Basic Oxygen Steelmaking, which shut seven years ago, blown up using 1.6 tonnes of explosives
A former steelworks in Redcar has been pulled down in what is believed to be one of the biggest explosive demolitions in the UK.
In dramatic scenes – in which the structure disappeared in a cloud of dust and smoke with a blast that could reportedly be heard eight miles away – the 65-metre-high Basic Oxygen Steelmaking plant was blown up on Saturday morning.
Continue reading...Conservationists welcome successful breeding season but say birds remain at risk of being illegally killed
Nearly 120 rare hen harrier chicks have fledged in England this year, the highest number for more than a century, England’s conservation agency has said.
Natural England and its partners recorded 119 hen harrier chicks successfully fledging from nests across uplands in County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire, Northumberland and Yorkshire. A fledgling is a young bird that has grown enough to acquire its initial flight feathers and is preparing to leave the nest and care for itself.
Continue reading...Tory leadership candidates called on to commit to fixing growing regional disparities in education
This year’s GCSE results for England and Wales are expected to confirm a widening north-south education gap, prompting a prediction that the government will miss one of its key levelling-up targets if it continues to hold back pupils in the north of England.
A coalition of school leaders, charities and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has written to the Conservative leadership candidates urging them to commit to fixing growing regional disparities in education.
Continue reading...German energy firm, which operates many UK power stations, has been bailed out by federal government
The owner of the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire has posted a €12bn (£10bn) loss weeks after agreeing a bailout package with the German government, in a set of results that signal the deepening energy crisis across Europe.
Uniper received a €15bn lifeline from the German state in return for a 30% equity stake in a deal agreed in July.
Continue reading...Campaigners told new deadline for decision on first new deep coalmine in more than 30 years is 8 November
A much-anticipated decision on whether the UK’s first new deep coalmine in more than 30 years should go ahead has been delayed again.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (LUHC) has written to Friends of the Earth to inform the organisation that the new secretary of state, Greg Clark, has set a new deadline of 8 November to rule on whether the coalmine should be granted planning permission.
Continue reading...South of England experiencing faster recovery than north, Scotland and Northern Ireland
Visits to high streets and shopping centres dipped to below pre-pandemic levels last month, with the north of England – plus Scotland and Northern Ireland – trailing behind the south in terms of the overall recovery from Covid-fuelled gloom.
Footfall decreased by 14% in July compared with 2019, reversing gains made in April, as retailers struggled to entice shoppers amid a heatwave in the third week of the month and surging inflation.
Continue reading...Elected leader would take office in 2024 alongside return of powers from Westminster as part of levelling-up agenda
York and North Yorkshire are to elect a mayor and receive £540m of government investment over 30 years in a landmark devolution deal to be signed on Monday.
The agreement will create a new combined authority across the region led by a directly elected mayor, who will have the power to spend the money on local priorities such as transport, education and housing.
Continue reading...Analysis: As heat records break across Britain, the north of England and Scotland are reassessing the effects of the climate crisis
Newspaper readers in the UK’s northern half were used to scowling at the front pages every time they declared a sizzling summer. “It may well be sizzling in the south but it’s chucking it down in Hull/freezing in Wrexham/blowing a hoolie in Aberdeen” they grumbled, as they put on another cardigan or rescued the washing from a downpour.
Not this time. With a few exceptions (it’s still coat weather for those living in Shetland) much of the UK really has been outrageously hot this week. Whether it is asphalt melting, schools shutting or allotments withering, all but the most hardcore of climate crisis deniers now accept people are experiencing the effects of global heating in their own communities.
Continue reading...From 2025, commuters can expect two extra trains every hour between Manchester and York and journey times up to 40% shorter
Train services in the north of England are to be given triple the intended investment after the government announced the first part of its £96bn integrated rail plan.
The multibillion pound plan – announced last November – pledged to deliver faster train journeys more quickly than the original plans for the HS2 eastern leg and Northern Powerhouse Rail.
Continue reading...Almost two-fifths of children in north-east live in poverty after a decade of decline as campaigners warn of worse to come
The north-east of England has the highest rate of child poverty of anywhere in the UK, for the first time overtaking London as the nation’s hotspot for hardship and deprivation, new analysis shows.
Although the latest UK-wide figures show child poverty rates overall fell slightly in the first year of the pandemic due to the temporary £20 weekly uplift to universal credit, detailed breakdown shows child poverty continued to rise in areas like Sunderland, Newcastle and Middlesbrough.
