The five cheapest places to fill up within ten miles of Nottingham city centre:

Unleaded

1. Tesco Beeston, Middle Street, Beeston, 125.9p

2. Sainsbury's Beeston, Cross Street, Beeston, 125.9p

3. Tesco Toton Extra, Swiney Way, Toton, 125.9p

4. Tesco Long Eaton Extra, Waverley Street, Long Eaton, 125.9p

5. Asda Nottingham, Loughborough Road, West Bridgford, 126.7p

Diesel

1. Mrh Wollaton Spar, Wollaton Vale, Wollaton, 130.9p

2. Sainsbury's Beeston, Cross Street, Beeston, 131.9p

3. Asda Nottingham, Loughborough Road, West Bridgford, 132.7p

4. Asda Hyson Green, Radford Road, Hyson Green, 132.7p

5. Asda Long Eaton Automat, Midland Street, Long Eaton, 132.7p

For the latest prices, check online at nottinghampost.com.

CINDY Bitmead, 30, of Kenrick Street, Netherfield, denied breaching a restraining order by going to an address in Netherfield at 5.30pm on March 9. She was remanded in custody to attend Nottingham Magistrates' Court on April 28.

SHAUN King, 23, of Chewton Street, Eastwood, denied driving a Ford Focus dangerously in Hucknall on June 18 last year. He is bailed to attend his trial at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on June 3.

JOSEPH Fairlie, 21, of Linby Grove, Hucknall, denied assaulting and obstructing a policeman in the town on March 25. He has been bailed to appear at his trial at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on July 16 at 2pm.

ALAN Holborow, 68, of Carter Avenue, Ruddington, failed to stop or report an accident in the car park of the treatment centre at the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham.

On November 21, he was driving a Ford when there was an accident with a Honda scooter. Magistrates in Nottingham heard he admitted he failed to stop or report what happened to police within 24 hours. Holborow was fined £200 and ordered to pay a £20 victim surcharge and £85 costs. His licence will be endorsed with five penalty points.

GARY Palmer, 44, of Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, pleaded guilty to stealing £35 of food from the Students' Union Shop, Nottingham, on January 17. Magistrates in Nottingham conditionally discharged him for six months and ordered he pay a £15 victim surcharge.

DEAN Squires, 31, of Wittier Road, Sneinton, was found guilty of using threatening behaviour in Sherwood on May 12. He has been bailed by JPs in Nottingham to attend for sentencing on May 1.

AMOS Price, 32, of Tolney Lane, Newark, pleaded guilty to two offences. He assaulted a female in Newark on March 26. Then he committed a bail act offence in Nottingham on April 9. He has been bailed to attend Nottingham Magistrates' Court on May 6.

STEVE Johnson, 54, of Quaker Lane, Farnsfield, denied causing criminal damage to a wooden fence in Farnsfield on March 20. He has been bailed to attend his trial at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on June 19.

RICHARD Morey, 21, of Welbeck Street, Sutton-in-Ashfield, pleaded guilty to two offences of assault on two females. The offences were in Sherwood on October 28 last year. At Nottingham Magistrates' Court, he was handed a community order with supervision from the probation service for nine months. He was ordered to pay a £60 victim surcharge.

ADAM Simpson, 29, of Greenwood Road, Sneinton, pleaded guilty to causing criminal damage to a TV screen in Bulwell on March 7. Magistrates in Nottingham bailed him until April 24.

JUSTIN Slater, 42, of Dorset Street, Radford, was conditionally discharged for nine months by magistrates in Nottingham. He admitted he caused criminal damage to a glass panel at the YMCA, Nottingham, on March 22. He was ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge.

FRANK Sneap, 37, of Askeby Drive, Strelley, pleaded guilty to possessing 17 cannabis plants in Broxtowe on New Year's Day. Magistrates in Nottingham handed him a community order and ordered he have treatment for drug dependency for three months. He must pay a £60 victim surcharge and £85 costs.

MATTHEW Thornton, 24, of Woodford Grove. Clifton, admitted causing criminal damage to a vehicle in Mansfield and assault in St Ann's on March 1. At Nottingham Magistrates' Court, he was bailed to attend on April 25 at 2pm.

KARL Allsop, 26, of Bakewell Close, New Balderton, denied stealing a £2.99 hammer from Poundstretcher in Newark on March 22. He has been bailed to attend his trial at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on June 24.

