Will long-awaited Nottinghamshire road upgrades finally happen?
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced on Wednesday billions of pounds of investment in transport infrastructure in England.
"It's very difficult to get capital funding out of central government."So says the Conservative councillor for Muskham and Farnsfield, Bruce Laughton.The A614 runs through his council division, and he says he's been lobbying for improvements for more than 15 years."It is essential for the north-south traffic through Nottinghamshire, and therefore [improving it] will have a major effect on the financial viability and the growth of this particular area," he said.A big chunk of the cash for the project was originally due to come directly from the Department for Transport.After a year of political upheaval, however, it looked like the burden would be shifted to the East Midlands Combined County Authority.When the Conservatives were in charge in central government, they promised the regional mayor would have £1.5bn to spend on improving connectivity – money saved from the cancellation of HS2 beyond Birmingham.
Speaking before the budget in the autumn, though, the Labour mayor Claire Ward said she was unsure if the money would arrive.Fast forward to this week, and not only was it confirmed, but the figure was higher than before."When Labour came into office, there were a huge number of schemes the Tories had promised funding for, and the money simply wasn't there," she said."After a year, we've been engaging with government, and I'm really pleased we've been allocated £2billion."
When the announcement was made by Reeves on Wednesday, however, the focus for the East Midlands was instead on a new mass transit system connecting Nottingham and Derby.Indeed, the Treasury press release didn't even mention the A614 project. Speaking to the BBC the same day, Ward said she wanted things to move "as quickly as possible", but appeared to stop short of giving any guarantees."There's still some outstanding bits of detail that we need to talk to our partners at Nottinghamshire County Council about," she said."We were going to make a contribution, and part of this money will help us to be able to have that money set aside ready for that contribution."
Nonetheless, the new leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, Reform UK's Mick Barton, welcomed the news."It'll have a massive impact; it needed doing years and years ago," he said."It's only got worse regarding the flow of traffic and the volume of traffic, so it will benefit everybody, whether it be the economy, the residents, the work people."All the signs are the project will get the green light, and while everyone I've spoken to this week seems to be supportive of it, there is also a sense of frustration that it's taken so long.After all, the council's former leader previously warned the plans were "already four or five months" behind schedule - that was eight months ago.
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Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
‘We spent £535,000 to buy and convert a schoolhouse. Our bedroom is the old hall'
If the walls of Theresa and Stuart Ellis's home could talk, they would ring with the sound of times tables being chanted, the squeak of chalk on slate and tuneless Christmas carol concerts. The couple fell for the charms of a Victorian-era former infant and primary school in Northamptonshire, and spent almost a year living in a caravan while they converted it into a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a dramatic double-height living room. They spent around £350,000 repurposing the property, earning a paper profit of more than £300,000 in return for a year's hard work. 'We were actually going to downsize, but when we found the school we just fell in love with it,' says Stuart, 67, an architectural designer who also runs a building company. He and Theresa, 65, who works for the family business, previously lived in the village of Wootton, on the edge of Northampton, in a modern house Stuart had built for them. Their three children have long flown the nest and they have seven grandchildren. The couple's house hunting led them to the village of Greens Norton, some 10 miles away where the former school, built in 1874, was for sale – along with a two-bedroom cottage, which had once been home to a succession of headmasters. After the school was closed in the 1960s, the property was used as the village hall, hosting playgroups and Scout and Brownie groups. It had been empty for a year or two when the couple found it. Stuart and Theresa agreed to pay £485,000 for the property in 2021, thinking they would redevelop and sell the school and live in the cottage. They sold their house to fund the project and bought a static caravan, which they ended up living in for a year. During that time they began to get more and more attached to the school, with its arched windows and double-height space, and decided to flip their plans. Instead of selling the school and living in the cottage, they sold the cottage for £300,000. 'The exterior looks exactly the same as when it was built' Permission for the building's change of use had already been granted, but Stuart redrew plans for the property – with an open-plan kitchen, living and dining room where the school's infants had once taken naps and learnt nursery rhymes. A ground-floor bedroom suite and a home office replaced the primary school's main hall, and the former toilet block was demolished and replaced with a new garden room. By adding a mezzanine they upped the floorspace of the building from 1,500 to 2,000 sq ft. This upper level has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The school playground is now the driveway, while a kitchen garden behind the school is now the couple's own garden. Stuart decided that the best way to preserve the look of the school was to faithfully restore its exterior. 