Penulis: Agus S

On the edge of Buckingham in southern England, the quiet and leafy village of Maids Moreton, dotted with thatched cottages, is at the heart of a dilemma.

There is a plan – already granted permission – to add 153 new homes to the existing community of 350 houses, a medieval church and a pub.

But the local sewage works has been over capacity for years, and there is no sign of it being upgraded soon.

A choice is looming over what to do if the planned new homes are built.

Leave them standing empty, waiting for upgrades to the wastewater treatment system before they are connected?

Or connect them anyway and let people move in – contributing towards Buckinghamshire Council’s target for new homes, but increasing the sewage pollution of the nearby river, the Great Ouse?

“You wouldn’t dream of building a house that you couldn’t connect to electricity, or that was never going to connect to a road. But for some reason we’re building houses that have nowhere to treat the sewage,” says Kate Pryke, one of the local residents campaigning to prevent the development being built.

Maids Moreton’s dilemma is an increasingly common one across England – as ageing sewage works, water industry under-investment and chronic pollution in many areas appear to threaten the government’s ambitious plans to build 1.5 million homes this parliament.

About 30 miles away in Oxford, concerns over sewage capacity led to the Environment Agency objecting to all new development, placing up to 18,000 new homes in limbo. It led a group of developers, including some of Oxford University’s colleges, to describe the city as “uninvestable”.

Overdue upgrades to Oxford Sewage Treatment Works have now been agreed allowing new homes to be built and occupied from 2027.

“We think the problem is rife across England and Wales,” says Justin Neal, solicitor at Wildfish, an environmental charity that campaigns against river pollution.

The charity has been granted permission for a judicial review at the High Court, challenging Buckinghamshire Council’s decision to grant planning permission for the Maids Moreton development.

It says the case goes to the heart of the gap between plans for new housing and the capacity of the existing sewage infrastructure.

The area is “a good example of where too many houses have been put in”, and as a result the local sewage works – Buckingham Water Recycling Centre – “won’t be able to deal with all the sewage that’s going to it,” says Mr Neal.

He says sewage from the Maids Moreton development would likely end up being discharged into the Great Ouse as a result, “a river which is already suffering from pollution”.

“We hope that people start listening, particularly in government, and the ministers start thinking, ‘Well, maybe there is a way around this.’ And it’s to put more pressure on water companies to make sure that they have capacity.”

The water companies – along with the regulator Ofwat and the Environment Agency – decide when and where sewerage investment will be made. While this should take account of future housing need, there is no way for a local council or developer to influence investment decisions directly – or even pay for the extra capacity.

In Maids Moreton, Anglian Water stated in planning documents 10 years ago that Buckingham Water Recycling Centre did not have any capacity for new development.

Since the site was flagged as being at capacity in 2015, planning permission has been granted for about 1,500 homes in and around Buckingham, hundreds of which have already been built and connected to the over-capacity treatment works.

Sewage pollution is listed by the Environment Agency as one of the reasons the Great Ouse is failing to achieve “good ecological status”.

Last year the treatment works released sewage into the river for a total of 2,001 hours – the equivalent of more than two-and-a-half months non-stop – although Anglian Water claims this is not related to site capacity.

“They don’t even have the money to upgrade it for the housing that’s here. The idea that one day it will be upgraded to cope with all the growth is just a pipe dream,” says Mrs Pryke.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Environmental policies in the area’s local plan to protect rivers led to a planning condition that developers have to prove that “adequate capacity is available or can be provided” at wastewater treatment works.

But in the Maids Moreton case, no capacity upgrades have been carried out and there are none currently planned. There was provisional funding to upgrade the capacity of the works between 2020-25 but it was reallocated to priority schemes elsewhere in the region.

“We are currently reviewing and prioritising our growth portfolio for delivery over the next five years,” Anglian Water said, but the company did not respond to questions about whether the upgrades to Buckingham sewage works would take place before 2030.

Unable to meet the planning condition about sewage capacity, the developer – David Wilson Homes South Midlands, part of the UK’s largest housebuilder Barratt Redrow – applied to amend it so construction could start and the council agreed.

“Under pressure from the developer, they’ve watered this down, and it means that these houses can now be built without paying attention to whether or not the sewage works has capacity,” says Mr Neal from Wildfish.