JODEY Ball, 32, of Stoke Avenue, Newark, stole a bike lock and a can of Vimto, valued at £2.34, from Poundstretcher, Newark, on March 22. At Nottingham Magistrates' Court, he admitted theft. He was conditionally discharged for nine months and ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge and £85 costs.

AIDA Potapova, 24, of Birrell Road, Forest Fields, pleaded guilty to drink-driving in an uninsured Ford Mondeo when she had no licence. She offended in Mansfield Road, Sherwood, on March 22. Police breathalysed her and her reading was 79 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, over the limit of 35. Magistrates in Nottingham fined her £120 and ordered she pay a £20 victim surcharge and £85 costs. She was banned from driving for 20 months.

JOHN Hicks, 34, of Sharter Drive, Loughborough, is charged with offences in Nottingham on January 25. He allegedly sexually touched a woman in Nottingham without her consent, possessed cannabis and resisted a policeman. He was bailed to attend his trial at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on July 29 at 10am.

OFTEN seen scampering along fences and raiding bird tables – it comes as no surprise that grey squirrels are the most common visitors to Notts' gardens.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has released the results of its survey to show the creatures most often spotted in gardens – with hedgehogs, frogs and toads also high on the list.

The rarest wildlife sightings in the county were of the rarer red squirrels, badgers and deer.

The results come hot on the heels of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch scheme and hundreds of people responded from Nottinghamshire.

Volunteers were given a list of eight animals and asked how often they saw them, with four possible answers.

At least three-quarters said they spotted a grey squirrel in their garden at least once a month.

However, less than one in 100 spotted a red squirrel, with 97 per cent saying they had never seen one.

Meanwhile, 84 per cent said they had never spotted a badger, though more than half saw a frog in their garden at least once a month.

Erin McDaid, of Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust, said there may be more badgers than suggested by the survey but they tended to be seen only at night.

He said: "The badgers and hedgehogs often tend to be nocturnal.

"There is not really anything surprising or concerning in the results."

He said the trust had done a similar survey, with results along the same lines.

He said theirs and the RSPB's surveys showed that many people loved their gardens because of the wildlife they attract. He added: "In addition to asking people what creatures they have seen, we also asked people why they feel that their gardens are important and 91 per cent of our respondents said they valued their garden because it brought them closer to nature."

Irene Roberts, 64, of Bulwell, regularly spots grey squirrels in her garden.

She said: "I see them at least once a week. It is great to see lots of wildlife in my garden. I don't mind it at all.

"I'd definitely go along with what the research shows about red squirrels. I haven't seen any."

The RSPB hopes to use the data it gained to build an overall picture of how important gardens are for all types of wildlife and to tailor its advice so people can help their wild visitors to find a home, feed and breed successfully.

Daniel Hayhow, RSPB conservation scientist, said: "This massive survey shows how important our gardens are for the amazing variety of wildlife living there."

Have you spotted any unusual animals in your garden? E-mail marcus.boocock@nottinghampost.com.

NOTTINGHAM could soon join an elite group of cities renowned for their literary heritage.

A bid, headed by Pippa Hennessy, of Nottingham Writers' Studio, hopes to secure the title of City of Literature – an accolade held by only seven other cities across the globe.

If granted, the title would be a permanent honour.

The bid will be officially launched at Bromley House on May 1.

All entries must be submitted by next March and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation will make its decision the following November.

BUILDING 290 homes on a business park designed to create jobs would be a disaster for the area, a county councillor claims.

Developer Barratt Homes has submitted plans for the estate on Nottingham Business Park, in Woodhouse Way, near junction 26 of the M1.

But county councillor Philip Owen believes there are not enough schools in the area to cater for the extra families and that roads would not be able to cope with the extra traffic. "The city primary schools nearby have bad Ofsted ratings, so parents will be competing for places which are already oversubscribed," he said.

City councillor David Mellen defended the application, saying: "One of the conditions the city council included in the outline planning permission was that the developer of the site would provide a financial contribution to cover the costs of additional primary school places necessary as a result of the new homes.

"As a result, developers Barratt Homes will be contributing more than £500,000 towards local schools to reduce the impact of the influx of pupils in the Strelley area."

Robert Galij, planning director for Barratt Homes North Midlands, said: "We anticipate the proposed development work will underpin up to 600 local jobs, as well as bringing secondary benefits to the local economy."

