Five stories from the South you may have missed

Containers of bananas falling from a cargo ship and news that an 11-year-old had become the youngest person to be made an MBE were among this week’s most popular reads.

We have picked five stories from the past seven days across Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Dorset, Berkshire and Oxfordshire to keep you up to date.

Work to clear up containers that came ashore after falling from a cargo ship is under way, councils have said.

Sixteen containers, mostly full of bananas, fell overboard off the Isle of Wight on Saturday 6 December, at about 18:00 GMT.

Councils in West Sussex said seven containers had washed up around Selsey, two at Pagham Harbour and two at Bognor Regis.

HM Coastguard said a helicopter and fixed wing aircraft had been searching for the missing containers.

An 11-year-old fundraiser has become the youngest person to be appointed an MBE.

Carmela Chillery-Watson, from Dorset, has LMNA congenital muscular dystrophy – a progressive muscle-wasting condition.

She has walked and wheeled hundreds of miles, raising thousands of pounds for Muscular Dystrophy UK and Julia’s House Hospice, often dressed in superhero costumes.

She met Prince William at Windsor Castle, where she was presented with her medal.

As a “grace period” for Oxford’s congestion charge comes to an end, the council behind it has published figures that it says show “improving city centre traffic”.

Drivers caught going through one of the city’s six congestion charging points without a permit will now receive a fine, instead of a reminder letter.

Andrew Gant, Oxfordshire County Council’s transport chief, said the newly published monthly figures showed a 22% increase in visitors to the city centre.

But Anne Gwinnett, director of Open Roads for Oxford, said many people were reporting getting stuck in traffic and “taking a lot longer to make the same journey”.

A stretch of a major route between Reading and Basingstoke closed after a 1km (0.6 mile) long crack appeared.

The crack stretched along the inside lane of the northbound carriageway of the A33 Swallowfield bypass, and it was shut for two nights so a temporary repair could be made.

Wokingham Borough Council said samples had been taken from the road to be analysed so a permanent solution could be decided.

The northbound stretch was closed from the Hampshire boundary and Mereoak Lane overnight on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A letter written to a care home by Lord Mountbatten in 1969 has been discovered among items in a time capsule found underneath the home’s former site.

Demolition workers discovered the capsule underneath the site of the former Edwina Mountbatten Care Home in Romsey, Hampshire, in February.

The capsule also contained two copies of a local newspaper from 1969, detailing visit to the care home by the Mountbattens, his great-nephew the then Prince Charles, and Princess Anne.

Churchill Living, who are behind the construction of a new retirement living development at the site, said it was looking for experts who would be able to “study the items further”.