“What we need is proper joined-up thinking where there should be no development unless there is capacity.”

Buckinghamshire Council’s cabinet member for planning Peter Strachan said the local authority “follows the planning process rigorously” and it has made the new homes subject to “a condition preventing any part of the development from being occupied unless and until confirmation has been provided to the council that wastewater upgrades have been completed”. He added “it is not appropriate for the council to comment further” because of the legal challenge.

Occupation clauses like the one imposed by the council are known as “Grampian conditions”, after a 1984 court case, and are often used when work is required that is beyond the developer’s control. They are increasingly common as local authorities grapple with the challenge of building new homes in areas where the sewage works are at capacity.

However, once homes with planning permission are built, water companies are obliged to connect them to the sewage network, regardless of its capacity.

“The very idea that they are going to sit empty for months, possibly years without being occupied because there’s a condition that hasn’t been met is an utter nonsense,” says Kate Pryke. “And in any event the council will have no interest in enforcing that condition.”

Neither the council nor the developer answered the BBC’s questions about when they expect Buckingham sewage works to be upgraded and how long they would be prepared for the newly built houses to remain unoccupied.

But the developer said it would “ensure a programme of any wastewater upgrades required to support the development has been agreed with Anglian Water”. On the development site itself, the company said there will be “at least a 10% uplift in biodiversity” with the installation of “bat and bird boxes and hedgehog highways”.

The BBC also asked the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government what should happen in areas where new homes are needed but where there is no available sewage capacity in the foreseeable future – and also whether Buckinghamshire Council had been right to grant planning permission in Maids Moreton.

A government spokesperson said: “Councils must consider sewerage capacity as part of their housebuilding plans and, through our Independent Water Commission, we will clean up our waterways by making sure planning for development and water infrastructure works more efficiently.”

The judicial review could take place later this year. If the charity is successful it could stop the Maids Moreton development going ahead and place future housebuilding in the area in doubt.

It comes at a time when the government says it is “turbocharging growth” and overhauling the planning system – with Chancellor Rachel Reeves promising to reduce “environmental requirements placed on developers when they pay into the nature restoration fund… so they can focus on getting things built, and stop worrying about bats and newts”.

Mr Neal says the charity’s legal case, however, is not about “newt-hugging” or “people caring for fish more than they do for people who are homeless” – but about development being held back by the lack of capacity in sewage works.

“The solution is not to take away the laws that give the environment protection, but to build better sewage works that actually do their job properly.”

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A Delta flight travelling from Minneapolis to Madison, Wisconsin was delayed after two pigeons ended up onboard the aircraft, baffling both passengers and crew.

Video shows one of birds flying through the cabin as a passenger attempts to catch it with a jacket. According to local media, baggage handlers were called on board and safely removed one of the birds.

However, as the plane began to taxi down the runway, a second bird emerged, causing the pilot to contact air traffic control to return to the gate once more.

The flight arrived in Madison one hour later than scheduled. Delta later apologised to customers for the delay.

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In October 2024 the government announced it was cancelling a project to widen part of the A1 in Northumberland, years after its National Highways agency had spent more than £4m on the purchase of houses and land in the way of the scheme.

The affected families – including one couple who had to start afresh miles away in Cumbria – said they had “been through hell” as they saw their properties “left to rot” unnecessarily.

Melanie Wensby-Scott sat in her car and cried on the day she and her husband left Northgate House, which sits right next to the road not far from Morpeth.

The couple had been packing up the last of their belongings and she was still running the vacuum cleaner around when the agency’s contractors arrived.

“They started boarding up the windows and changing the locks,” she said. “I honestly felt like we were being evicted.”

Melanie and her husband Julian had had “big plans” when they bought the house in 2009.

“We put in a new kitchen, new bathrooms, we were planning a new conservatory and we had no intention of ever leaving,” she said.

But in 2014, the then Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to dual a 13-mile section of the A1 and it became clear their house was in the path of the chosen route.

“When they first came round I said I didn’t want to move and they basically said I had no option,” said Mrs Wensby-Scott.

“It was just awful to know you were going to lose your home.”

The A1 scheme stalled for a few years, alternating between ready to start and still on hold until, in May 2024, Rishi Sunak’s government approved the Development Consent Order which gave the final go-ahead.

