Latest news with #GulfWarVeteran
Daily Mail
06-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE 'Land-grabbing' travellers were 'lucky not to have caused a train crash' after using huge diggers to build an 'illegal' camp feet away from a major high-speed railway line, expert says
'Land-grabbing' travellers were lucky not to have caused a catastrophic train crash after using huge diggers to build an 'illegal' camp feet away from a major high-speed railway line, an expert has warned. Villagers living in the sleepy community of Balderton were left horrified by the development of an unauthorised site right next to one the area's busiest rail routes. Builders arrived in force during the VE Day bank holiday weekend last month to convert a field off Bullpit Road, in Nottinghamshire, into the new camp. Excavators, diggers and large trucks were seen on the grassy plot, which was flattened and gravelled over in less than 72 hours - all without planning permission. One ex-soldier, who spent 22 years in the Royal Engineers before moving into health and safety and construction, said the works risked triggering a catastrophic rail crash. The Gulf War veteran, who lives locally, also chillingly claimed it was a miracle excavators did not damage the railway line or accidentally strike high-speed trains, which can race just feet from the new camp at a blistering 125mph. 'It brought a chill to my spine,' the retired Warrant Officer 1 told MailOnline. 'It's a busy line. The trains won't be able to stop, whizzing past the crossing at 125mph. 'It doesn't bear thinking about if you made a mistake. All it would have taken would have been for an excavator to have over-reached and hit a train passing. Then you would have had something really serious on your hands.' The retired Royal Engineer - who was previously an instructor at the regiment's prestigious engineering school in Chatham, Kent - added: 'We would have had to jump through hoops for months with Network Rail to do what they did that close to the northern main line.' An enforcement notice was later served by Newark and Sherwood District Council on May 8 - days after the works began - ordering the unauthorised construction to stop. A retrospective planning application for ten individual pitches, each with a static caravan and touring caravan, and ancillary hardstanding, has since been submitted by the landowner. However, locals fear the new site will prompt house prices in the area to 'plummet'. And concerns have also been raised about the risk posed by the camp's access, which is next to a busy level crossing. Neighbours fear travellers turning into it could block the road, leaving drivers stranded on the tracks as the barriers come down. One local, who asked not to be named, told MailOnline they were shocked when the unauthorised encampment appeared. 'We felt sick. Your stomach drops out,' they said. 'We thought this was our forever home. We love the neighbours then suddenly they turn up and build a traveller camp right on our doorstep. It's going to reduce the value of properties around here.' The retired soldier - who during the first Gulf War in 1990 helped build runways for military jets in the Middle East - added he was stunned by the speed of the work at the field. 'I know how to move a lot of stone with a lot of tippers, bulldozers and excavators quickly. So, to do all this in 72 hours takes a huge amount of planning. It was literally like a military operation,' the engineer said. The development in Balderton is not the only one to have sprung up around the area in the past few weeks. A similar development took place north of the community, between the nearby villages of Weston and Egmanton. A huge 40-pitch caravan site was built over the Easter bank holiday in April without planning permission. The site, based on a field off the A1, was completed in a matter of days, with tarmac roads and fences. As well as roads built on the camp, locals said they had also seen septic tanks sunk, electricity and water illegitimately connected, and key drainage dykes filled to create the site access. Both the plots in Balderton and Weston appear to be latest in a trend exposed by MailOnline which has seen fields unlawfully developed into traveller sites. Groups across the UK have been accused of carrying out brazen bank holiday 'landgrabs' to rapidly build camps under the noses of council chiefs while their offices are closed. Allegedly weaponising the national breaks, industrial diggers, excavators and lorries carrying gravel, are mobilised to rip up and pave over fields in protected green belts during 'deliberate and meticulously planned' operations. Cynically, the 'illegal' conversions are done without any planning permission, flouting development rules - with 'retrospective' applications later submitted to councils to allow the newly-constructed sites to remain. Since April, locations across the country have seen a sudden surge of developments - with the bulk taking place on the Easter, VE Day and late May bank holidays. An investigation by MailOnline has revealed similar unauthorised 'landgrabs' blighting villages and towns across Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Nottinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Gloucester, Worcestershire and Cheshire. During a fiery village meeting about the new site in Weston, furious residents feared the area would not be able to cope with the sudden surge of travellers. 'There's 40 caravans, so maybe 160 people - we don't have a shop, we don't have buses, the school can't take them,' one person said at the recent public meeting, as reported by the Newark Advertiser. 'What are they going to do? It'll increase stress on services, and they'll be bored and get into anti-social behaviour and it will increase stress on the police. 'There's been noise and light pollution all night, and intimidation. When I first came here I never felt so safe — I daren't leave my house because of this. I can't take it.' There is a large gypsy and traveller community around Newark area, with sites dotted across the district. However, the Labour-run authority overseeing the district is facing an accommodation crisis for its nomadic residents, with a recent assessment saying at least 169 new pitches need to be made by 2034 to house travellers. In a statement about the development in Bullpit Road, a council spokesman said: 'Newark and Sherwood District Council has been working diligently to find a solution to address the unauthorised development on Bullpit Road, Balderton. 'It is extremely disappointing that the occupants chose to ignore the requirement to secure planning permission and undertook construction works without permission and during the night. 'In an ideal world, the council would have the powers to step in straight away, stop the works, and clear the site. Sometimes we can do this, for example, if something is likely to be a danger to the public or create irreversible damage to a heritage building. 'But in regards to Bullpit Road, this isn't the case, and so we have to find another way to address the unauthorised development.' Network Rail confirmed it was not consulted prior to the work at the camp taking place, with the authority receiving its first notice on May 28 via the council.
