Community handed fruit trees from Coronation fund
Community groups, schools and parish councils have received hundreds of fruit trees, so they can plant their own orchards this winter.
The trees will be put on publicly accessible land across the North Northamptonshire Council area, ranging in size of five to 100 trees in each location.
It comes after the council was awarded a grant from the Coronation Living Heritage Fund - part of a government initiative celebrating the King's Coronation.
"It is a way of providing important habitats for wildlife, and creating green spaces where our communities can connect with nature for years come," said Helen Harrison, the council's executive member for climate and green environment.
Last week, community representatives went to Coronation Park in Corby to collect their fruit trees and planting kits.
Each tree was provided with stakes, mesh guards and mulch mats to support healthy growth.
In total, 720 fruit trees were handed over. They included a variety of traditional and local apple, pear, cherry, plum, quince and medlar trees.
Jason Smithers, leader of the Conservative-run council, said: "The community orchards will make such a huge difference to the area.
"They will offer valuable opportunities for education and engagement, and leave a lasting legacy for our communities and wildlife."
The new orchards are due to be planted by the following groups, schools and parish councils:
Brigstock Parish Council
Coronation Park Growing Project
Cottingham Parish Council
Deene and Deenethorpe Parish Council
Fletton Field Association - Oundle
Friends of Sywell Country Park
Gretton Parish Council
Isebrook SEN School
Kettering Buccleuch Academy
King's Cliffe Endowed School
Laxton Junior School
Little Stanion Primary School
Lowick Village Hall – Germain Education Foundation
Oundle School
Oundle Town Council
Raunds Town Council
Stanion C of E School
Wilbarston Primary School
Wren Spinney School
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Hamilton Spectator
41 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Another ‘summer of stink?' Resident odour complaints spike around Stoney Creek landfill
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The odours are persisting, summer is coming and no one can be in their backyard … We can't continue like this.' The landfill, which has switched owners and names periodically since the late 1990s, suffered an infamous stinky stretch in 2023 — dubbed by residents the ' Summer of Stink. ' Current operator GFL was charged last month with 10 provincial offences linked primarily to that time frame and separately fined $15,000 — although the company has since appealed those penalties. GFL, which did not respond to Spectator requests for comment for this story, has previously said it made changes to help lessen the odour issues that dominated 2023. Independent air monitoring done the next year by the city showed no exceedances for sulphurous gases commonly associated with the rotten egg smell. But residents in residential neighbourhoods around the landfill — and some of those housing developments are a literal stone's throw away from the operation — say odour problems never went away entirely and have worsened again this spring. As of the first week of June, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks said it had logged 440 odour complaints linked to the landfill in 2025. That was before last weekend, when an apparent spate of intense odours spurred a furious reporting spree by outraged residents who have started posting screenshots of their submitted complaints to a Facebook group devoted to shuttering the former Taro dump. The Spectator counted at least 20 photos of posted complaint reports between June 6 and 10. 'It seems to be getting worse and worse and everyone is nervous about what that means for the summer,' said Kathie Farraway, who helped organize protests against the landfill operations at the height of the 2023 odour woes. 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Ministry spokesperson Gary Wheeler said via email the occasional odours are 'likely linked' to the waste relocation ordered last year. That worries residents, who say they've been told by GFL that relocation could continue throughout the summer and fall. Wheeler said the ministry is conducting 'regular site visits' to do odour surveys and will 'take any necessary measures to address issues of noncompliance.' He added the province is also requiring GFL to put into place a 'supplemental odour control plan' and extra air monitoring during trash relocation. GFL did not respond to requests for comment on that work, recent odour complaints or its plan to build a treatment plant for leachate, the garbage juice created by rainfall filtering through trash. 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But residents are hopeful they'll get more news, sooner, as a result of motions from ward councillor Brad Clark passed by city council early in 2025. Those motions asked city staff to examine the prospect of tax relief for odour-affected residents — and whether the city could apply through the courts for a temporary shutdown of the landfill if the chronic stink cannot be resolved. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .

Los Angeles Times
2 days ago
- Los Angeles Times
Raising school fees torments many Africans. Some expect the Catholic Church to do more to help
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There is hot water in the bathrooms, he said, describing what he felt was a trend toward levels of luxury he never imagined as a student there in the 1990s. Now, students are prohibited from packing snacks and instead encouraged to buy what they need from school-owned canteens, he said. That has 'put us under a lot of pressure,' he said. Tuition at St. Mary's College Kisubi is roughly $800 per term, and Birungi doubts he will be able to regularly pay school fees on time. 'You can go there and see the brother and negotiate,' he said, referring to the headmaster. 'I am planning to go there and see him and ask for that consideration.' The World Bank reported in 2023 that 54% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa rank the issue of paying school fees higher than medical bills and other expenses. That's partly because education is largely in private hands, with the most desirable schools controlled by profit-seeking owners. Schools run by the Catholic Church are not usually registered as profit-making entities, but those who run those schools say they wouldn't be competitive if they were run merely as charities. They say they face the same maintenance costs as others in the field and offer scholarships to exceptional students. Regulating tuition is not easy, said Ronald Reagan Okello, a priest who oversees education at the Catholic Secretariat in Kampala. He urges parents to send their children to schools they can afford. 'As the Catholic Church, also we are competing with those who are in the private sector,' said Okello, the national executive secretary for education with the Ugandan bishops conference. 'Now, as you are competing, the other ones are setting the bar high. They are giving you good services. But now putting the standard to that level, we are forced to raise the school fees to match the demands of the people who can afford.' Across the region, the Catholic Church has built a reputation as a key provider of formal education in areas often underserved by the state. Its schools are cherished by families of all means for their values, discipline and academic success. In Zimbabwe, the Catholic Church operates about 100 schools, ranging from dozens in impoverished areas where annual tuition is as low as $150 to elite boarding schools that can charge thousands of dollars. But a legacy of inclusion is under pressure in the southern African nation due to fee increases at boarding schools and efforts by Catholic leaders to fully privatize some schools. Many boarding schools already charge tuition fees between $600 and $800, prohibitive for the working class in a country where most civil servants make less than a $300 per month. Privatization will raise tuition fees even higher, warned Peter Muzawazi, a prominent educator in Zimbabwe. Muzawazi, who attended Catholic schools, once was the headmaster of Marist Brothers, a top Catholic school for boys in Zimbabwe. That school in Nyanga is among those earmarked for privatization. 'I know in the Catholic Church there is a lot of space for reasonable fees for day scholars, but for boarders there is need to be watching because the possibility that they would be out of reach for the vulnerable is there,' he said. The church needs to be actively engaged, he said. 'How do we continue to guarantee education for the poor?' Efforts to privatize church-founded schools have sparked debate in Zimbabwe, which for years has been in economic decline stemming in part from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and others. Authorities say privatizing these schools is necessary to maintain standards, even as critics warn Catholic leaders not to turn their backs on poor people. 'Schools have now turned into businesses,' Martin Chaburumunda, president of the Zimbabwe Rural Teachers' Union, told The Manica Post, a state-run weekly. 'Churches now appear only hungry for money as opposed to educating the communities they operate in.' Rather than privatizing old mission schools, the church should invest in building new ones if it's useful to experiment with different funding models, said Muzawazi, a lay Catholic who serves on the governing council of the Catholic University of Zimbabwe. 'The bright people who advance the cause of countries are not the rich ones,' he said. 'We want every church and every nation to tap the potential of every person, regardless of economic status.' Muhumuza and Mutsaka write for the Associated Press. Mutsaka reported from Harare, Zimbabwe.

3 days ago
Raising school fees torments many Africans. Some expect the Catholic Church to do more to help
KAMPALA, Uganda -- A crying parent with an unpaid tuition balance walked into the staff room of a Catholic private school and begged the teachers to help enroll her son. The school's policy required the woman pay at least 60% of her son's full tuition bill before he could join the student body. She didn't have the money and was led away. 'She was pleading, 'Please help me,'' said Beatrice Akite, a teacher at St. Kizito Secondary School in Uganda's capital city, who witnessed the outburst. 