making the showground home for the next month as they build marquees equivalent in size to approximately four football pitches. Show Secretary Ollie Allen said the early days of the build were a testing time for the team. “This is a really big task!” she said. “In marquee-building terms, it’s equivalent to scaling Mount Everest! “Each year, Danco, the marquee contractors, put in some new recruits with the more established staff members and within weeks, sometimes days, it is...