Telegraph
10-05-2025
- Telegraph
British woman attempts to become first to sail solo around Arctic
She will brave icebergs, the threat of polar bears and 20ft ocean waves, but Ella Hibbert is determined to become the first person to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap solo. The 28-year-old yachtmaster and daughter of a Gulf war veteran, aims to sail Yeva, her 38ft boat, 10,000 miles alone over five months around the shrinking ice surrounding the North pole. She will navigate both Northwest and Northeast Passages as she crosses the Arctic Ocean. Setting off in two weeks' time, she will skirt seven countries including Russia as she navigates through the freezing iceberg-laden waters with only her sailing skills and hi-tech mapping and surveillance equipment to avoid collisions or danger. At times, she will have to sleep in 20-minute slots, constantly waking herself up to check the horizon, her radar and the camera positioned on her mast for icebergs, other vessels or obstructions. In preparation, she has taken a firearms course to learn how to fire flares to scare off the polar bears and medical training so she can do her own stitches and sutures or insert a cannula in her own veins for IV drips. Her expedition – three years in the making – has only become possible because of the opening of the Northwest Passage over the past decade due to the melting ice from climate change. The potential impact of this on the world's ecosystem is why she is attempting a solo circumnavigation that no other sailor has even tried. 'I've always dreamt of seeing the Arctic, and I've always wanted to see it before we lose it,' said Ella, as she sat bathed in sun on Yeva calmly settled in dock in Haslar marina, Portsmouth. 'This has become a way of raising awareness for it, while also being able to see it myself. 'People aren't as aware of how intricately linked we are to the survival of the Arctic, for our lives to continue as we want them to. 'If we lose the ice, that will then increase global warming at faster rates. 'The polar jet streams and the winds that normally blow around there are going to start travelling further south, like we've already seen over in America, and the currents around the ocean are going to change. 'If we lose the ice, we lose the kelp that grows on the inside of it. If we lose that, then we lose food for the fish. If we lose the fish, we lose the seals. If we lose the seals, we lose the polar bears. You see what I mean. 'And losing the ice brings predators like polar bears closer to human civilisation, where they shouldn't be.' Ella has been sailing since her father, Rupert, an army helicopter pilot who served in two Gulf wars, 'chucked me in a dinghy in Alton Water reservoir in Ipswich' aged five or six. She left school at 18 with an International Baccalaureate from France where her parents had moved. An accomplished horse rider, she initially pursued a top-level equestrian career, working with an Olympic dressage rider in Germany, but then returned to her first and current love: the sea. She worked as a divemaster and deckhand for multimillionaire owners of superyachts but it was an industry she 'didn't like'. 'I didn't like the mentality behind it,' she said. She spent her winters diving around the world, exploring sea life and reefs from Malaysia to Mexico and Australia. 'The more diving I did, the more I became aware of ocean decline, and that's what drove me back to sailing – to enjoy the oceans in a way I felt more aligned with,' she says. By 25, she had become the Royal Yachting Association's (RYA) second youngest female yachtmaster instructor before, three years ago, hatching her plan to sail the Arctic – and buying Yeva, a 46-year-old steel-hulled ocean-going boat specially designed for ice-strewn seas, for £20,000. It is now worth £50,000. Since December 2022, she has refitted and overhauled the entire boat including its engine, rigging and cabins – and slept in it every night since, except for a stint when it went into dry dock. She has accrued 22 sponsors and been endorsed by the Scientific Exploration Society, a charity dedicated to exploration and conservation. Her planning has been meticulous including everything from an eight-month, weekly food supply comprising 32 bags of 14 different types of freeze-dried meals (her favourite is vegetarian Tuscan stew) to a drone she can send aloft to scan for icebergs. Her preparations have not, however, been without incident. She only got visa approval on Tuesday from Russia to allow her to sail within its 12-mile coastal territorial zone – a critical necessity to enable her to harbour away from storms. Without such permission, she admits she was 'not sure I would have still done it. It certainly would have been a big risk'. She added: 'They sent me an apology email last week, when it was taking a while for the permissions to come through, saying visiting yachts are such a rarity in our waters, bear with us.' A trial of the boat in the Barents Sea in the Arctic Circle last summer also exposed the perils of the northern seas. Lashed by 20ft waves, her steering failed, leaving the boat going round in circles. Realising she could not fix it, she used her hydrovane, an emergency rudder and steering system to get back to port for repairs. The biggest challenge of the five-month expedition is, she admits, sleep deprivation. Around-the-world yachtsmen and women are 'offshore' in the open ocean which means they can sleep. 'Whereas I'm going to be very coastal for a lot of the trip,' said Ella. 'When I was out last year, I never slept for more than 20 minutes at a time, which I maintained for up to a week but any more than that would be quite difficult. 'Luckily, there are areas in the Northwest and the Northeast passages shallow enough to anchor, so I could get a longer rest and then keep going.' Then there is the risk from icebergs, sea ice and wind chill with temperatures plummeting to minus 30C. She has an ice pick and snow shovel to clear ice that could destabilise the boat. She has been taught to use radar for ice navigation but she admits: 'It's something you really can't practice for until you get there.' Ella admits her father and mother, Nina, are nervous: 'I'm the youngest and their only girl, so they're probably more than slightly worried about it, but they know that once I've got my mindset on something, I'm going to do it.' Her father is on standby to provide forecasts and ice routing if she loses internet on her satellite phone. Through the trip, her boat will take depth soundings to map uncharted areas of the Arctic seabed for the International SeaKeepers Society, while Yeva will be auctioned on her return to raise funds for the charities Polar Bears International and the Ocean Conservancy. Asked if she has any fear, she said: 'Not yet, but I will when I go. When I leave will be an emotional moment. I tell everyone that what happens with the ice and weather is out of my control but what I have been able to control is running a campaign without a boat or blip on the radar and a successful expedition that is setting sail in just under two weeks.'