"Any impact on local services, including roads and education facilities, is considered as part of the planning process, and a traffic impact assessment has been validated by Nottingham City Council to ensure that the highway network can facilitate any additional traffic."

Concerns over safety have also been raised as "the site is close to a high crime area". But police inspector Gordon Fenwick said: "Strelley may have been perceived to be an above-average crime area but that reputation has changed in recent years thanks to targeted police operations, co-ordinated partnership working and positive engagement with the community.

"For the year 2013-14, the Strelley area continues to show an overall reduction in crime, at seven per cent."

The final plans go before the city council planning committee next Wednesday and, if approved, building work will take five years.

Should housing be built in a business park? Let us know at opinion @nottinghampost.com.

ADELE Greenacre was just 11 weeks old when her father walked out of the front door on his way to work and never came back.

Now 36, she is using the power of Facebook in an bid to seek out her long-lost father, who she never grew to know.

Her mother, Wendy Beever, 63, clearly remembers the day he left.

She said: "On that morning he had to be in early for a staff meeting, so he got up to leave. But he forgot his keys and when he came back to get them, I was changing Adele."

Derek Greenacre, who was 33 at the time, left the house in Dornoch Avenue. Sherwood, on June 28, 1978, and his family thought he had driven to Redhill Leisure Centre, in Arnold, where he was a manager.

But at around 11am, Mrs Beever received a call from his secretary saying he had not arrived.

They spent the day searching and discovered his car parked in front of Nottingham Station, leading them to believe he had got on a train to London.

Nottinghamshire Police conducted extensive inquiries at the time but were unable to find Mr Greenacre.

The trail then went cold and neither friends nor family ever heard from him again, despite police efforts and national newspapers sharing the story.

Mrs Beever said: "There were no computers back then. We had to do everything by post or by telephone. It was very hard."

Almost 36 years later, technology has changed and the 11-week-old baby is now a grown woman with children of her own – Callum, 18, Oskar, nine, and Kazia, five. Sadly, she lost Leo to cot death when he was only a few months old.

But Ms Greenacre has been scarred by her father's disappearance.

She said: "I looked for him as a child, with my mum, but I was then a very troubled teenager. I was addicted to drugs and was in a very bad way."

But ten years ago, Ms Greenacre found the strength to battle her addiction and has not taken drugs since.

She said: "My mum lost my grandmother and I promised her that she wouldn't have to go through any more heartache and that was it, I gave up.

"The whole thing with my dad left me with a big hole. I tried to fill it with drugs but it didn't work.

"When I cleaned up, I put it in my head he was dead and put it away in a box."

But after seeing the success of the "no make-up selfie" campaign to raise awareness for breast cancer, Ms Greenacre saw an opportunity and posted a photo of her father online on Facebook.

Her photo has already been shared 20,000 times and led her the closest she has ever been to finding her dad.

She said: "A gentleman who worked for a homeless charity contacted me.

"He told me my dad had been picked up sleeping rough in London's Victoria Station and had been offered accommodation in Northampton."

Ms Greenacre and her mum headed to the town and searched high and low for her father. But the hunt came to nothing.

She said: "For the first time since I was a teenager, maybe 15 years old, it gave me hope again that maybe I could find him."

Now, Ms Greenacre has placed that hope in the sharing of a post across the internet. Both she and her mother now dream that maybe one day it will help bring her father back home.

SHE had given him up for dead – but after nearly 36 years, a daughter is launching a fresh appeal to find the father she has never known.

Adele Greenacre was just 11 weeks old when dad Derek left the family home in Sherwood to go to work, and never returned.

Now aged 36, Ms Greenacre had given up hope – until she got a surprise message from an anonymous charity worker who believed her father was living in a shelter for the homeless in Northampton.

She and her mother, Wendy Beever, 63, searched the town but found no trace of him.

The pair, of Radcliffe-on-Trent, still think Mr Greenacre may be living on the streets and fear "time is running out" to trace him as he approaches his 69th birthday next month.

Now they are launching a new campaign to find him.

"Maybe he feels a sense of guilt, maybe he just doesn't remember. We are just still totally puzzled why he never came home," said Ms Greenacre. "The whole thing left me with a big hole. You don't know who you are if you don't know where you come from."

Mr Greenacre left the family home on June 28, 1978, to go to work as the manager of a leisure centre. But later that day his secretary called his wife to say he had never arrived. Police investigated his disappearance and his story was picked up by national newspapers but he was never found.

