Win a two-night stay at Grove of Narberth worth £1,600
The location is another boon, with extensive woodlands and a network of paths and bridleways that make ideal settings for walks. The property is also just a short drive from Pembrokeshire's rugged coast, where surf and wildlife-watching adventures await.
As part of your prize, you'll enjoy a two-night stay for two on a B&B basis. It also includes a five-course tasting menu at Fernery, plus a wine or non-alcoholic pairing. A guided tour of the kitchen garden is included as part of the experience. The stay must take place between Wednesday and Sunday, and between August 29, 2025 and August 29, 2026. Blackout dates include public holidays, the festive period and Valentine's Day.
For more information, click here.
For your chance to win, simply vote in each category in this year's Times and Sunday Times Travel Awards. There are 17 categories in total.
Click here to vote.
For the full list of prizes, see here.Promotion closes at 23.59pm on August 31, 2025. Open to residents of the United Kingdom who are aged 18 years or older, excluding employees and agents of the Promoter and its group companies, or third parties directly connected with the operation or fulfilment of the Promotion and their affiliates, and their immediate families and household members. One entry per person. Winners will be selected at random from all valid entries. No cash alternative and prize is non-transferable. Winner and guest responsible for getting to and from the venue at their own expense. Subject to availability, Prize must be booked by April 1, 2026, to take place from Wednesday to Sunday, between September 1, 2025 and August 29, 2026, except on public holidays, the festive period and Valentine's Day. Winner and his/her guests must travel on same itinerary. All parts of Prize must be used in conjunction with same booking. Travel insurance, food and drink (outside what is previously declared in the board basis), spending money and all incidental expenses are the responsibility of the Winner. Prize is subject to Grove of Narberth terms and conditions. Your information will be used to administer this Promotion and otherwise in accordance with our privacy policy at newsprivacy.co.uk and those of the partners. Promoter is Times Media Ltd. Full T&Cs apply — see thetimes.com/traveltermsandconditions.
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BBC News
a minute ago
- BBC News
More Bradford to London train services expected
More trains between Bradford and London are expected to be included in the next national railway timetable, according to a Bradford Interchange to London King's Cross route could get an additional two services a day when the next timetable change is announced in Central currently operates four services a day with stops at Halifax, Mirfield, Wakefield, Pontefract and report to West Yorkshire's Combined Authority's transport committee also states there is likely to be an increase in services from Bradford Forster Square to London in the new timetable. The report stated: "Grand Central are hoping to introduce up to two additional trains each way per day on their Bradford Interchange - London King's Cross route, as against the current four per day – with the potential to introduce one of the two extra train-pairs sooner than December."However, it is not yet known whether their application for the relevant network access has been approved."If network access is approved, the services will follow an increase in London services to Bradford Forster Square that was introduced in May, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. 'Improved service' Platform 0 opened at Bradford Forster Square Station on 19 May, and has seen LNER increase the number of direct trains from Bradford to King's Cross from two a day to seven a followed a £35m investment from government, and was expected to add £4m a year to Bradford's report said more Forster Square to London services are likely in the December timetable change."LNER's Sunday services on the Bradford Forster Square – London King's Cross route are expected to increase, bringing them in line with the significantly improved weekday service."The December changes will also see train times on the Skipton and Ilkley lines "adjusted slightly" to accommodate the extra London to Bradford Foster Square LNER changes to West Yorkshire rail services in the December timetable include:- The introduction of long-awaited hourly fast train from Leeds to Sheffield via Wakefield Westgate, roughly 30 minutes apart from the existing Cross-Country fast service, throughout the day and every day.- An additional 21:34 Sheffield to Huddersfield service on the Penistone line on weekdays.- The restoration of the two daily York to Sheffield via Pontefract trains on committee will also be told later that there has been a shift back towards office working in recent Rail said this shift has led to a 9% year-on-year increase in commuter travel. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North
Telegraph
31 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Move over, Traitors, the BBC has found its next big reality show: Destination X
