Pigeon poo on Shrewsbury railway bridge to be cleaned
Deputy council leader Alex Wagner said the issue was the number one problem raised with him by email.Network Rail installed netting in 2021 to "pigeon proof" the bridge but it only solved the issue for a short while, Wagner said.He added the bridges and paths underneath were a key pedestrian route for thousands of people. A spokesperson for the authority it would install wire mesh and spikes to prevent the birds nesting and roosting under the bridge and would also remove pigeon carcasses and clean the walls.The cleaning and spike installation will be carried out from Monday and should be finished by 16 August. The mesh will be installed at a later date.
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Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
The 180-ton ‘wet wipe island' that's clogging up the Thames
To a casual observer, the pair of mechanical excavators raking through the mulch on the Thames's southern foreshore might well signify little. It's a quiet spot at the foot of London's Hammersmith Bridge, overlooked by a towpath and a few passing swans. But something major is happening here: the first-of-its-kind mechanised removal of what has been locally dubbed ' wet wipe island '. Surveys suggest this stomach-churning build-up of detritus has changed the very course of the river. Yet, until now, the work of tackling it has largely been left to volunteers for Thames21, an environmental charity. In Wellington boots and protective gloves, they have stalked the exposed shore at low tide, picking out wet wipes that Londoners have flushed down toilets – and which have, over the years, amalgamated into something far more gruesome than the sum of their parts. The numbers alone are grim: in the past eight years, volunteers have collected more than 140,000 wet wipes spewed into the river when storm overflows discharge sewage during periods of heavy rainfall. Thames Water clears 3.8 billion wipes from its network every year, at an annual cost of £18m. The 'island' of these that has formed near Hammersmith Bridge, where the river bends and the water moves slowly, is roughly the size of two tennis courts. According to modelling by the Port of London Authority (PLA), which has now taken the lead on the expensive clean-up operation, it weighs 180 tons, or the same as 15 double-decker buses. It's mostly composed of wet wipes clumped up with twigs, and has grown as high as a metre in some places. '[An] embarrassment to the capital,' the PLA has said. Were it to appear in a Don DeLillo novel, this outsized agglomeration would offer a discomfiting metaphor for how we live: as rapacious consumers who bury our waste beneath our city, creating an underworld we'd rather not consider. And for some years, indeed, the dogged, strong-stomached volunteers have shouldered the burden of doing so. 'When [they] are there, they [realise] it's worse than they expected,' says Liz Gyekye from Thames21, which has monitored this side of the bridge since 2017. 'You do hear people saying, 'I didn't know how bad the problem is…' Once you get onto the foreshore, [you can see the wet wipes] are everywhere.' It is feared they can harm wildlife and ecology locally, as well as further afield. The problem, she says, is that the wipes contain plastic, which breaks down into microplastics. These can then make their way into the stomachs of animals, according to studies. 'It will flow into oceans eventually and fish will be eating it and we eat the fish,' says Gyekye. Despite this unappetising prospect, we continue to flush the wipes down our toilets when they should be disposed of in the bin. Even better, Gyekye adds, is not buying them at all. 'We've always put out the message, 'bin it, don't flush it',' she says. '[And] we urge people to use alternatives. They're convenient but the best thing is not to use them.' Although wet wipes were invented in the middle of the 20th century, their widespread use – and hence the problem of their disposal – is a relatively recent phenomenon. 'In the 1970s and 1980s, people used cotton wool and water to wipe their babies' bottoms,' says Gyekye. 