Guildford's Elm Nursery family farm to close after 42 years
The family added they work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which has made it "extremely hard" for them as a family to "enjoy anything but work life together"."Now we would like to relax, breath and enjoy," they added.The owners added they will be taking most of the animals with them and some will be rehomed to family and friends. They have thanked residents for their support over the years and have confirmed the nursery will remain open throughout the summer holidays. They added the farm, shop, plant nursery and the Elm Farm Café are due to close on 5 September.
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BBC News
10 minutes ago
- BBC News
Newcastle's summer of frustration - what's going on?
"A big summer."Manager Eddie Howe was not the only senior figure behind the scenes at Newcastle United to utter those words before the summer transfer window club may have ended a long wait for silverware and qualified for the Champions League, but the importance of this window was not lost on it has been big - but for frustrating have lost out on a host of targets. Alexander Isak has been subject of a bid from Liverpool. It looks possible that Manchester United could sign their main striker target Benjamin Sesko, after Liverpool snatched away Hugo Ekitike in top of all that there has been upheaval behind the the club face a race against time to strengthen their squad and calm any fears with the season starting and window closing in the coming weeks. Boardroom upheaval for the second summer Howe had not long touched down for his end-of-season fact, the head coach was just a couple of days into his break when sporting director Paul Mitchell left the club back in their were initial tensions between Howe and Mitchell over how they worked together, it was rather telling that Howe recognised how such a figure "protects the manager from a lot of things".CEO Darren Eales handed in his noticed last autumn because of a serious health problem. His replacement has not yet been this came after the the departures of co-owners Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi last has been far from ideal and has meant that, as well as preparing the team for the new season, Howe has also found himself at the coalface alongside head of recruitment Steve Nickson and his nephew, assistant Andy have since signed Anthony Elanga from Nottingham Forest and Aaron Ramsdale on loan from Southampton, but the Magpies face a race against time to recruit a centre-back, central midfielder and at least one striker before the window shuts on September 1 – let alone before the season starts next week. Newcastle hamstrung by spending rules The richest club in the world? It was a tag that was never accurate. Not in a profit and sustainability (PSR) world, despite having the wealthiest may be backed by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund - known as its Public Investment Fund - and the Reuben family, but the Magpies' income streams still pale in comparison to the established context, Arsenal (£327.8m), Chelsea (£337.8m), Manchester United (£364.7m), Liverpool (£386.1m) and Manchester City (£412.6m) splashed out more on wages than Newcastle generated in revenue (£320.3m) in Premier League clubs' most recently published is that significant? Well, historically, in the top flight, the clubs with the biggest wage bills have tended to pick up the most points per game. It is one of the reasons why the so-called 'big six' were locked in for so previous disruptors like Chelsea and Manchester City were able to blow their rivals out of the water with superior packages, before PSR rules were introduced in 2013, Newcastle are still operating within a tight wage has also now gone further, with rules on commercial deals with companies linked to owners tightened. The Alexander Isak saga Never more have these restrictions been more apparent than in the Isak transfer has become a crossroads moment for the Newcastle project. Despite the historic success on the field last season, the reality of their inability to compete with the top clubs financially means it is uncertain whether they can keep their top Newcastle hold firm on Isak, who still has three years left on his contract, or do they sell up in the final weeks of the window?Isak may have made it clear that he wanted to explore his options, but Newcastle delivered an emphatic response to Liverpool last week in rejecting the champions' £110m are expected to return with an increased offer. It is going to be a fascinating plot in the remaining weeks of the transfer sort of message would Newcastle be sending by selling Isak at such a price to another Premier League side? What sort of precedent would it set?How would Newcastle even go about replacing the Sweden star when the whole of Europe would see the black-and-whites coming? Captain Bruno Guimaraes was the first to admit that "you cannot find some players who have scored more than 20 goals in the Premier League".However, is the situation beyond that point? Could Isak even be integrated back into the group?While Newcastle stressed that the 25-year-old missed the club's pre-season tour with a minor thigh injury, and the striker then trained alone at former club Real Sociedad, Howe has since warned that "no player can expect to act poorly and train with the group as normal". The struggle to make signings While there is the issue of holding on to their best player, Newcastle have found it hard to sign others and strengthen their squad more club had a list of key targets for they have faced intense competition for Sesko, Ekitike, Joao Pedro, James Trafford, Liam Delap and Dean for Sesko at present, each of those players has signed for another critics and fans have questioned whether the behind-the-scenes upheaval has played a role in the issues in the Trafford's decision to rejoin Manchester City from Burnley after protracted talks with Newcastle over the fee was a have questioned whether the Saudi owners can realise their ambitions to compete with the on the other hand, each of those transfers is unique. Manchester City, for example, had a buy-back clause for Trafford and the player held a strong desire to return clubs' legacy of success has also been a may have only finished three points above Newcastle last season, but Joao Pedro referenced growing up watching the Blues win United believe Sesko is keen on a move to Old Trafford – despite the Red Devils enduring their worst Premier League season in in all it is a complicated picture few could have imagined 73 days ago when Newcastle qualified for the Champions League on the final day of the season.