If you were bundled into the back of a bus that had the windows blacked out and you were driven across Europe, with no means of communicating with the outside world, would you be able to figure out where you were? Even if you were given obscure clues along the way, and part of a group of 10 trying to come up with the right answer, it would be difficult, to say the least. That is the premise of Destination X, the BBC's new glossy reality TV format. The programme is like a cross between Race Across the World, The Traitors, Hunted and Big Brother. Much of its action takes place on the specially-kitted out coach, ferrying the contestants across the continent. At the end of every episode, each player has two minutes to place an X on the map to mark where they think they are. The player whose guess is furthest away is eliminated; to keep the confusion levels high, the remaining players are not told whose was closest. Rob Brydon, in his reality TV hosting debut, hams it up and chews the scenery throughout. There is more than a hint of Claudia Winkleman's performance in The Traitors in how Brydon does it, from the exaggerated campness to his slightly outré fashion choices – such as his choice of cravats and double-breasted blazers. 'I did look to Claudia,' he says. 'I love the lightness of touch there, I love the way she's a conduit into the show. I didn't want to get in the way of the programme, so I was very aware of that. I wanted to just be a bridge between the viewer and the contestants, because they are the stars. She gets the balance just right: mischievous at times, but always wanting them to have a great experience and to help them along.' To get a taste of the experience, after a screening of the first episode at a cinema in Hoxton, east London, on one of the hottest days of the year a small group of journalists was invited to board the Destination X bus to play a truncated version of the game. As an added bonus, we got to keep quizzing Brydon and Dan Adamson, the show's executive producer, about the series. The coach has been decked out with luxurious green velvet chairs and golden lights hanging on the walls. It feels a little like the Orient Express, or a posh private members' club. It is just a shame that the air conditioning does not seem to be working, and even a consummate professional like Brydon is struggling with the heat. 'Bloody hell, it's hot isn't it?' he asks before he decides to take off his blue suit jacket. 'Is it worth mentioning to the driver that the air conditioning is ineffectual? We are all sitting here like lobsters in a pot. Surely they must be able to make it work?' It only splutters to life in fits and starts over the course of the next hour. As the bus drives off, the windows become frosted and we immediately become deprived of our sense of direction. I am pretty sure that we headed south to start with, but after a few turns it is almost impossible to know where we are. Brydon, 60, says that he would like Destination X to be the kind of programme bringing generations to sit on the sofa together. 'I love that it's for the family,' he continues. 'We would watch Traitors in that way. You could persuade your teenage sons to spend time in your company, which is no mean feat. I'm proud of Would I Lie to You? being something you can watch with your family. I hope this becomes appointment viewing too. If you're anything like me as a parent, you are desperate for the stuff that can persuade them to spend time with you.' The BBC has placed a big bet on Destination X and clearly thinks that the show is going to be its next reality big hit. Like The Traitors, it is a foreign import (Destination X was originally a Belgian format, while the same producers have also made an American version). No expense has been spared: quite apart from the £100,000 winner-takes-all prize, it was filmed across 32 days by a crew of 190 people who travelled more than 11,000km across Europe. As well as the decadent bus we see through most of the episode, there was a second coach following behind that was kitted out with beds for the contestants to sleep in. 'We had the opportunity to turn Europe into a board game. We immediately thought the way we bring scale to the challenges is we just get incredible locations,' says Adamson. 'We take over whole castles, we run a train on a public network, we take over cable car systems.' Not that the combination of a large investment and huge ambition is any guarantee of success. 'You never know with any show – any theatre show, TV show, film, live show – how it's going to go,' says Brydon. 'You'd have to be detached from reality to not have your fingers crossed and hope that people respond to it.' Taking 10 people across Europe in a confined space had some, erm, practical difficulties. 'We set ourselves a rule which gave ourselves one problem: no number twos on the bus,' says Adamson. 