Government says it is working to solve ‘postcode lottery’ of access to green or blue spaces
There are urban areas of England where no one lives within a 15-minute walk of nature, government data shows, as ministers scramble to meet their access to nature targets.
While the data shows 80% of people live within walking distance of green or blue spaces such as a river, park or woodland, it also reveals a disparity between rural and poorer urban areas.
Continue reading...Number looking to move to urban centres up 16% in first five months of 2025 compared with same period in 2015
With the rise of home working and surging house prices in many urban areas, one might have assumed that British cities had lost some of their appeal to homebuyers over the past decade, but it turns out the opposite is the case.
An analysis of the first five months of this year shows the number of would-be first-time buyers in Great Britain looking to move to cities is up by 16% on average compared with the same period in 2015.
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During her BBC Breakfast interview Kemi Badenoch claimed that the government has dropped the plans for five local inquiries into grooming gang, or child rape scandals, that were announced in January. As she was trying to fend of the questions about Adolescence, she said:
One of the things that I’m more bothered by is the fact that just yesterday, we had Labour telling us that they’re not going to be investigating the rape gang scandal, something which had happened all across the country. That’s real. That’s happening right now. We’re not talking about that.
I am absolutely astonished that Labour has dropped what it said it would do in January. And, as I said to Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions, if he did not have a full national inquiry, people will start to think that there is a cover-up.
They are clearly uncomfortable with having inquiries that are looking into this issue.
As a rule I believe in mess ups rather than conspiracy.
But if true that Labour have shelved even the most limited public enquiries into grooming gangs, it does suggest that powerful Labour politicians have something to hide.
We are developing a new best practice framework to support local authorities that want to undertake victim-centred local inquiries or related work, drawing on the lessons from local independent inquiries such as those in Telford, Rotherham and Greater Manchester. We will publish the details next month.
Alongside that, we will set out the process through which local authorities can access the £5m national fund to support locally-led work on grooming gangs. Following feedback from local authorities, the fund will adopt a flexible approach to support both full independent local inquiries and more bespoke work, including local victims’ panels or locally led audits of the handling of historical cases.
There’s a huge information about this. This is completely wrong. We’re actually increasing, not reducing, the action being taken on this.
Child sexual exploitation, grooming gangs – these are some of the most vile crimes, things like rape or exploitation, coercion. We’re increasing the action against that.
I think that those are all important issues, and those were issues that I’ve been talking about for a long time.
But in the same way that I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what’s going on in the NHS, I don’t need to watch a specific Netflix drama to understand what’s going on. It’s a fictional series. It is not a documentary.
I’m saying very clearly that my job is not to watch lots of TV. My job is to get out there and make sure that I’m talking about the issues that are happening in the country right now.
Badenoch in the right. Stop basing public policy on telly
Continue reading...In Doncaster, at the insurgent rightwing party’s ‘biggest ever’ gathering, one absence is on everybody’ lips
On a sunny day at Doncaster racecourse, those gathered for Reform UK’s “biggest ever party conference” were presented with a dizzying array of pledges to cut tax and freeze “non-essential” immigration as its leading lights published a programme to “save Britain”. Yet even as the sun beamed down, the shadow of one absent figure seemed to hang over proceedings.
There was a jubilant mood at the South Yorkshire gathering as they cheered leader Richard Tice’s demands for an inquiry into vaccine harms, to break with the World Health Organization and to fire headteachers who refused to drop “critical race theory”.
Continue reading...Lee Parkin intervened in vain in 20-minute attack as he walked his dog near his home in Doncaster
Lee Parkin had been the proud owner of his terrier-spaniel cross Izzy for nearly 10 years when he stepped out for what would be his last walk with his beloved pet.
He was walking Izzy near his home in Doncaster when an XL bully pounced on her, mounting a 20-minute attack and ultimately killing the dog in front of Parkin, who desperately intervened in vain.
Continue reading...Houses in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, were partially submerged by rising flood water after torrential rain hit the north of England and the Midlands on Thursday. Hundreds of homes were evacuated after South Yorkshire experienced a month's worth of rainfall in one day.
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