Continue reading...Report singles out failings by police and council and suggests senior officials may have misled MPs
Vulnerable children were left exposed to sexual exploitation in Oldham because of “serious failings” by the police and council, a damning independent review has found.
The report found there were multiple missed opportunities to prevent abuse stretching back to 2005, including offences committed by a council welfare officer who was later convicted of 30 rapes.
Continue reading...Tony Finn, who worked at West Yorkshire manufacturing firm for 24 years, is in line for compensation
Calling a man “bald” is sexual harassment, an employment tribunal has ruled.
Hair loss is much more prevalent among men than women so using it to describe someone is a form of discrimination, a judge has concluded. Commenting on a man’s baldness in the workplace is equivalent to remarking on the size of a woman’s breasts, the finding suggests.
Continue reading...Wakefield MP found guilty of sexual assault on 11 April says delay caused by Easter and HR issues
Imran Ahmad Khan has said he has now resigned as Wakefield’s MP and will no longer be a parliamentarian from this Saturday, two and a half weeks after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.
Ahmad Khan told the Guardian he had submitted his resignation on Monday and that it was effective from 30 April. That means he will be paid his salary in full for April.
Continue reading...Gardeners warned of frost damage to blooms on Saturday night ahead of a week of unsettled weather
The UK is braced for more wintry weather across the weekend with frost creeping in overnight and temperatures set to plummet as low as minus 6C in some areas.
Forecasters said the “peaks and troughs” of spring will hit most of the country over the next week, with sunny spells and windy intervals expected in most regions.
Continue reading...Call for ‘seismic change’ in social care system after Robert McGuinness’s use of funds
The owner of a children’s home in Bolton shut down for “serious and widespread failures” spent thousands intended for educating marginalised children on drinking, foreign trips and his pub business, the Guardian can reveal.
Between 2015 and 2021, £1.5m was paid by two local authorities to a “community interest company” (CIC) run by Robert McGuinness, the main director of the children’s home. The CIC was set up to provide vocational training to children from years 9 to 11 (ages 14-16) excluded from mainstream schools.
Continue reading...Major bridges closing and millions told to batten down and not go outside as authorities warn of ‘significant disruption’
The east of England including London has been added to the red weather warning for wind issued by the Met Office because of Storm Eunice, which has prompted rare danger-to-life warnings, with millions of people told to stay indoors at home to avoid 90mph winds.
The rare highest alert – meaning a major impact is very likely – was widened just before 4am, to run from 10am until 3pm on Friday, due to fears of the storm “causing significant disruption and dangerous conditions due to extremely strong winds”, the Met Office said.
Continue reading...Questions of fairness and trust linger for constituents in Tonge Fold, in the most marginal of Tory-won red wall seats
When Boris Johnson addressed MPs an hour after the release of Sue Gray’s redacted report, he will have hoped his apology would travel far beyond the Commons chamber and reached places like Tonge Fold, on the outskirts of Bolton.
But the immediate reaction suggests the prime minister might be in trouble. “It’s just extremely disappointing and very frustrating. There’s no other words for it,” said Adele Warren, a Conservative councillor, after watching Johnson’s Commons statement with some of her party colleagues.
Continue reading...Activists say bill being presented to parliament sanctions irreversible destruction of environment
A nationwide day of action against HS2 – involving banner drops, solidarity protests and a Twitter storm – is planned for Monday as the bill to expand the line beyond Crewe is presented to parliament.
Environmental activists say the bill will “sanction immense and irreversible destruction to the environment” and want to raise awareness of HS2’s “continuing ecocide, corruption and financial mis-management”.
Continue reading...Report making case for culture as catalyst for levelling up wins cross-party backing
Think of “the north” and images that come to mind include Antony Gormley’s Angel of the North, the sculpture of Henry Moore and Manchester’s music scene.
But now a rare show of cross-party unity has called for all of the cultural icons of northern England to be a catalyst to rebuild the region and rebalance it with the rest of the UK.
Continue reading...Neil Cole’s Museum of Classic Sci-Fi, hosted in cellar of his Allendale townhouse, holds costumes and props from numerous TV classics
At first glance the Northumberland village of Allendale, with its pub and post office and random parking, is like hundreds of sleepy, charming villages across the UK. It’s the Dalek that suggests something out of the ordinary.
Behind the Dalek is a four-storey Georgian townhouse. In the cellar of the house is a remarkable and unlikely collection of more than 200 costumes, props and artwork telling classic sci-fi stories of Doctor Who, Blake’s 7, Star Trek, Flash Gordon, Marvel and many more.
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