'It's about humanity, it's about being kind to each other. We had to create a system.' The system was this: a car pulled a trailer with portable lavatories on the back and, when nature called, the convoy had to find a place to pull over. The contestants getting off the bus had to put on blackout goggles and be chaperoned and walked over, before repeating the process in reverse after they had finished. The contestants themselves were selected for their potential to be good at the game. Among them are Darren (a London taxi driver who took years learning The Knowledge and may be good at instinctively knowing where he is), crime writer Deborah (no stranger to piecing clues together) and Nick (an endurance athlete who has run a marathon in every country on earth and has seen much more of the world than most). For all their abilities at sussing out which clues are helpful, they had bizarre strategies to try and help themselves. One tried to use the sun's arc to figure out in which direction they had travelled, while another counted the seconds that the bus drove in a tunnel to try and ascertain how big the mountain under which they were driving was. The helpfulness of that information is dubious. 'If I got out and saw the sun,' says Brydon, 'that would tell me it's daytime.' Adamson adds: 'It's amazing, when you take someone's senses away, how much they don't know where they are.' Like the show's participants, we have to decide which clues are helpful and which ones are red herrings designed to throw us off the scent; but unlike the contestants, we are all feckless journalists. We are told that our destination is somewhere we all know and will recognise, and that there have been clues all around us since we boarded the bus. 'Film buffs will figure it out,' offers one producer. Seeing how puzzled we are, Brydon laughs and eats sweets picked up from the cinema. He slips into an impression of David Frost: 'The clues are there. As David Frost used to say, the clues are there.' The bus windows defrost as we drive south over London Bridge; a few minutes later we are going back north over Tower Bridge. The frosted windows darken: are we going through a tunnel, or just driving down a road heavily lined with trees? We hear the chimes of Big Ben. Is that a clue? Westminster Bridge was, of course, the iconic setting for the start of 28 Days Later. After what was actually an hour, but through a combination of the heat and sensory deprivation, felt like much more than that, we come to a stop and Brydon continues to play the role of avuncular host. 'I'm so sorry about the temperature. You shouldn't have had to suffer like that,' he says as he points at the sweat stains on his baby blue shirt. 'But look: I suffered too.' As the Gavin & Stacey star departs, the eight of us remaining players are asked to do what the real contestants do and place an X on a map to guess where we are. It is surprisingly stressful, especially as I had not decided what I would do before I sat down in the Big Brother diary room-style area at the back of the bus. Then comes my a-ha moment. I place my X and wait for the result. I was not the one with the worst guess, which in the show would mean I lived to fight another day. But as this is a one-time thing, we get told who was closest, and I am amazed to discover that I have won. The windows of the bus defrosted for the final time and we had our answer. We were back where we had started, at the cinema.
Telegraph
31 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Rayner demands tourist tax in clash with Reeves
Angela Rayner is pushing for councils to be given new powers to tax tourists, despite opposition from Rachel Reeves. The Deputy Prime Minister has argued that councils should be given the power to tax visitors' hotel stays, amid a scramble by cash-strapped local authorities to cash in on booming demand. It comes as a record 43 million foreign visits to the UK are expected this year, on top of British families travelling within the country. Treasury officials are opposed to a tourism tax amid fears it would be a fresh blow for hospitality businesses already hit by Labour's tax raids in last year's Budget, as well as snuffing out a post-Covid revival in visits. The row aligns Ms Rayner with powerful regional mayors including Sir Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham. It marks her latest clash with the Chancellor after previous disagreements over how to plug a multi-billion-pound fiscal black hole. A senior government source said devolving more power to local mayors was central to Ms Rayner's plan for economic growth, but Ms Reeves was looking for 'quick wins' and did not want to force through constitutional changes that would take time and could backfire. Councils are lobbying the Treasury to be allowed to charge their own taxes, a power that is currently reserved by Westminster. Ms Rayner is understood to have pushed for the power to charge tourist taxes to be included in the Government's Devolution Bill, which was published earlier this month. But the Chancellor has ruled out further fiscal devolution, believing that Ms Rayner's workers' rights law and the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions last year have already driven up costs on businesses. Many European cities, including Barcelona, Lisbon, Venice and Amsterdam, charge tourists a tax on the cost of hotel rooms and private rentals, either as a flat rate or percentage of the room charge. Cities in Wales and Scotland have their own tax-raising powers. Visitors to Edinburgh and Glasgow will pay five per cent on hotel stays from 2026 and 2027 respectively, while hotels in Wales will soon charge tourists £1.30 per night. Liverpool and Manchester charge tourists a fee per night, but the current powers are limited to small 'business improvement districts' and cannot be levied across large areas. However, other councils in England have halted plans for limited tourist taxe s after opposition from hotel owners. In Dorset, some businesses said the tax could cost them £600,000 a year, amid other pressures on profitability. Hoteliers have warned that holidaymakers will choose to stay elsewhere because of the charge. Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of the industry group UK Hospitality, has said England already ranks poorly compared to its European neighbours for 'tourism competitiveness' because of the comparatively high rate of VAT. Any tax raid would also put a recovery in visitor numbers at risk. VisitBritain, the country's tourism agency, expects a record 43.4 million overseas visits this year, up 5 per cent on 2024. Foreign tourists are expected to boost the economy by £33.7 billion. Andy Burnham, the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, is among the local leaders pushing to be allowed to charge more in England, while Sir Sadiq, the London Mayor, has suggested he would be open to a tourist tax in the capital that would provide more revenue for local projects. Last month, both mayors signed a joint letter with their counterparts in Liverpool, the North East, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands, demanding a 'Barcelona-style' tourist tax. Tourists don't mind paying, says Khan Sir Sadiq then told the Jimmy's Jobs podcast that tourists 'don't mind' paying a 'small levy' in European cities. He said: 'We could spend more money improving the public realm, which would encourage more tourists to come but also improve the quality of life for residents in London.' Sir Sadiq's team is understood to be privately making a case for the tax to Whitehall departments. Council bosses in Britain say they could raise an extra £209m across the country by charging visitors £2 a night, and are hoping Ms Rayner will make the case more forcefully to the Treasury. A report commissioned by the County Councils Network, published last week, found that new taxes could be 'transformational' for councils, and argued that local leaders should also be able to retain a portion of stamp duty revenue and income tax. The group said the policy would be a 'win-win for both central and local government', but would likely create a further black hole for Ms Reeves at her autumn Budget. Ahead of the publication of the Devolution Bill, Ms Rayner told MPs she wanted to see 'more push' for councils to have their own tax-raising powers, and that it was 'deeply disrespectful' for Whitehall to tell local government leaders how to spend their budgets. 'I like to think if you actually empower local leaders [...] my style of leadership is that you get the best outcomes from that,' she said. However, The Telegraph understands that her argument has been poorly received by Ms Reeves, who is sceptical of fiscal devolution. The two women have repeatedly clashed on tax policy this year, including when a memo by Ms Rayner containing a series of tax-raising suggestions was leaked to The Telegraph. The Chancellor has been warned by hospitality groups that further taxes would risk making their businesses unprofitable, after a year of higher taxes under Labour. A source close to the discussions said Ms Rayner had 'lost, short term' on local taxes, but that she could return to the issue later in this parliament. As Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Ms Rayner is responsible for the Government's policy on councils, but cannot make decisions on tax. Government sources played down the idea that Ms Reeves and Ms Rayner were in conflict over the issue, but did not deny that they disagreed about tourist taxes. Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, told The Telegraph: 'Labour can't help themselves – it's always tax, tax, tax. 'Whether it's Angela Rayner or Rachel Reeves, the instinct is always the same – more taxes. 'First a £25 billion jobs tax, now threats of a tourist tax that would hit hospitality hard.' Pressure on Starmer to cut tax It comes as Sir Keir Starmer was on Monday urged by a senior Labour MP to deliver a 'big, bold, working class tax cut' after a year in Downing Street. Liam Byrne suggested to the Prime Minister during a session of Parliament's liaison committee that he could 'tweak up' capital gains tax to allow for tax cuts for workers. Sir Keir declined to commit to any tax changes, saying: 'I'm not going to be tempted to start speculating on what might or might not be in the Budget. It's going to come in the autumn.' The Labour Government has opened the door to increasing the state pension age by formally launching a review into the level at which it is set. The state pension age is currently 66 and is already poised to rise to 67 between 2026 and 2028. The Government is legally required to carry out a review by 2029. Whitehall insiders played down the prospect of changes being announced imminently, suggesting it was 'highly unlikely' one would be unveiled before the 2029 general election.