'It's only from the 1990s they started marketing this innovation. People aren't just using them for babies but to remove make-up.' Some 11 billion are used every year in the UK, with about 90 per cent containing plastic. In London, so-called 'nappy valley' areas like Battersea are responsible for particularly high usage, Gyekye suggests. This summer, inspired by the charity's action, the PLA is trying a different method to clear away the wet wipe island, deploying specially commissioned excavators to rake the foreshore, gather up the wipes and remove them, after which they will be taken to a skip and disposed of. The work, mostly funded by the PLA and started this week, will take a month and is thought to be costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. The excavators are being stored on the grounds of the adjacent independent St Paul's School while not in use. 'Frankly it is disgusting,' says Mark Anderson, the PLA's head of corporate affairs, of the wet wipe island. 'We are just as frustrated as anybody, and have wanted to see this addressed for years.' The completion of a new ' super sewer ' (the Thames Tideway Tunnel), the interest and financial commitment 'have now aligned to get this going', he adds. If it's emblematic of our throwaway culture, and the mountains of waste we generate, it is also arguably a sign of how poorly we care for our waterways. Last year, a report from The Rivers Trust found that no single stretch of river in England or Northern Ireland was in good overall health, and that toxic chemicals that remain in ecosystems for decades pollute every stretch of English rivers. Untreated sewage spills were found to blight most of our rivers. In the capital, the sewerage system was historically designed to discharge into the rivers, to prevent sewage from backing up into people's homes. Before Joseph Bazalgette created the network for Victorian London, raw sewage flowed into the Thames, from where London drew its drinking water supply. 'A portion of the inhabitants of the metropolis are made to consume, in some form or another, a portion of their own excrement, and moreover, to pay for the privilege,' observed microbiologist Arthur Hassall in 1850. Cholera epidemics served to illustrate the toll this took on people's health, although at the time the disease was believed to be airborne, carried by the stench of the river. Bazalgette engineered his way out of this, but his system was not designed to cope with a population the size of the capital's current one. After huge growth in the 19th century, there were 6.5 million people in London by the start of the 20th century. Today that figure is closer to nine million, and the city once again seems overwhelmed by its own waste. In 2023, at least 14.2 billion litres of sewage ended up in the Thames, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats. Work is under way to reduce this. In February this year the Thames Tideway Tunnel became fully connected. It is expected to reduce sewage discharges into the tidal Thames by 95 per cent, including at the location where the island has formed. Thames Water, which has been criticised for its handling of the general problem, has promised £9.5bn (in 2022-23 prices) of investment over the next five years to safeguard the environment and improve river health. The water company and the Environment Agency are working with the PLA to tackle wet wipe island. 'We continue to work with partners to create a better River Thames for people and wildlife,' says Charlie Wood, the London director of the Environment Agency. The Government also plans to ban wet wipes containing plastic, something Thames21 has campaigned for. 'This is part of our wider plan to rebuild the water system, which includes a record £104bn investment to halve sewage spills by 2030 and a new, powerful regulator responsible for the entire water sector – created by abolishing Ofwat and merging four water regulators into one,' says a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Back near Hammersmith Bridge, a couple of passers-by look on as the excavators continue to rake away at the wet wipe problem. London continues to go about its business, consuming and then discarding material things in frightening numbers. But DeLillo's Underworld, in which waste is a central theme, carries a haunting warning. As one character tells Nick Shay, the novel's protagonist: 'What we excrete comes back to consume us.'