However, Labour swept back into power two months later and cancelled the project in October 2024, stating it had to make “difficult decisions about road schemes which were unfunded or unaffordable”.

Mrs Wensby-Scott said: “When I heard the news, I just thought ‘oh my God all that for nothing’.

“Everything we went through, the heartache, the angst, I just couldn’t believe it.

“You drive past now and it’s falling apart, it just looks awful. It’s such a shame, it was such a beautiful house.”

At the other end of the proposed route, Felicity and James Hester were living in East Cottage near the village of Rock.

It was a “perfect place” for them because it had a paddock and stabling for their horses, but they soon realised the bulldozers were heading their way.

“It was just horrible,” Mrs Hester said. “We went through four or five years of utter hell trying to find somewhere we could actually move to, it was just a nightmare.

“The way the property market was at the time in Northumberland, we couldn’t find anything which matched what we had so we had to move to Cumbria.

“Now we’re a couple of hours away from all the friends we had.”

Next to East Cottage is Charlton Mires, a large 200-year-old farmhouse and steadings that had been the home of the Beal family since 1904, but would also need to be flattened for road building.

Martin Beal described its loss as “very painful”.

“I felt like I’d let my family down somehow because I couldn’t save our home,” he said. “There are just so many memories in there.

“They were also taking part of our land, so I couldn’t plan ahead. I had sleepless nights, it was very hard.”

A freedom of information request by the BBC revealed that more than £68m had already been spent on the A1 scheme by the time it was cancelled, and that figure continues to rise by just under £30,000 a month.

That is partly because National Highways is obliged to pay insurance and council tax on the unneeded properties, including an empty house premium.

Land agent Louis Fell, who represented the Hester and Beal families, described the situation as “a mess”

He said: “I know National Highways didn’t make the decision to cancel the road, but they need to have a strategy for the properties, perhaps consider refurbishing them and renting them to young families.

“For them just to sit here rotting is such a waste of money and it’s not a good look for an area popular with tourists.”

National Highways previously said it was “sympathetic” to Mr Beal’s situation after delays to payments for his property.

In a statement, it said: “We carefully review expenditure on all our projects to ensure that lessons are learned and processes are improved for any future road improvement schemes.

“Discussions surrounding the future of the homes purchased as part of this scheme remain ongoing and will be communicated in due course.

“The properties are being managed by our estates team until a strategy is agreed.

“During this time, the properties will be secured by our maintenance contractor and inspected on an appropriate basis.”

Under what are known as the Crichel Down rules, in situations like this the properties should be offered back to the owners, but all three families say they do not wish to go back to homes which have been empty for several years.

Martin Beal said his former home was “full of damp and falling apart”.

He now has permission to build a new farmhouse nearby but when it is built, because it is a direct replacement for Charlton Mires, planning arrangements mean the original farmhouse has to be demolished at a cost to the taxpayer of an estimated £100,000.

“It has been there for 200 years, it’s a beautiful house. It is just ridiculous it has to be demolished for nothing,” Mr Beal lamented.

“I’m just so angry about everything my parents and I have been through, and all those millions of pounds wasted for what?”

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The additional places will “futureproof Penrith”, Westmorland and Furness Council is told.

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Environmental rules that force developers in England to improve wildlife habitats could be eased under government plans to make it easier to build homes on smaller sites.

The government is reviewing Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements, under which builders must compensate for the loss of any nature on housing developments.

Ministers say they are considering how costs can be reduced for smaller housebuilders whilst also delivering habitats for wildlife.

The proposals are part of a package of housing reforms to be set out by the Labour government on Wednesday.

The Conservatives said they had been pushing the government to do more to support small businesses.

Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner wants to simplify the planning system to speed up house-building on smaller sites.

There are plans to ease BNG requirements for minor developments of up to nine homes and give trained planning officers rather than councillors the power to approve them.

Ministers have also suggested exempting sites of between 10 and 49 homes from a tax to fund the removal of unsafe cladding.

The government said smaller firms had seen their market share shrink since the 1980s, when small- and medium-sized builders delivered 40% of the country’s homes, and the changes would “level the playing field”.

Speaking to broadcasters on Wednesday, Rayner said the changes would “simplify” the planning process and denied she was compromising environmental protections, adding: “this is pragmatism”.

