Airport says passengers abandoned plans because of Omicron variant and uncertainty on restrictions
Heathrow airport has said at least 600,000 passengers cancelled their travel plans from the airport in December because of Omicron, warning aviation would take years to recover from the pandemic.
Only 19.4 million passengers passed through the airport in 2021 – less than a quarter of 2019 levels and below even 2020, the year when the Covid-19 pandemic started in March.
Continue reading...Findings surpass experts’ expectations after buildings, wells, coins and wide road discovered
A wealthy Roman trading town, whose inhabitants adorned themselves with jewellery and ate from fine pottery, has been discovered half a metre below the surface of a remote field in Northamptonshire.
A 10-metre-wide Roman road, domestic and industrial buildings, more than 300 coins and at least four wells have been unearthed at the site, where 80 archaeologists have been working for the past 12 months.
Continue reading...Project or alternative of a £209bn tunnel would be vastly expensive and fraught with complexities, study says
Boris Johnson’s proposal for a bridge or tunnel linking Scotland to Northern Ireland has been rejected by a feasibility study as vastly expensive – £335bn for the bridge or £209bn for the tunnel – and fraught with potential difficulties.
Released alongside a wider so-called union connectivity review, which called for investment in road, rail and domestic aviation to better connect the four UK nations, the fixed link report found either a bridge or tunnel would be at the very edge of what could be achieved with current technology.
Continue reading...Volunteer passengers will be aboard central TfL section of Elizabeth line as part of final testing phase
Hopes that Crossrail will open in central London in early 2022 – this time on schedule – have been boosted as the troubled £19bn scheme moved into its final phase of testing at the weekend.
The start of months of trial operations, which will involve thousands of volunteer passengers to test how the system will function, including in emergencies, was described as a “significant milestone” by Transport for London and the mayor.
Continue reading...Okehampton welcomes revamp of service connecting Dartmoor town to Exeter and beyond
In 1972, the people of Okehampton turned out in force to wish a fond farewell to the Devon moorland town’s regular passenger rail service.
The mayor, Walter John Passmore, carried a funeral wreath and his wife, Daisy, waved the green flag to signal the final train’s departure, just about managing a sad smile for the cameras.
Continue reading...Campaigners in Devon celebrate return of passenger trains after 50 years, a first step to reversing the Beeching closures
On the rugged northern edge of Dartmoor, a small army of workers in high-vis vests is readying Okehampton station to welcome the first regular passenger train since 1972. The canopies and picket fences are being repainted in the original dark greens and warm yellows of the long-departed Southern Railway.
It’s a historic moment for local campaigners, who have been fighting for decades to reconnect the Devon town to the national network and open up this lesser-visited part of the national park. “It’s quite extraordinary – almost unbelievable,” says Tom Baxter, 68, the secretary of the Dartmoor Railway Association, watching the painting from a gleaming green bench on the platform. “I used to travel on the line when it was British Rail and I was here when it closed in the 1970s. Local railways were seen as a bit of a nuisance at the time – they wanted to get rid of them.”
Continue reading...Analysis: while UK railways have an excellent safety record, dangerous incidents have been increasing in frequency
Rail accident inspectors have said it is too early to release indications of what caused the collision between two trains at Salisbury on Sunday evening. But by now CCTV and data logs from signals and trains are likely to have given them a strong idea of what led the Great Western and South Western Railway services to crash into each other.
That might prove to be a fault with the signal; or that a train passed a red light; that the brakes failed; or even that the brakes worked but the wheels slid, in the season when leaves on the line can make the rails treacherous.
Continue reading...Number of commuter trips made in mid-October was just 45% of pre-Covid figure, industry says
The number of train journeys made by commuters in Great Britain remains at less than half of pre-pandemic levels, figures show.
The industry body Rail Delivery Group (RDG) said in mid-October the number of railway journeys made by those going to work was just 45% of what it was before the coronavirus crisis.
Continue reading...Industrial action abandoned as trade union leaders confirmed pay talks with ScotRail have been settled
Rail strikes planned for next week’s Cop26 climate conference have been abandoned after trade union leaders confirmed negotiations on a pay rise have been settled.
The announcement was made after talks between the RMT union and transport bosses on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Customer-facing workers in all sectors report greater hostility, research shows
People in public-facing jobs are facing rising hostility and verbal abuse since the end of the Covid lockdowns, according to organisations which represent them. Half of all shop, transport, restaurant and hotel workers and others dealing regularly with the public have experienced abuse in the past six months, figures from the Institute for Customer Service (ICS) show. This is a 6% rise over May’s 44%. Of those who had been abused, 27% had been physically attacked, it found.