Times
10 minutes ago
- Times
Bureaucracy is a spoke in wheel of e-bike revolution
Every day, thousands of Londoners choose to travel by e-bike. Whether for commuting, meeting friends or exploring the capital, e-bikes are opening up green, affordable and accessible cycling to a much wider audience. This demand is borne out in the data. Just last month Forest, the e-bike company I co-founded in 2021, reached a record-breaking 1.5 million rides across London, a 60 per cent increase from last year. While the upsides of getting more people cycling are obvious — it promotes healthier lifestyles, eases congestion and is better for the environment — we are acutely aware of the challenges that come with rising demand. No one benefits from e-bikes cluttering pavements or being parked irresponsibly. We know that. E-bikes should complement London's streets, not complicate them. So, what is the issue? Cities like Oxford and Bristol have one coherent operating area, but London has a tangled web of conflicting rules across different boroughs. One council bans parking in certain areas, another permits it freely. Some impose strict fines, others barely enforce regulations at all. This patchwork means riders are often confused about what they can and can't do. And it undermines public confidence in an otherwise transformative mode of transport. • Cut parking for second cars to make room for e-bikes, says rental firm We need consistency across all boroughs. Without it, we're opening the door to operators more focused on market share than street harmony. We're not advocating for fewer rules, in fact we're calling for more of them. London urgently needs a single regulatory framework. One set of parking standards, one enforcement model, and one operational rulebook should apply from Brent to Bromley. A coherent approach would allow riders to enjoy the benefits of cycling without worrying how to end their journey. Part of the challenge lies in Whitehall. The stalled English Devolution Bill has left London, not to mention other major British cities, without the powers to govern its mobility infrastructure effectively. That must change. Transport for London needs the authority to plan and implement a city-wide strategy across borough boundaries. • Chris Hoy joins e-bike revolution . . . but can 'weekend warriors' catch up? Forest is ready to work with regulators, not around them. We want higher standards, better accountability and smarter city planning. But that future cannot be built one borough at a time. Londoners are ready for a change. Let's give them the infrastructure and clarity they need to use e-bikes safely, confidently and responsibly. One city. One set of rules. Agustin Guilisasti is co-founder and CEO of Forest
Telegraph
10 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Reeves has driven Britain to the brink. Full-blown crisis will soon be upon us
Britain's fiscal reckoning has arrived. The £20bn 'black hole' has, according to one new estimate, doubled in size under Rachel Reeves's dubious stewardship. Most of the money we are now borrowing is going not towards servicing our debt, but the interest on that debt. Colossal off-the-book liabilities, such as public sector pensions, have been hidden from voters by successive governments. They are now falling due. For years, the country has behaved like a household hooked on payday loans. Now, the bills have come through the letterbox and we've no cash left to cover them. Even the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, traditionally Left-leaning, is warning that if the Chancellor is to remain within her fiscal rules, she must raise taxes or cut spending by £51bn. Not even the Office for Budget Responsibility can maintain the fiction that the current trajectory is sustainable. Reductions in spending are out of the question, as the ludicrous welfare row exposed. 