The shadow secretary for local government, Kevin Hollinrake, said Labour was “stripping councillors of the right to vote on local planning applications, concreting over green belt and withdrawing support for first-time buyers”.

He said Rayner would bring “higher taxes and less say over development in your community”.

Ministers hope these policy changes will help them reach the government’s stated aim of building 1.5m new homes in England by 2030.

Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) figures released in March suggested housebuilding would fall short of the 1.5 million target, even with planning reforms previously outlined earlier this year.

The government argued that further reforms not factored into the OBR forecast would help it reach the number.

Last year saw a record low for housing projects granted planning permission in England, with just over 30,000 projects given the go-ahead.

The difficulty of hitting the house-building target has brought the impact of BNG into sharper focus.

BNG became a mandatory part of the planning system in England in February as part of the 2021 Environment Act.

It means sites have to be assessed and housing developers must commit to delivering a 10% net improvement in biodiversity that lasts over a 30-year period.

Last month, the Home Builders Federation said the BNG had placed a “disproportionate burden on small and medium-sized home builders”.

“The home-building industry has embraced BNG and is committed to both increasing housing supply and protecting and enhancing our natural environment,” Neil Jefferson, chief executive at the Home Builders Federation, said.

“However, if we are to increase supply alongside these new requirements it is vital to address emerging barriers to implementation, such as the insufficient resourcing of local authorities, shortage of ecologists, and inadequate national guidance.”

But the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of conservation groups, urged the government not to “turn back the clock to the days of damaging development”.

Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said: “Exempting small sites would mean almost three-quarters of developments face no requirement to compensate for nature loss – let alone enhance it.

“These changes could leave the Biodiversity Net Gain system dead in the water and, with it, the government’s main guarantee of nature-positive planning.”

The government is launching a consultation reviewing BNG and alongside this, is investing £100m in loans to help smaller house-building firms.

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Drivers of more polluting cars may be forced to pay more to park in Reading under the plans.

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Domestic cats can tell the difference between the smell of their owner and that of a stranger, a new study suggests.

The study by Tokyo University of Agriculture found cats spent significantly longer sniffing tubes containing the odours of unknown people compared to tubes containing their owner’s smell.

This suggests cats can discriminate between familiar and unfamiliar humans based on their odour, the researchers say, but that it is unclear whether they can identify specific people.

Cats are known to use their strong sense of smell to identify and communicate with other cats, but researchers had not yet studied whether they can also use it to distinguish between people.

Previous studies of human recognition by cats have shown they are able to distinguish between voices, interpret someone’s gaze to find food, and change their behaviour according to a person’s emotional state that is recognised via their odour.

In the study published on Wednesday, researchers presented 30 cats with plastic tubes containing either a swab containing the odour of their owner, a swab containing the odour of a person of the same sex as their owner who they had never met, or a clean swab.

The swabs containing odours had been rubbed under the armpit, behind the ear, and between the toes of the owner or stranger.

Cats spent significantly more time sniffing the odours of unknown people compared to those of their owner or the empty tube, suggesting they can discriminate between the smells of familiar and unfamiliar people, the researchers said.

The idea of sniffing an unknown stimulus for longer has been shown before in cats – weaned kittens sniff unknown female cats for longer compared to their mothers.

However, the researchers cautioned that it cannot be concluded the cats can identify specific people such as their owner.

“The odour stimuli used in this study were only those of known and unknown persons,” said one of the study’s authors, Hidehiko Uchiyama.

“Behavioural experiments in which cats are presented with multiple known-person odour stimuli would be needed, and we would need to find specific behavioural patterns in cats that appear only in response to the owner’s odour.”

Serenella d’Ingeo, a researcher at the University of Bari who was not involved in this study but who has studied cat responses to human odours, also said the results demonstrated cats react differently to familiar and unfamiliar smells, but that conclusions couldn’t be drawn over their motivations.

“We don’t know how the animal felt during the sniffing… We don’t know for instance whether the animal was relaxed or tense,” she said.

Ms d’Ingeo added that the presentation of samples to cats by their own owners, who naturally added their own odour to the environment, could have increased the cats’ interest in the unfamiliar ones.

“In that situation, owners present not only their visual presence but also their odour,” she said.

“So of course if they present other odours that are different from their personal one, in a way they engage more the cat.”

The study’s authors concluded that “cats use their olfaction [smell] for the recognition of humans”.

