Garbage Strike in UK’s Second Largest City Leaves Trash Piled High
A standoff between garbage collectors and municipal officials in Britain’s second largest city has left an estimated 17,000 tons of trash on the streets.
local government
Buckled Wiltshire road used as skate park finally repaired
B4069 near Lyneham reopens three years after landslip following £5m engineering projectA stretch of country road in Wiltshire that was so badly buckled in a landslip it became a hotspot for skateboarders and BMX riders, who used its wild undulations fo…
Reeves says hasty response to Trump tariffs could put ‘prize’ of economic deal at risk – as it happened
This blog is now closed, you can follow Donald Trump’s tariffs announcement live in our US colleagues’ live blogThere will be two urgent questions in the Commons after PMQs. At around 12.30pm a Foreign Office minister will respond to a question from Pr…
Birmingham declares major incident over bin strike as piles of waste grow
Council leader says situation causing ‘harm and distress’ with 17,000 tonnes of rubbish uncollectedBirmingham city council has declared a major incident over an ongoing bin strike, saying the daily blocking of depots by picket lines means vehicles are …
Scores of English councils could go bankrupt when hidden Send debt reappears
Deficits of £5.2bn have been put aside for seven years in accounting fix that ends on 31 March 2026Nearly 20 councils in England ‘at risk of insolvency’ due to Send costsThe staggering cost of England’s special educational needs and disability (Send) c…
‘I like Rupert Lowe’s plain speaking’: suspended MP haunts Nigel Farage’s big rally
As Reform UK launched its English local elections campaign in Birmingham there were murmurs among activists about the fate of a ‘popular figure’There was one name on the lips of many Reform supporters before their party’s local election campaign launch…
Labour ads use NHS to attack Farage’s views before major Reform rally
Billboards in Birmingham cite party leader’s remarks about a new funding model as local elections campaigning beginsLabour has begun an all-out assault on Nigel Farage over his views on the NHS in the run-up to key elections in May, as the Reform UK le…
Labour mayoral candidate on race to stop Reform – and ‘Doge Lincolnshire’
Jason Stockwood, ex chair of Grimsby Town FC, has a plan for keeping his rival Andrea Jenkyns from implementing US-style cutsLabour can beat Reform UK by focusing relentlessly on the cost of living, the party’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshir…
Manchester’s Bee Network introduces tap-in travel on buses as well as trams
Andy Burnham hails ‘truly integrated, London-style’ system with fares calculated and capped automaticallyManchester will enjoy a transport network on “a footing with London, New York and Madrid” when contactless tap-in fares launch across its buses fro…
As rubbish piles up, tempers fray amid Birmingham bin strike
Pop-up household waste centres increasingly fraught and city at breaking point less than two weeks into stoppageWhen a council rubbish lorry arrived on a street in south Birmingham on Wednesday morning, the situation descended into chaos.Crowds of peop…