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Politicians, of whatever stripe, have engaged in a collective delusion: that the Treasury is so awash with cash it is scrambling to find things to spend it on. Pay rises across the public sector? Green subsidies? A pointless railway to Birmingham? Bring it on. But the overall state of the public finances tells a grim story. In 2024-25, the state is projected to spend £1.2tn. Some £450bn of this will go on welfare, health and pensions – more than the entire take from income tax, National Insurance and VAT combined. The UK entered this century with debt at around 30 per cent of GDP; it's now pushing 100 per cent. The tax burden is at a post-War high, set to be around 37.5 per cent of GDP for the rest of this Parliament, yet core public services are crumbling and the crowd yells out for more. Polling suggests the public are closer to grasping our fiscal reality than politicians, with economic optimism now half what it was in July 2024. But even growing pessimism isn't enough to slake their thirst for more spending. Some 9.1 million people of working age are currently economically inactive. Over half of households are taking more from the state than they are putting in. As the number of net contributors shrinks, who, exactly, do people believe is footing the bill? More than two centuries ago, Adam Smith wrote: 'Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence... but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice.' Peace is uncertain, the administration of our increasingly wonky justice has time lags measured in years, and taxes increasingly drag us down. Council tax on our homes. The licence fee. VAT on virtually every product we consume. Vehicle Excise Duty. Congestion charges, tolls, Ulez. The sugar tax. A Digital Services tax on any online orders or subscriptions. Income tax. National Insurance Contributions raised for employers, but which in the end the employee will pay. It's enough to drive us to – massively taxed, of course – drink. And the more convoluted the system becomes, the easier it is for governments to mask the scale of the extraction and the harder it is to scrutinise – or object. Taxes should be visible and just. Currently, they are neither. This is not by accident, but design. Worse still, the public has been fed a series of monstrous lies about tax-and-spend. That it is not only necessary for the state to plunder our earnings and assets, but moral. That squeezing the private sector to fund the public mysteriously delivers growth. That the 'rich' aren't paying their 'fair share', despite all the evidence to the contrary. That we could tax the 'wealthy' without punishing the middle classes. Of all Labour's pledges, none has unravelled faster than the self-defeating promise to shield 'working people' from tax hikes. They punished businesses, and since the start of the year, employment is down, unemployment is up, wage growth has stalled and vacancies are falling. They waged war on independent schools, and since January 50 have closed, with all the job casualties that brings. The affluent, as the Telegraph this week reports, have paid their fees in advance – a luxury poorer parents, those who strain every sinew to privately educate their children, cannot afford. The list goes on. Reeves's inheritance tax assault on family farms has triggered the worst collapse in rural businesses since 2017. Non-doms are fleeing almost as fast as small boats are arriving, taking with them billions in tax receipts, spending and investment. Labour said they would deliver the kind of 'growth' that would haul us out of the post-lockdown economic crisis, but are giving us stagnation. Even if they renege their manifesto pledge not to hike income tax, VAT or National Insurance, it might not be enough. There are major structural problems in our economy – a broken planning system, suffocating regulation – to which this Government has no answer. And, at some point, tax takes begin to destroy growth, with one study suggesting each 10 per cent rise in tax reduces the growth rate by around 1.2 per cent. We are completely boxed in. Politically, of course, breaking their tax triple lock would be a disaster. As Professor John Curtice tells me, it could prompt a tuition-fees moment – a betrayal that would be forever etched in the public's memory. Our overall approach to the public finances is self-evidently unsustainable. A retrenchment of state expenditure is coming at some point and the longer we wait the more painful it will be. We've lived in Neverland for too long. It's time to say no, we don't believe in fairies.