They also noted cats rubbed their faces against the tubes after sniffing – which cats do to mark their scent on something – indicating that sniffing may be an exploratory behaviour that precedes odour marking.

The researchers cautioned that this relationship needs further investigation, along with the theory of whether cats can recognise a specific person from their smell.

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The Swiss village of Blatten has been partially destroyed after a huge chunk of glacier crashed down into the valley.

Although the village had been evacuated some days ago because of fears the Birch glacier was disintegrating, one person has been reported missing, and many homes have been completely flattened.

Blatten’s mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said “the unimaginable has happened” but promised the village still had a future.

Local authorities have requested support from the Swiss army’s disaster relief unit and members of the Swiss government are on their way to the scene.

The disaster that has befallen Blatten is the worst nightmare for communities across the Alps.

The village’s 300 inhabitants had to leave their homes on 19 May after geologists monitoring the area warned that the glacier appeared unstable. Now many of them may never be able to return.

Appearing to fight back tears, Bellwald said: “We have lost our village, but not our heart. We will support each other and console each other. After a long night, it will be morning again.”

The Swiss government has already promised funding to make sure residents can stay, if not in the village itself, at least in the locality.

However, Raphaël Mayoraz, head of the regional office for Natural Hazards, warned that further evacuations in the areas close to Blatten might be necessary.

Climate change is causing the glaciers – frozen rivers of ice – to melt faster and faster, and the permafrost, often described as the glue that holds the high mountains together, is also thawing.

Drone footage showed a large section of the Birch glacier collapsing at about 15:30 (14:30 BST) on Wednesday. The avalanche of mud that swept over Blatten sounded like a deafening roar, as it swept down into the valley leaving an enormous cloud of dust.

Glaciologists monitoring the thaw have warned for years that some alpine towns and villages could be at risk, and Blatten is not even the first to be evacuated.

In eastern Switzerland, residents of the village of Brienz were evacuated two years ago because the mountainside above them was crumbling.

Since then, they have only been permitted to return for short periods.

In 2017, eight hikers were killed, and many homes destroyed, when the biggest landslide in over a century came down close to the village of Bondo.

The most recent report into the condition of Switzerland’s glaciers suggested they could all be gone within a century, if global temperatures could not be kept within a rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, agreed ten years ago by almost 200 countries under the Paris climate accord.

Many climate scientists suggest that target has already been missed, meaning the glacier thaw will continue to accelerate, increasing the risk of flooding and landslides, and threatening more communities like Blatten.

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A key planning restriction that heat pumps need to be one metre from a neighbour’s property has been lifted as the government seeks to accelerate the take up of the low-carbon technology.

The change, which is part of the government’s Warm Homes Plan to lower household bills and cut planet warming emissions, means it could be easier for millions of homes in England to have a heat pump installed.

But consumer groups warn that the changes will not help those in rented or leasehold properties and the biggest barrier to installing a heat pump remains the high upfront costs.

This is a particular problem for older housing stock where upgrades to pipework and insulation may also be required.

Most UK homes use gas boilers for their hot water and heating, but this produces up to 14% of the country’s planet warming greenhouse gases.

In comparison, heat pumps use electricity, so as the country moves to generating more electricity from renewable energy sources like solar and wind, they could produce far fewer emissions than boilers.

But switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump is expensive and not straightforward if you live in one of England’s six million terraced homes.

Until Thursday, homeowners needed planning permission if they wanted to put a heat pump within one metre of their neighbour’s property – because of concerns over noise.

Tom Clarke, a gas engineer who recently retrained to fit heat pumps, said having to apply for planning permission had been a barrier for his customers.

“When you look across London we have loads and loads of terraced houses and no matter where you site the appliance it is always going to be within one metre of the boundary,” he said.

It was particularly problematic for people replacing a broken gas boiler because many customers would not want to go more than a month without heating waiting for council approval, he said.

This is echoed by Octopus Energy, who told parliament’s Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ) Committee in 2023 that this planning rule was affecting 27% of its customers.

“Those who try to proceed end up waiting an additional eight to 10 weeks on average. Even if customers meet all the requirements, there is no guarantee that local councils will grant the permission, as they all have different interpretations of central planning guidelines,” the company wrote in its submission. “The combined impact of all these things mean that very few of the 27% of customers who require planning have made it to install.”