The Herald Scotland
9 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Stonehaven victims remembered five years on from rail crash
Poor track conditions caused by heavy rain had forced the train to return to Aberdeen Station. Passenger Christopher Stuchbury, 62, driver Brett McCullough, 45, and conductor Donald Dinnie, 58, died, while six others were injured. Christopher Stuchbury, Donald Dinnie, and Brett McCullough (L-R) were killed after the train derailed near Stonehaven. On Tuesday, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), paid tribute to the trio and called on Network Rail to implement all of the safety recommendations made in a 2022 report. As of the Rail Accident Investigation Branch's most recent report, published earlier this year, 8 of the 20 recommendations remain 'open', which means they have yet to be fully addressed. Recommendations included taking action to correct faulty drainage design, control room functions, and train crashworthiness, as well as other 'critical safety issues'. RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey said: 'Our thoughts today are with the families of Donald, Brett and Chris, and with those injured and traumatised in the crash. "But remembrance alone is not enough – there must be action, and it needs to be urgent. 'It is outrageous that five years after the accident took place, and three years since the RAIB set out what needed to change, that so many safety recommendations are still outstanding. "We demand better – for those we lost, for those who survived and for the safety of every worker and passenger going forward." Read more: 'Outrageous': Scots rail safety fears after Carmont crash as upgrades 'cut' by £127m Fatal Accident Inquiry to be held following Stonehaven train derailment Hundreds line the streets to pay tribute to Stonehaven train conductor However, a Network Rail statement said that 'meaningful progress' had been made over the last five years. It read: 'Since August 2020, we've been working hard to make our railway safer for passengers and colleagues. "We're investing more than £400m in projects to strengthen the railway's resilience to increasingly unpredictable weather." "Meaningful progress has been made on the recommendations from the Carmont investigation, which includes co-ordinated action across all Network Rail routes, and we continue to work closely with the ORR, train operators, and other key stakeholders." Network Rail was fined £6.7m in 2023 as a result of the crash, and more than £1m was later paid out to settle a series of civil suits. An initial Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) hearing into the causes of the derailment is set to be held on August 28th.
BBC News
10 hours ago
- BBC News
How Oswestry shaped Dame Stephanie 'Steve' Shirley
Dame Stephanie Shirley, 91, who died on 9 August, is remembered by thousands for her pioneering work in the field of technology and for women's rights in the 1950s and founded the software company Freelance Programmers, which shook up the tech industry by almost exclusively hiring a child, she was separated from her parents to flee the Nazis in World War Two, settling with a foster family in the Sutton Coldfield in 1939, before later moving to Oswestry. It was at school in the Shropshire town it was discovered she had an aptitude for mathematics, which ultimately let her to becoming a tech pioneer. She was born Vera Buchthal in the German city of Dortmund in 1933, and came to Britain as part of the Kindertransport - a British rescue effort in the months preceding World War Two that brought 10,000 children to the UK."I was a very traumatised child, I was five years old when I was put on a train in Vienna and sent off, without my parents, with my older sister to foster parents in the Midlands," she told BBC Radio Shropshire in 2024. She then moved to Oswestry, which Dame Stephanie said was very welcoming to immigrants."I think its quite significant that Oswestry as a market town, and as a border town - its geographically in Wales, politically in Shropshire - but it should be welcoming of immigrants. It was... certainly in my day when we were living there," she said."I describe it as a town of sanctuary."My childhood was in the Midlands... I had six wonderful years of peace in Oswestry and I feel very affectionate about Oswestry."But it was not just the atmosphere that shaped her childhood. 'Maths lessons made my career' She attended what was then Oswestry Girls' High School, a boarding school in the town, but maths was limited there - in fact, it was not taught to girls at her talent for the subject was recognised and she was offered maths lessons at the boys school in the same town."I was the first girl to attend boys school to learn mathematics, and it was a rather unpleasant experience, really, with all the boys cat-calling and whistling as I turned up for my lessons," she told the BBC last year."But I did get the tuition I wanted, and I bless the people that had the sufficient foresight to say: 'Well, this child is gifted in mathematics... and we need to provide her with tuition'." Dame Stephanie said that decision "made her career". When she grew up, she adopted the name "Steve" to help her in a male-dominated tech was the name Jools Payne, who met her at Oswestry Literature Festival in 2015 when Stephanie was there to promote her memoir, knew her Payne established the group Oswestry Welcomes Refugees."She was fantastically successful but she was such a kind person," she said."She had such humanity and I think I will probably remember her most for the kindness that I saw her show on the three or four occasions that I spent time with her."Her connection to Oswestry was immortalised with the installation of a blue plaque, facilitated by the town council, on The Broadwalk next to St Oswald's Church in August 2021. Follow BBC Shropshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
