Birmingham New Street rail passengers disrupted after wires damaged
The wires were damaged between New Street and Water Orton in Warwickshire, according to post on X by Transport for West Midlands.On some lines, passengers can use their train tickets on other routes while on other lines, replacement buses were being used or have been requested, National Rail added.By about 16:10 BST, they said some lines have reopened following the damage to the wires but urged passengers to check before they travelled.
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BBC News
8 minutes ago
- BBC News
Clacton Airshow: Everything you need to know
An Essex seaside town is preparing to welcome thousands of visitors for its annual air display over the next two days. Described by organisers as "one of the biggest and most anticipated events in the East of England", Clacton Airshow aims to celebrate aviation, heritage and do you need to know if you're heading to Clacton this year - and where can you follow the action if you're staying at home? Which aircraft will be flying this year? It's the 32nd time the coastal resort of Clacton-on-Sea will host the event, which sees aircraft flying over the town's renowned beaches and seafront year, the RAF Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight – featuring the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster – will be taking to the will also be a twilight display on Thursday evening, featuring Otto the helicopter, the Firebirds, and the P-51D Mustang "Moonbeam McSwine".Other aircraft set to take part include the Rolls-Royce Heritage Flight's Spitfire PRXIX, the Fairey Swordfish Mk1, P-51D Mustang "Jersey Jerk", Republic P-47D Thunderbolt, F-86 Sabre, BAC Strikemaster Pair, de Havilland Vampire, Westland Lynx AH7, OV-10B Bronco, RAF Grob Tutor T1, and Team will also be a replica Chinook on the ground at West Greensward, which visitors can board to see the scale of the iconic military aircraft. What time will it all be happening? Organisers say displays will commence at about 13:45 BST on Thursday, with the twilight display at 20:00, and starting again at 13:00 on Friday. The Red Arrows are due to close the day display on Thursday at about 17:00 and open the event on Friday at about 13: organisers say that display times are subject to change due to operational requirements or weather including flight times, aircraft facts and other information will be available to buy at the West Greensward Airshow site. How can I get to the event? If you're travelling by public transport, there is a park and ride service operation from Clacton Shopping Village in Stephenson KonectBuses services will operate from there every 10 minutes from 10:00 BST and will take visitors to the last buses back are at 22:00 on Thursday and 18:30 on the trains, Greater Anglia will be laying on extra rail services on both is available at various locations, but drivers are advised to leave extra time as surrounding roads will be busier than normal. Hastings seafront car park and the main Martello coach park are unavailable for public West Road car park is being managed by the Rotary Club of Clacton-on-Sea, which is selling tickets for £10 per car, and also has disabled parking spaces with an accessible shuttle service to and from the District Council says Marine Parade West and Pier Gap will be closed for the duration of the Road, St Vincent Road, Nelson Road and Trafalgar Road are subject to resident-only parking orders, the authority says, which will be monitored and enforced by enforcement officers. What else do I need to know? Organisers recommend checking the weather forecast before arriving, planning your journey in advance, bringing plenty of water and sun cream, and wearing comfortable, light clothing. They say it's a fun family event which is suitable for children - but the louder, faster jets can be very noisy and may cause distress to those that are sensitive to noise."If you have ear defenders it's advisable to bring them," organisers also said no public Wi-Fi was available and internet and phone signal could be patchy because of high demand, so advised agreeing a meeting point with your group in case someone got viewing areas stretch from the east side of Clacton Pier (towards Holland-on-Sea) to Martello Beach, including the upper and lower promenades and the West will also be a fireworks display after the twilight flights on Thursday. Where can I listen along or watch the action? BBC Essex will broadcast coverage of the event on BBC Sounds and its 103.5FM frequency on the Ian Wyatt and Steve Scruton will team up with pilot Sam Williams to provide commentary on the displays as well as behind-the-scenes airshow will also be live streamed on AeroView Essex's coverage starts at 12:00 BST on Thursday. Follow Essex news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
The magic of samphire season: Jimi Famurewa's recipe for mackerel, chorizo, new potato and samphire
North Norfolk captured our hearts by stealth. For most of my life, this arcing coastal stretch of East Anglia was somewhere I had never visited, nor ever spent that much time thinking about; a span of English countryside that I mostly associated with Alan Partridge, Colman's mustard and, in the context of my south London home, an awkward schlep. But then, almost exactly a decade ago, I stumbled through an internet rabbit hole on to an entry for a clutch of self-catering cottages in a seaside village near the gently bougie, wax-jacketed market town of Holt. Decision made. Soon we were rumbling out across an impossibly wide and flat expanse, bound for the ripe, blustering winds and billowing steam trains of a varied network of time-warp beaches and little towns. Not expecting much, and yet falling a little more in love with each passing moment and meal, with each glistening fistful of perfect chips from No1 Cromer or a tea room crab roll after watching seals nose out of the water at Blakeney Point. The arrival of a second kid, pandemic lockdowns and juddering personal and professional life shifts – all of these significant markers across the past 10 years have been punctuated by repeat trips to this understatedly beautiful strip of once-alien coastline. And though we have seen this part of the world in many different modes, the phrase that best crystallises my associative excitement is this: samphire season. I had definitely eaten and enjoyed the spindly green sea vegetable before our north Norfolk years, but I don't think it was until we visited in summer, when samphire is at its abundant, fleeting peak in the tidal mudflats that gird the shoreline, that I