The rule has now been dropped to accelerate the uptake of heat pumps. Previous concerns over noise are less of an issue with newer devices, though units will still be required to be below a certain volume level.

The planning changes also include a relaxation of the rules for the size and number of heat pumps households can install.

Households most likely to be affected are those living in terraced housing. In 2021, they accounted for 5.7 million households, or 23% of the total. Some of these will still need planning permission, for example those living in conservation areas.

The change is part of the government’s Warm Homes Plan which aims to give 300,000 households upgrades to improve their energy efficiency and lower bills.

Although the heat pump industry welcomed the changes, many point out the main barrier for many customers is that installing heat pumps is expensive, particularly in older houses, where better insulation may also be needed.

This was the case at social housing estate Sutton Dwellings in Chelsea, London, which underwent a full refurbishment of its fabric alongside a new ground source heat pump network.

Its landlord, Clarion Housing Group, did receive a grant from the government to install the new network but also invested its own money.

Stuart Gadsden, commercial director at Kensa, the company which designed and installed the system, said this was an issue for many landlords: “A big [barrier] is funding, this obviously does cost more to install than a traditional gas boiler system.

“In the social housing sector we have funding from the warm homes social housing fund, but it was oversubscribed by double. Lots of housing associations want to put low carbon heating in but there is not enough to go around.”

Renters have to rely on landlords being willing to make the initial upfront investment.

Rob Lane, Chief Property Officer at Clarion, said the company was happy to do this at Sutton Dwellings because of the impact for residents: “We’re waiting to see how the costs of running this system bear out, but our forecasts suggests that each home is going to cost on average £450 – £500 per home (each year) – considerable savings for residents.”

From 2030, as part of the Warm Homes plan, there will be mandatory requirements for all private landlords to upgrade the energy efficiency of their properties.

But the way that Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) are currently calculated means a gas boiler can sometimes have a better rating than a heat pump because it looks at energy costs and assumes gas is cheaper.

Katy King, deputy director of sustainability at charity Nesta, said the government could bring down electricity costs.

“The UK has some of the most expensive electricity prices in Europe. The government could take levies off electricity and put them onto gas or use general taxation. It is a tricky choice and one we do expect them to be consulting on within the year,” she said.

A spokesperson from the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We are supporting industry to develop financing models that can remove the upfront cost entirely, and consulting on new approaches, such as heat pump subscriptions, to help more households make the switch to cleaner heating in a way that works for them.”

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Proposals to build on land near Wickersley had been rejected over the development of the green belt.

Acorn says its project will safeguard about 18,000 jobs that would have been lost, including jobs at Grangemouth.

Campaigners express their glee after planning officers advise councillors turn down the plant.

Applicants say a 15MW array near Braunton will offset annual electricity usage of about 8,600 homes.

Students draw on inspiration from three cultural figures to help them write the Suffolk Day proclamation.

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The UK’s saltmarshes are vital “sinks” that lock away climate-warming greenhouse gases in layers of mud, according to a new report from WWF.

Much of the UK’s saltmarshes have been lost to agriculture but the charity says they are unsung heroes in nature’s fight against climate change.

It is now calling for these muddy, tidal habitats to be added to the official UK inventory of how much carbon is emitted and how much is removed from our atmosphere every year.

This formal recognition could, it hopes, provide more of an incentive to restore and protect more of these sites.

Working with researchers from the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, a WWF team installed solar-powered greenhouse gas monitoring stations on Hesketh Out Marsh, a saltmarsh in North-West England that has been restored and is managed by the RSPB.

Analysing gases in the air flowing around the marsh – over the course of a year – revealed how plants there “breathe in” more carbon dioxide in the summer than they release in winter.

These new findings build on previous studies that have measured the amount of carbon in the marshland’s mud.

To carry it out, the team fixed analytical equipment to a sturdy 2.5m tall tower made of scaffolding poles. The site is regularly flooded by the tide, so the tower has kept their kit safe from salt water and debris.

With WWF’s ocean conservation specialist, Tom Brook as our guide, we waded through the thigh-high grass to visit the site of the experiment.

At low tide, the sea is not visible beyond the expanse of grassland, but the area is littered with driftwood, some plastic waste and there is even a small, upturned boat nearby.

