Initial £15.5m will go to schemes such as launch of large regional park to improving green spaces along canals
A coalition of environmental and heritage bodies has launched a billion-pound mission to bring nature into the heart of urban areas in the UK.
The first phase of the Nature Towns and Cities initiative will involve £15.5m being invested in 40 towns and cities across the four nations.
Continue reading...Food Standards Agency warns that the drinks can cause decreased consciousness and low blood sugar
Children under seven should not drink slushies containing glycerol because of the serious health risks they can cause, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said.
Glycerol is a naturally occurring alcohol and sugar substitute that helps slushies maintain their texture by preventing liquid from freezing solid.
Continue reading...16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in all elections as part of changes including easier voter registration and crackdown on foreign interference
The voting age will be lowered to 16 in the UK by the next general election in a major change of the democratic system.
The government said it was a reform to bring in more fairness for 16- and 17-year-olds, many of whom already work and are able to serve in the military. It brings the whole of the UK voting age to 16. Scotland and Wales have already made the change for Holyrood and Senedd elections, as well as local council elections.
Continue reading...Announcement takes number of people hit by restrictions across England to about 8.5 million
Southern Water has become the fourth English utility to issue a hosepipe ban, taking the number of people hit by such restrictions to about 8.5 million.
The latest ban, which comes into force for about 1 million residents across large swathes of Hampshire and all of the Isle of Wight from 9am on Monday, comes after Yorkshire, Thames and South East Water announced similar measures.
Continue reading...Children from lower-income families also remain significantly behind their peers as impact of pandemic continues to be felt
Five-year-olds with special educational needs in England are lagging a record 20 months behind their peers, according to a report that says the country’s youngest learners face a “deepening crisis”, five years after the pandemic.
Since Covid closed schools, disrupting learning and triggering falls in attendance, there has been widespread concern about the growing attainment gap that leaves disadvantaged pupils and those with special educational needs significantly behind their peers.
Continue reading...Emergency services at the scene after Beechcraft B200 aircraft involved in collision at about 4pm on Sunday
A small passenger plane has crashed after taking off in Essex.
The Beechcraft B200 aircraft crashed at about 4pm on Sunday, soon after taking off from Southend airport, and was seen in flames with dark smoke billowing from it, according to photos circulating on social media.
Continue reading...Preschool establishment asked for extra compulsory fee for ‘consumables’ – but it should have been free
A nursery has refunded a father almost £1,200 after an investigation found he had been charged mandatory “top-up” fees for hours of childcare that should have been free.
Tiago Gomes’s daughter was eligible for government-funded childcare at the Lake House day nursery and preschool in Bristol but he was told that he must pay an extra compulsory fee for “consumables”.
Continue reading...Northumbria police say two men are in custody after death of woman in her 80s and another in her 90s
Two care home residents have died after a car police were chasing crashed into their building in Sunderland.
Ten residents were taken to hospital after the stolen BMW collapsed a large part of a wall and part of the first storey of Highcliffe care home in Witherwack.
Continue reading...Stephen Cottrell tells General Synod assisted dying means assuming ‘authority over death that belongs to God alone’
Members of the Church of England should work to “withstand and even turn back” the forces of public opinion “that risk making … assisted dying a reality in our national life”, the archbishop of York has said.
Speaking to the church’s General Synod on Friday, Stephen Cottrell said permitting assisted dying would change “forever the contract between doctor and patient, pressurising the vulnerable and assuming an authority over death that belongs to God alone”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Tom Dolphin says rise needed to redress real-terms earnings loss since 2008 and strikes could last years
Resident doctors’ 29% pay claim is non-negotiable, reasonable and easily affordable for the NHS, the new leader of the medical profession has said.
Strikes to ensure resident – formerly junior – doctors in England get the full 29% could drag on for years, according to Dr Tom Dolphin, the British Medical Association’s new council chair.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As a new Guardian project begins, we hear from the teenagers navigating deprivation, isolation and a sense of being forgotten
Good morning. A few weeks ago, 18-year-old Tamsin Jarman-Smith, born and raised in a small town just outside Blackpool, sat on a battered sofa at House of Wingz, a community youth organisation tucked down an alleyway a few streets from the beach, and explained what it felt like to be a young person growing up in a coastal town.
