Blue plaque unveiled in Weston-super-Mare for Jill Dando
Jill Dando joined the Weston Mercury as a trainee reporter at age 18
Last updated 17th Dec 2025
A blue plaque honouring Jill Dando has been unveiled at the Weston-super-Mare newspaper offices where she began her career.
Jill Dando joined the Weston Mercury as a trainee reporter at age 18 after leaving Worle School. Now Weston-super-Mare Town Council, which has turned the newspaper’s iconic former home into its council offices, has funded the blue plaque in her honour which was unveiled on Friday (December 12).
It also highlights the expansion of the Good News Rooms project, a scheme started in Somerset in 2011 inspired by Jill Dando, which sees children learn with professional journalists about capturing uplifting news stories. The scheme has expanded across the UK and even to Malawi. This month Heron’s Moor School in Weston-super-Mare joined the project.
Mayor of Weston-super-Mare Martin Williams said: “Jill Dando was a phenomenal role model for our town and for journalists everywhere. It is a fitting and living legacy that Good News Rooms, in her memory and style, are now launching across Weston-super-Mare and beyond.”
After five years at the Weston Mercury, Jill Dando got her first role with the BBC, where she would become one of its most well known presenters at the helm of the news, breakfast TV, and Crimewatch. She was murdered on the doorstep of her Fulham home in 1999. It remains one of Britain’s most high profile unsolved murders.
32 Waterloo Street — one of Weston-super-Mare’s most architecturally splendid buildings — was the home of the town’s local newspaper from 1885 until 2021, when many local newspapers across the country closed their local offices. It was bought by Weston-super-Mare Town Council to preserve it and keep it in use given its architectural and historical importance to the town.
Members of the public are welcome to visit and view the blue plaque inside the building.