appreciated its connection to East Anglian culinary culture, or how special it is when sampled at the source. When summer hits, this briny, delicately beaded marsh grass (locally pronounced more like 'sam-fer') is a comforting ubiquity, lurking on restaurant blackboards, in fishmonger window displays and in the DIY honesty boxes that ornament the wending coastal roads. There is a core memory from a few years ago: sticky-fingered, sandy kids in the car, and my wife Madeleine running from the passenger side to procure one of the last paper bags of foraged samphire from a roadside table amid the marshy, glimmering swelter of a little village called Salthouse. An improvisatory hodge-podge back in the holiday cottage kitchen yielded butter-fried new potatoes and samphire, alongside vegetarian chorizo sausages: a deeply weird but extraordinarily effective combination in which the waxy starch and fatty, paprika spicing somehow both muffle and complement the salinity of those nobbled green tufts. In the intervening years, I have evolved and refined the pleasure of that moment into a loose recipe, with the helpful lubrication of a potato salad dressing and an optional lily-gilding of fatty fish. Chop 200g chorizo (vegetarian or vegan, if preferred) into hunks and roast in a 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 oven for 15-20 minutes, until cooked through and golden. Meanwhile, boil 500g good, skin-on small potatoes in a pan of scantly salted simmering water for about 10 minutes, or until they just slip off the tip of a knife, adding 150g samphire for the last two to three minutes of cooking. Drain, halve the potatoes, if need be, and leave to steam dry. Make a simple vinaigrette with three tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a tablespoon of white-wine vinegar, a little salt and pepper (remember to hold back on the salt), a teaspoon of sugar for balance, and a generous, emulsifying dollop of dijon mustard, then dress the potatoes and samphire while they're still warm. Separately, mix three or four generous tablespoons of very good mayonnaise (I like an elegant, faint cloaking, rather than something too gloopy; again, go vegan, if required) with three chopped spring onions, some chopped capers and cornichons, parsley and dill, then stir into the cooled veg. Serve with the contrasting warmth of the roast chorizo and, if it appeals and you're not going plant-based, two fillets of fresh mackerel, fried for just two or three minutes on each side. Creaminess and smoky heat; succulent, marine crunch and herbal freshness. Samphire is an underrated vegetable lightly reframed, a celebration of precious high summer, of hyper-seasonality, and a reminder of how, against the odds, a British-Nigerian city boy fell hard for this sleepy stretch of Partridge country. Picky by Jimi Famurewa, is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £20. To order a copy for £18, visit
BBC News
2 hours ago
- BBC News
Is Cornwall still a playground under pressure from over-tourism?
More than 50 years on from a BBC documentary that highlighted concerns over "too many tourists" in Cornwall, the debate over how many visitors head to the county each year continues. First broadcast in 1974 - the era of flared trousers and the Ford Cortina - the episode of Man Alive included people in favour of expanding the county's tourism industry and those who wanted to see an end to the "flood of holidaymakers". The programme was made almost five decades before the term "over-tourism" was coined, with residents raising issues over the impact on the NHS, water resources and housing during the peak summer holidays. Chair of tourism promotion organisation Visit Cornwall Jon Hyatt said the tourism economy had moved on since the 1970s: "We're more sympathetic to the community and the environment now". After the huge influx of tourists in 2021 as the country recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic, bookings have been lower for the last few years but many of the worries raised in the 1970s are still being talked about today. Back in 1974, John Hick was one of the business people capitalising on the huge growth in caravan holidays in Cornwall, admitting that there were people "upset" over the number of new sites opening. Andrew Baragwanath runs the Ayr Holiday Park in St Ives - one of Cornwall's most popular tourist destinations. The town has seen calls for a voluntary "tourist tax" to help pay for local services during the holiday season. "One of the big things that's changed since the 70s is that we are an all year-round industry now", said Mr Baragwanath. "I don't think we need any more visitors in July and August, but a lot of the facilities we enjoy here as locals wouldn't be here without the tourists - the cinema, pubs and restaurants." The chair of what was known as the Cornwall Tourist Board, Dr Douglas Clein, said he thought the county could cope with more tourists, adding that he was "very alive to the dangers of overcrowding in Cornwall".Current non-executive chair of Visit Cornwall Jon Hyatt said: "We are a literally a lifetime away from the tourism economy of the 70s. Back then, it was industrial-scale mass tourism. "It's still a huge part of the economy, but visitor numbers and demographics have changed; the profile of the visitor season has changed. "We're more sympathetic to the community and the environment now. "Post Covid, Cornwall was effectively full at times, and it put a lot of strain on services and the community, but things have calmed down since that time." In 2021, concerns were raised over services in Cornwall being unable to cope because of the influx of visitors. For Professor Joanie Willett, co-director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter, the documentary highlighted "how little has changed" when it came to concerns over the impact tourism could have on local communities. "Whether it's housing, visitor taxes or over-tourism, it's all exactly the same as we are exploring now, in terms how looking at how we can help make tourism work well for us in Cornwall", she said. In the Man Alive episode, Professor Willett's predecessor, Professor Charles Thomas, called for a tourism tax to fund research into the "dis-benefits" of tourism for Cornwall. Professor Willett said she agreed more research would be useful to help "learn the lessons of the last 50 years". "It's not uncontroversial to say there are a lot of downsides that go alongside the visitor economy, but there are also upsides," said added. Episodes of Man Alive, the landmark BBC documentary series of the 1960s and 1970s, can be found on the BBC Archive.