'It was very embarrassing. We had never seen something like that.' Two weeks into second term, Akite recounted the woman's desperate moment to highlight how distressed parents are being crushed by unpredictable fees they can't pay, forcing their children to drop out of school. It's leaving many in sub-Saharan Africa — which has the world's highest dropout rates — to criticize the mission-driven Catholic Church for not doing enough to ease the financial pressure families face. The Catholic Church is the region's largest nongovernmental investor in education. Catholic schools have long been a pillar of affordable but high-quality education, especially for poor families. Their appeal remains strong even with competition from other nongovernmental investors now eying schools as enterprises for profit. The growing trend toward privatization is sparking concern that the Catholic Church may price out the people who need uplifting. Akite hopes Catholic leaders support measures that would streamline fees across schools of comparable quality. Firm fee ceilings need to be set, she said. Kampala's St. Kizito Secondary School, where Akite teaches literature, was founded by priests of the Comboni missionary order, known for its dedication to serving poor communities. Its students come mostly from working-class families and tuition per term is roughly $300, a substantial sum in a country where GDP per capita was about $1,000 in 2023. Yet that tuition is lower than at many other Catholic-run schools in Kampala, where many students report later in the term because they can't raise school fees in time, Akite said. One of the most expensive private schools in Kampala, the Catholic-run Uganda Martyrs' Secondary School Namugongo, maintains a policy of 'zero balance' when a child reports to school at the beginning of a three-month term. This means students must be fully paid by the time they report to school. Tuition at the school was once as high as $800 but has since dropped to about $600 as enrollment swelled to nearly 5,000, said deputy headmaster James Batte. On a recent morning, there was a queue of parents waiting outside Batte's office to request more time to clear tuition balances. Daniel Birungi, an electrical engineer in Kampala whose son enrolled this year at St. Mary's College Kisubi, a leading school for boys in Uganda, said the emerging risk for traditional Catholic schools is to cater only to the rich. There is hot water in the bathrooms, he said, describing what he felt was a trend toward levels of luxury he never imagined as a student there in the 1990s. Now, students are prohibited from packing snacks and instead encouraged to buy what they need from school-owned canteens, he said. That has 'put us under a lot of pressure,' he said. Tuition at St. Mary's College Kisubi is roughly $800 per term, and Birungi doubts he will be able to regularly pay school fees on time. 'You can go there and see the brother and negotiate,' he said, referring to the headmaster. 'I am planning to go there and see him and ask for that consideration.' The World Bank reported in 2023 that 54% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa rank the issue of paying school fees higher than medical bills and other expenses. That's partly because education is largely in private hands, with the most desirable schools controlled by profit-seeking owners. Schools run by the Catholic Church are not usually registered as profit-making entities, but those who run those schools say they wouldn't be competitive if they were run merely as charities. They say they face the same maintenance costs as others in the field and offer scholarships to exceptional students. Regulating tuition is not easy, said Ronald Reagan Okello, a priest who oversees education at the Catholic Secretariat in Kampala. He urges parents to send their children to schools they can afford. 'As the Catholic Church, also we are competing with those who are in the private sector,' said Okello, the national executive secretary for education with the Ugandan bishops conference. 'Now, as you are competing, the other ones are setting the bar high. They are giving you good services. But now putting the standard to that level, we are forced to raise the school fees to match the demands of the people who can afford.' Across the region, the Catholic Church has built a reputation as a key provider of formal education in areas often underserved by the state. Its schools are cherished by families of all means for their values, discipline and academic success. In Zimbabwe, the Catholic Church operates about 100 schools, ranging from dozens in impoverished areas where annual tuition is as low as $150 to elite boarding schools that can charge thousands of dollars. But a legacy of inclusion is under pressure in the southern African nation due to fee increases at boarding schools and efforts by Catholic leaders to fully privatize some schools. Many boarding schools already charge tuition fees between $600 and $800, prohibitive for the working class in a country where most civil servants make less than a $300 per month. Privatization will raise tuition fees even higher, warned Peter Muzawazi, a prominent educator in Zimbabwe. Muzawazi, who attended Catholic schools, once was the headmaster of Marist Brothers, a top Catholic school for boys in Zimbabwe. That school in Nyanga is among those earmarked for privatization. 'I know in the Catholic Church there is a lot of space for reasonable fees for day scholars, but for boarders there is need to be watching because the possibility that they would be out of reach for the vulnerable is there,' he said. The church needs to be actively engaged, he said. 'How do we continue to guarantee education for the poor?' Efforts to privatize church-founded schools have sparked debate in Zimbabwe, which for years has been in economic decline stemming in part from sanctions imposed by the U.S. and others. Authorities say privatizing these schools is necessary to maintain standards, even as critics warn Catholic leaders not to turn their backs on poor people. 'Schools have now turned into businesses,' Martin Chaburumunda, president of the Zimbabwe Rural Teachers' Union, told The Manica Post, a state-run weekly. 'Churches now appear only hungry for money as opposed to educating the communities they operate in." Rather than privatizing old mission schools, the church should invest in building new ones if it's useful to experiment with different funding models, said Muzawazi, a lay Catholic who serves on the governing council of the Catholic University of Zimbabwe. 'The bright people who advance the cause of countries are not the rich ones,' he said. 'We want every church and every nation to tap the potential of every person, regardless of economic status.' ___ Mutsaka reported from Harare, Zimbabwe.