“The plants grow so quickly here in spring and summer that they almost grow on top of each other – layering and decomposing,” Tom said. “That captures carbon in the soils. So while we’re typically taught about how trees breathe in carbon and store that in the wood, here salt marshes are doing that as mud.

“So the mud here is just as important for climate mitigation as trees are.”

WWF has published its first year of findings in a report called The Importance of UK Saltmarshes. Unusually, this been co-published with an insurance company that is interested in understanding the role these sites have in protecting homes from coastal flooding.

The UK has lost about 85% of its saltmarshes since 1860. They were seen as useless land and many were drained for agriculture.

Hesketh Out Marsh has been restored – bought by the wildlife charity RSPB and re-flooded by tide. Now, in late spring, it is teeming with bird life. A variety of species, including avocets, oyster catchers and black-tailed godwits, probe the mud for food and nest on the land between lagoons and streams.

The researchers hope the findings will help make the case to restore and protect more of these muddy bufferzones between the land and the sea.

“The mud here is so important,” explained Alex Pigott, the RSPB warden at Hesketh Out Marsh. “It’s is like a service station for birds.”

With their differently shaped bills – some ideal for scooping and some for probing – marshland birds feed in the tidal mud.

“We know these sites act as a natural flood defences, too and that they store carbon,” said Ms Pigott. “Any any of these habitats that we can restore will be a big win for nature.”

Off the coast of Sicily, Sea Shepherd and its volunteers are hunting down illegal fish traps and working with Italian authorities to crack down on this environmental crime.

The craft was described as having crossed the path of the pod off Findochty earlier this month.

Conservationists say the plans in the Borders underestimate the danger posed to birds in the area.

One bird watcher is thrilled to spot the pure-white starling and describes it as “quite incredible”.

The innovative collection created by Blackburn College students will be auctioned off for charity.

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Builders will be required to fit solar panels to the “vast majority” of new build homes in England under changes to be published this year, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has said.

The regulations will require developers to add panels unless the buildings fall under certain exemptions such as being covered by shade.

Speaking to the BBC, Miliband said the move was “just common sense” adding that solar panels would save the typical household £500 a year on their energy bills.

The Home Builders Federation said it backed fitting more panels but cautioned against introducing “burdensome” paperwork which it said could harm government efforts to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029.

The rules will be included in the Future Homes Standard, which will detail a wider plan for improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.

The government says it will be published in autumn but there will be a transitional period for developers to adjust to the regulation changes.

Current building regulations do not compel developers to add solar panels to new homes.

The last Conservative government consulted on new regulations including a proposal that new build homes should have rooftop solar panels covering the equivalent of 40% of the building’s ground area.

However, they were voted out of power before their proposed changes could be implemented.

The Labour government is now promising to introduce rules which would mandate developers to add solar panels to all new builds.

Asked if the government would stick to the 40% figure proposed by the previous Conservative government, Miliband said the details would be set out in the autumn.

“The problem about the previous system was that it said you would had to have a certain percentage of coverage of solar panels but if you couldn’t achieve that percentage you didn’t have to do anything at all.

“Under our plans, we are not going to say that. We are going to say even if you can’t hit 40% you will still have to have some solar panels, except in rare exceptional cases.”

Miliband said the number of homes with solar panels had to be “much, much higher” adding: “It’s got to be almost universal.”

Asked if he worried developers would pass the cost of adding solar panels on to buyers, Miliband said he didn’t think there would be an effect on house prices.

Neil Jefferson, head of the Home Builders Federation, said an estimated two in five new homes had solar panels and that the industry was “getting increasingly used to incorporating solar panels within the building of new homes”.

“The government just needs to take care to make sure that it does not prescribe and mandate to much on rooftops.”

“If every single home needs to be applied for on an exemption basis that will slow up the delivery of desperately-needed new homes, that administration will be burdensome.”

Chris Hewett, from the trade body Solar Energy UK, said local authorities would have to be “vigilant” to ensure developers were meeting their obligations but added that it would be “quite easy to enforce”.

He also said he did not expect many homes to be exempt, estimating that 90% of new build homes would have to comply with the new rules.

Asked if the sector had the skills to keep up with demand, Mr Hewett said: “We are certainly aware that we need to train more people… that’s something we as an industry are working on.”