'It looks exactly the same as it did when it was built,' he says. Inside is a different story. Stuart built a new timber frame inside the hall to support the new layout and mezzanine, with insulation inserted in between. Work began on the site in late 2021 and caused a bit of a local stir. 'We had lots of people who used to go to school here stopping in and asking if they could come and have a look,' says Stuart. 'Of course we said yes.' By July 2022, Stuart and Theresa were able to bid farewell to the caravan and move into their new home. The work cost an estimated £350,000, which was heavily subsidised by the sale of the cottage. That meant that buying the property and converting the school has cost Theresa and Stuart £535,000. It has since been valued at £850,000 although the couple have no plan to sell. 'We love it, it is a beautiful building, and we have a lot of family in the area. It is a great place to meet up and entertain,' says Stuart. 'Our living room is where children used to go for naps' Rising school rolls and education shake-ups in the post war-era led to the closure of many traditional village schools in the 1960s and 1970s – but with their steeply pitched roofs, high ceilings and neo-Gothic doors and windows, they are ripe for conversion. Generations of children learnt their numbers and letters at an old schoolhouse in Bideford, Devon. Then, after it had been replaced by a more modern building, Lara Watson and Will Jarvis jumped at the chance to repurpose it as a family home. Watson, 43, a journalist and editor, and Jarvis, 42, a creative director, were both born and raised in the West Country and met at school. By 2018, they were living together in a rented flat in London's Isle of Dogs, but were ready to settle down close to their roots to start a family. That year, the couple exchanged the capital for a rented cottage in Buck's Mills on Devon's north coast. They began house hunting for somewhere to buy. 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The Guardian
25 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Thames Water says new Abingdon reservoir could cost bill payers up to £7.5bn
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It has amassed a £20bn debt pile and a deal with private equity firm KKR to inject £4bn of funds to keep the company afloat was abandoned in June. The company's creditors have put forward a rescue plan contingent on regulators agreeing to waive hundreds of millions of pounds in sewage pollution fines. This week it emerged that Steve Reed, the environment secretary, has appointed City insolvency advisers to prepare for the company's potential collapse into a special administration regime (SAR) – a form of temporary nationalisation. It was also reported that if that situation arises, the Hong Kong infrastructure company CKI is a frontline contender to buy the company out of an SAR.
Daily Mail
25 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Taxman uses AI to snoop on social media posts of suspected tax cheats
HM Revenue and Customs is using artificial intelligence to snoop on suspected tax cheats' social media accounts, it has emerged. The taxman is using AI tools to scour social media posts for evidence of tax fraud and inconsistencies in income. It's the latest revelation of a government body using AI for its decision-making and processes. But if you abide by the rules you won't have to worry about AI snooping on your Instagram posts. The tax office is adamant AI tools are only used for social media monitoring in criminal investigations and with legal oversight. This isn't a new process – AI has been used to monitor social media accounts for 'years', HMRC says. But this fresh revelation has sparked a wave of concern from experts and politicians who say there is a risk AI could get it wrong - and accuse innocent households of evading tax, the Telegraph reports. Tax experts say that this could spark case of mistaken identity if AI is used to collate information about an individual from social media. Plus, there is a risk that accounts could be hacked or fake accounts could be created which could complicate the process. But officials maintains that there are robust checks and balances in place. An HMRC spokesman said: 'Use of AI for social media monitoring is restricted to criminal investigations and subject to legal oversight. 'AI supports our processes but – like all effective use of this new technology – it has robust safeguards in place and does not replace human decision-making. 'Greater use of AI will enable our staff to spend less time on administration and more time helping taxpayers, as well as better target fraud and evasion to bring in more money for public services.' AI is currently used to 'streamline' administrative tasks at the Revenue including internally using chat assistants to allow better access to information and also to summarise calls for advisers so they can cut down the time it takes to wrap up a call. The revelation of HMRC's AI use comes as it is under pressure to close the tax gap – the difference between the amount of tax that HMRC should be raking into its coffers and the amount it actually does. It's thought the use of AI in the Revenue will become widespread on the quest to rake in more money as it was last month revealed AI tools will spread to 'everyday' tax processes. It is hoped this will pull in an additional £7billion for the tax office. One of HMRC's new processes will be using AI tools to identify suspected tax evaders and nudge them to pay what they owe. It says AI tools will allow its staff to focus on more complex work instead of replacing jobs – it says it will hire some 5,500 compliance staff.
