DORSET County Council is trying out a Big Society experiment with a new initiative to help communities help themselves.

County Councillor Rebecca Knox is chairman of a new policy panel which aims to give a communities-led highways initiative a try. She told members of Beaminster Town Council: “It might be where parish or residents or communities say they are fed up with something and say give us a little bit of training or give us some of the equipment and we will do it.”

She cited the example of the Mapperton finger post that was worn and someone painted it instead of waiting for the county council to completely refurbish it.

She added: “It has been done now and that is the sort of thing this initiative can sort out.”