The research comes as trades unions and industry bodies warn of growing public hostility towards workers since Covid’s second wave.
Continue reading...Funding will be used to help ‘level up’ regions including Greater Manchester and West Midlands
Almost £7bn will be allocated in next week’s budget to “level up” urban transport in cities around England, the government has said.
City regions will receive a total of about £5.7bn in sustainable transport cash, while another £1.2bn will go towards improving bus services.
Continue reading...One driving instructor told me he’d driven with murderers who were safer than me
The amusement arcades in Russell Street were the place in Melbourne to buy heroin in the 90s and early 2000s. But I went there to learn how to drive.
Continue reading...Charges against six protesters dropped as HS2 was not carrying out work on the site at the time
Six environmental protesters who occupied a tunnel close to Euston station in protest against the HS2 high-speed link earlier this year walked free from court after charges in connection with the occupation were dismissed by a judge.
Daniel Hooper, 48, also known as “Swampy”; Dr Larch Maxey, 49; Isla Sandford, 18; Lachlan Sandford, 20; Juliett Stevenson-Clarke, 22; and Scott Breen, 47, faced charges of aggravated trespass at Highbury Corner magistrates court in central London for their 31 days underground in January and February of this year. A separate charge against Maxey of damage to a mobile phone was also dismissed.
Continue reading...US and European media give their verdict on the fuel, food and labour crisis they say is caused by Brexit
Government ministers may insist it is “wrong” to blame Brexit for Britain’s fuel, food and labour shortages, but for the rest of Europe – and beyond – there is only one reason why the UK’s crisis is so very much worse than everywhere else’s.
“One is tempted to tell the British: ‘You have only yourselves to blame,’” said Gabi Kostorz on ARD’s Tagesthemen, a leading German news show. “We tried to talk you out of it, but you decided otherwise. Now you have to face the consequences.”
Continue reading...Threat of Christmas being ruined by driver shortages forces ministers to expand range and duration of visas
Boris Johnson’s government has made a dramatic U-turn in an attempt to save Christmas – with a raft of extended emergency visas to help abate labour shortages that have led to empty shelves and petrol station queues.
New immigration measures will allow 300 fuel drivers to arrive immediately and stay until the end of March, while 100 army drivers will take to the roads from Monday, the government announced late on Friday.
Continue reading...Ministers to discuss emergency plan Operation Escalin after BP reveals a third of its forecourts have shortages
Hundreds of soldiers could be scrambled to deliver fuel to petrol stations running dry across the country due to panic buying and a shortage of drivers under an emergency plan expected to be considered by Boris Johnson on Monday.
The prime minister will gather senior members of the cabinet to scrutinise “Operation Escalin” after BP admitted that a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted that the rest would soon follow.
Continue reading...Emergency visa plan will not resolve Britain’s road transport crisis, says industry as majority blame Brexit in poll
The government’s emergency programme to issue temporary visas to thousands of lorry drivers is far too little to resolve Britain’s supply-chain crisis and is unlikely to attract them to the UK, haulage chiefs have warned.
Downing Street on Saturday night confirmed hastily compiled plans to add 5,000 HGV drivers and 5,500 poultry workers to a visa scheme until Christmas, to help the food and fuel industries with shortages.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson believed to have overruled ministers unwilling to compromise on post-Brexit immigration as forecourt queues mount
Ministers are poised to agree an extraordinary post-Brexit U-turn that would allow foreign lorry drivers back into the UK to stave off shortages threatening fuel and food supplies.
Boris Johnson ordered a rapid fix on Friday to prevent the crisis escalating. Ministers met in an attempt to agree a short-term visa scheme permitting potentially thousands more lorry drivers from abroad to come to the UK.
Continue reading...Border staff left dealing with backlog of travellers as reports emerge of people fainting in three-hour queues
Delays at Heathrow airport have been described as “unacceptable” by the Home Office, af reports of passengers fainting in queues of up to three hours.
Border staff were left dealing with a huge backlog of travellers, with witnesses saying they had seen people – including a pregnant woman – passing out while queueing.
Continue reading...Hailing end to toxic fuel additive, Guterres says same commitment is needed to eliminate other pollutants
The UN secretary general and environmentalists have welcomed a declaration by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) on the end of leaded petrol in the face of years of “underhand” opposition.
As Algeria became the last country to stop selling the toxic fuel last month, the two-decade campaign to ban it has been called a “milestone for multilateralism”.
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