“I’m lucky because I found this passion for dancing and I come to this place, which has saved me I think, especially my creativity and hope for opportunities for myself, but lots of people my age feel like there is nothing here for them,” she said.
Europe | Talks over a British and French migration deal remained deadlocked on Wednesday night, as negotiators haggled over how much Britain will pay towards the cost of policing small boat crossings.
UK news | Campaigners have decried as “dangerously naive” the UK government’s sweeping deal with Google to provide free technology to the public sector.
Europe | Police have raided the headquarters of France’s far-right National Rally and seized documents as part of an investigation into alleged illegal campaign financing.
UK news | Thames Water has refused to claw back almost £2.5m paid to senior managers from an emergency loan that was meant to keep the failing utilities company afloat.
Housing | The Bank of England has rolled out looser mortgage rules that policymakers hope will help 36,000 more first-time buyers on to the housing ladder each year.
Continue reading...Almost three in 10 conceptions ended in legal terminations, ONS figures show, as provider says women struggling to access contraception
The number of abortions in England and Wales reached a record high in 2022, with a leading provider stating that women are facing “significant barriers” in access to contraception.
Almost three in 10 conceptions ended in legal abortions in the two nations in 2022, up from about two in 10 a decade earlier, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Continue reading...The Royal College of Nursing and Unison are undertaking indicative ballots to assess members’ willingness to strike
A looming fresh wave of strikes by resident doctors could encourage other NHS staff including nurses to take industrial action over pay, health service bosses fear.
Resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, in England are threatening to stage stoppages until January in pursuit of their demand for a 29% pay rise, after 90% voted in favour in a ballot on a 55% turnout.
Continue reading...Charities say more judge-only trials in England and Wales could lead to more miscarriages of justice
Removing the right to a jury trial for more offences would disadvantage people of colour and other minorities and lead to more miscarriages of justice, reformers have warned.
Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the criminal courts in England and Wales is expected to be published this week and recommend the creation of intermediate courts, sitting without a jury, to try some offences.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Oxford’s Bodleian libraries to put archive items on display for first time, celebrating spy author’s ‘tradecraft’
The extent of John le Carré’s meticulous research and attention to detail are among insights into his working methods that will be revealed when the master of spy thrillers’ private archive goes on display for the first time this autumn.
His classic cold war-era espionage novels have sold tens of millions of copies worldwide and inspired acclaimed films and television adaptations.
Continue reading...Show will include 30 monumental pieces displayed across gardens and 90 works filling Shirley Sherwood Gallery
Henry Moore believed “sculpture is an art of the open air” and that his works should be seen in “almost any landscape, rather than in or on the most beautiful building”.
Now the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is planning the world’s largest outdoor exhibition devoted to the miner’s son who became one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century, it will announce on Monday.
Continue reading...Reduction from 43 forces to as few as 12 could save money and end ‘postcode lottery’ for crime victims, leaders say
Police chiefs in England and Wales have told ministers that the number of forces should be cut to end “the postcode lottery for victims of crime”, the Guardian has learned.
They believe a reduction from the current 43 forces would save money, cut overheads and boost crime-fighting efforts.
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.
Continue reading...Coventry South MP, who lost whip last year, surprises some in Corbyn’s Independent Alliance with news of formal plans
MP Zarah Sultana, suspended from Labour, has announced she is resigning from the party to join Jeremy Corbyn’s Independent Alliance.
Sultana declared she will “co-lead the founding of a new party” – even though, while there was an agreement in principle to form one, the timing and leadership had not been settled, the Guardian understands.
Continue reading...The health service transformation proposed for England faces daunting challenges that overwhelmed earlier attempts at reform
The government’s 10-year health plan to revive, modernise and future-proof the NHS in England has arrived as the service is facing a dual crisis. It has been unable for a decade now to provide the rapid access – to GPs, A&E care, surgery, ambulances and mental health support – which people need and used to get.
Normalisation of anxiety-inducing, frightening and sometimes fatal delay has produced a less tangible, but also dangerous, crisis: of public satisfaction, born of a profound loss of trust that the NHS will be there for them or their loved ones when they need it.
Continue reading...