The announcement comes a week after the government ditched a planning rule in order to make it easier for people to install heat pumps in their homes.

Increasing solar power is one way the government hopes to reduce the country’s carbon emissions.

The UK is legally committed to reaching its net zero target by 2050, meaning the UK must cut carbon emissions until it removes as much as it produces, in line with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

In 2022, emissions from residential buildings made up 20% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK.

The government’s advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, has said the UK will not be able to meet its targets “without near complete decarbonisation of the housing stock”.

According to analysis by Carbon Brief, power generated by solar sites in the UK hit record highs this year, partly driven by particularly sunny weather.

Between January and May, the level was 42% higher than the same period in 2024 and marked a 160% increase over the last decade.

However, solar power remains the UK’s sixth largest source of electricity, behind gas, wind, imports, nuclear and biomass.

The net-zero goal was set by the previous Conservative government and retained by Labour.

However, recently Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said the target is “impossible” to achieve “without a serious drop in our living standards or by bankrupting us”.

Reform UK have called for the target to be scrapped entirely, arguing it has led to higher energy bills, while the Greens and Liberal Democrats want the government to hit the target faster.

The Liberal Democrats claimed credit for the government’s move to mandate solar energy generation technology for new homes.

Lib Dem MP Max Wilkinson, who has been attempting to change the law to require solar on newbuild homes, said the news would “help us fight the cost-of-living crisis by lowering people’s energy bills while reducing carbon emissions too”.

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Proposals to build on land near Wickersley had been rejected over the development of the green belt.

Acorn says its project will safeguard about 18,000 jobs that would have been lost, including jobs at Grangemouth.

The innovative collection created by Blackburn College students will be auctioned off for charity.

Campaigners express their glee after planning officers advise councillors turn down the plant.

The BBC looks at the latest innovation and technology as workboats try to decarbonise.

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The Prince of Wales has described the challenge of protecting the world’s oceans as “like none that we have ever faced before.”

In a speech delivered to the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco, Prince William said life on the ocean floor was “diminishing before our eyes” and called for ambitious action “on a global, national and local level”.

At the Grimaldi Forum, named after Monaco’s royal family, the Prince spoke in both English and French as he laid out what was at risk.

“The truth is that healthy oceans are essential to all life on earth. They generate half of the world’s oxygen, regulate our climate and provide food for more than three billion people,” he said.

Rising temperatures, pollution and overfishing are causing huge damage to the world’s oceans and the communities that rely on them.

The forum comes ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, this week, with the events looking at the role oceans play in global trade, food security and sustainable energy.

In Monaco on Sunday, the Prince was speaking to an audience of environmentalists, scientists and investors – many of whom have travelled there with a view to financing ocean protection projects.

Prince William acknowledged that investing in ocean work can be a tricky proposition for investors.

“All too often, it can feel distant and disconnected from our everyday lives, allowing us to forget just how vital it is,” he said. “We must realise the potential of the blue economy for our ecosystems, our economies and our communities.”

The Prince was speaking as founder of the Earthshot Prize, which gives out five £1m prizes each year for the best solutions to the greatest climate challenges.

Several Earthshot winners and past finalists were in the audience.

Enric Sala, of the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas project, was a finalist in 2021 and has pioneered work to protect marine life.

He is also part of the team that has produced Sir David Attenborough’s new film, Oceans, which Prince William described as “the most compelling argument for immediate action I have ever seen”.

“Watching human activity reduce beautiful sea forests to barren deserts at the base of our oceans is heartbreaking,” the Prince said.

“For many, it is an urgent wake up call to just what is going on in our oceans. But it can no longer be a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind’.”

He ended his speech saying action was needed for future generations and quoted Sir David.

“If we save the sea, we save our world.”

The Prince interviewed Sir David at the premiere of Oceans last month, with the film described by its producer as “the greatest message [Sir David] has ever told”.

Kensington Palace described the speech as a “landmark intervention” by Prince William, using his platform to generate change and bring in investments to scale up ocean solutions.

While in southern France, the Prince met President Chavez of Costa Rica, France’s President Macron and Prince Albert of Monaco – a supporter of many oceans projects and a key player at the forum.

Prince William will also attend a closed session, held in private, with ocean experts and investors.

Additional reporting by Adam Hale.

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Prince of Wales outlines risks to world’s oceans at Monaco conference.

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