Ms Greenacre has launched a new appeal to find him on Facebook after seeing the success of the recent "selfie" self-portrait campaign to raise money for cancer research.

Her page has already been shared over 20,000 times around the world.

JESS French became known as "the bug girl" because of her vast knowledge of creepy-crawlies. But the 25-year-old from East Leake never imagined it would lead her to the world of television.

"I worked as an animal handler a couple of times on some kids' shows and I got a bit of a reputation as the bug girl," says the veterinary student at the University of Nottingham.

"It's because I know loads about bugs and I'm not scared of anything.

"But it had never crossed my mind to be a TV presenter."

Minibeast Adventure With Jess, which begins next week on children's channel CBeebies, will explore the wildlife that lives on our doorsteps.

She says: "Kindle, the production company who made the show, were asking around because they wanted to make a show for kids about bugs, and they wanted a girl to present it.

"My name came up even though I wasn't a presenter and they asked me to do an audition video."

That was two years ago.

"It's quite surreal – it still doesn't feel real, to be honest," says Jess who grew up in Norfolk and studied zoology at University College London.

She moved to Notts to work towards her veterinary qualification.

The daily programme will show youngsters that they don't have to travel to Africa to have an interesting animal encounter.

Jess's enthusiasm is obvious.

"Kids are so disconnected from nature these days and I have this massive fear that because kids don't go outside, they have no idea about how amazing the outdoors is, so they're not going to want to protect it."

The series was filmed last summer, during her university holiday.

"They really threw me in the deep end," she says.

"By the time I got to the end of it, I was looking back at what I'd done on the first day and thinking, 'oh, I wish we could film the whole series again' because I learnt so much'."

There will be 20 nine-minute episodes and Jess will introduce viewers to her minibeasts from a tree-house. She is writing a book to accompany the series, and there's also a Minibeast Adventure app. So will she be a vet or a TV star?

"If I could continue doing TV stuff that was encouraging kids to connect with nature, then definitely, but I wouldn't want to do it to be a presenter for the sake of being a presenter."

Jess plans to stick around Notts, she says.

"Where I live, it's more out in the sticks, and I love it. There are loads of really good places to go, like Go Ape, in Sherwood. I really like living here."

R I P Dhelcy Mae. http://t.co/j8yf7jvcdHpic.twitter.com/8YqAxyRRDy"

— Pelumi (@Pelumi94) April 17, 2014

TRAIN TRAVEL THIS WEEKEND

East Midlands Trains

FRIDAY

Normal midweek service.

SATURDAY

No direct services to or from London St Pancras because of engineering work.

Normal Saturday service on other routes.

SUNDAY

No direct services to or from London St Pancras because of engineering work.

Amended service on routes through Sheffield because of engineering work.

MONDAY

Normal midweek service, with minor changes.

CrossCountry

FRIDAY

Normal midweek service subject to engineering work.

SATURDAY

Normal Saturday service subject to engineering work.

SUNDAY

Normal Sunday service subject to engineering work.

MONDAY

Normal midweek service subject to engineering work.

Northern Rail

FRIDAY

Normal midweek service subject to engineering work.

SATURDAY

Normal Saturday service subject to engineering work.

SUNDAY

Normal Sunday service subject to engineering work.

MONDAY

Normal midweek service subject to engineering work.

A NOTTS man has been jailed for his part in a £1.3 million illegal cigarette business.

Ian Bosworth, of Douglas Court, Carlton, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years at Manchester Crown Court yesterday after being charged with conspiracy for being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of excise duty.

The 62-year-old was part of a four-man gang who tried to evade more than £1.3 million in duty and taxes due on sales of almost six million illegal cigarettes.

All four pleaded guilty to their involvement in the distribution and sale of illicit tobacco in November last year.

Sandra Smith, assistant director in criminal investigation for HM Revenue and Customs, said: "These men were attempting to flood the UK with illegal cigarettes solely for their own financial gain.

"Tobacco smuggling is organised crime on a global scale. It encourages and supports criminality within our communities, denying our country millions of pounds of vital revenue every year.

I urge anyone with information about people dealing in illicit cigarettes or tobacco to contact us on 0800 59 5000."

David James Higham, 61, of Skelmersdale, was sentenced to three years' jail; Michael Quinn, 41, of Skelmersdale, to one year in jail; and James Knott, 44, of Doncaster, to 12 months, suspended for two years, and 200 hours community service.