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Yahoo
British woman attempts to become first to sail solo around Arctic
She will brave icebergs, the threat of polar bears and 20ft ocean waves, but Ella Hibbert is determined to become the first person to circumnavigate the Arctic ice cap solo. The 28-year-old yachtmaster and daughter of a Gulf war veteran, aims to sail Yeva, her 38ft boat, 10,000 miles alone over five months around the shrinking ice surrounding the North pole. She will navigate both Northwest and Northeast Passages as she crosses the Arctic Ocean. Setting off in two weeks' time, she will skirt seven countries including Russia as she navigates through the freezing iceberg-laden waters with only her sailing skills and hi-tech mapping and surveillance equipment to avoid collisions or danger. At times, she will have to sleep in 20-minute slots, constantly waking herself up to check the horizon, her radar and the camera positioned on her mast for icebergs, other vessels or obstructions. In preparation, she has taken a firearms course to learn how to fire flares to scare off the polar bears and medical training so she can do her own stitches and sutures or insert a cannula in her own veins for IV drips. Her expedition – three years in the making – has only become possible because of the opening of the Northwest Passage over the past decade due to the melting ice from climate change. The potential impact of this on the world's ecosystem is why she is attempting a solo circumnavigation that no other sailor has even tried. 'I've always dreamt of seeing the Arctic, and I've always wanted to see it before we lose it,' said Ella, as she sat bathed in sun on Yeva calmly settled in dock in Haslar marina, Portsmouth. 'This has become a way of raising awareness for it, while also being able to see it myself. 'People aren't as aware of how intricately linked we are to the survival of the Arctic, for our lives to continue as we want them to. 'If we lose the ice, that will then increase global warming at faster rates. 'The polar jet streams and the winds that normally blow around there are going to start travelling further south, like we've already seen over in America, and the currents around the ocean are going to change. 'If we lose the ice, we lose the kelp that grows on the inside of it. If we lose that, then we lose food for the fish. If we lose the fish, we lose the seals. If we lose the seals, we lose the polar bears. You see what I mean. 'And losing the ice brings predators like polar bears closer to human civilisation, where they shouldn't be.' Ella has been sailing since her father, Rupert, an army helicopter pilot who served in two Gulf wars, 'chucked me in a dinghy in Alton Water reservoir in Ipswich' aged five or six. She left school at 18 with an International Baccalaureate from France where her parents had moved. An accomplished horse rider, she initially pursued a top-level equestrian career, working with an Olympic dressage rider in Germany, but then returned to her first and current love: the sea. She worked as a divemaster and deckhand for multimillionaire owners of superyachts but it was an industry she 'didn't like'. 'I didn't like the mentality behind it,' she said. She spent her winters diving around the world, exploring sea life and reefs from Malaysia to Mexico and Australia. 'The more diving I did, the more I became aware of ocean decline, and that's what drove me back to sailing – to enjoy the oceans in a way I felt more aligned with,' she says. By 25, she had become the Royal Yachting Association's (RYA) second youngest female yachtmaster instructor before, three years ago, hatching her plan to sail the Arctic – and buying Yeva, a 46-year-old steel-hulled ocean-going boat specially designed for ice-strewn seas, for £20,000. It is now worth £50,000. Since December 2022, she has refitted and overhauled the entire boat including its engine, rigging and cabins – and slept in it every night since, except for a stint when it went into dry dock. She has accrued 22 sponsors and been endorsed by the Scientific Exploration Society, a charity dedicated to exploration and conservation. Her planning has been meticulous including everything from an eight-month, weekly food supply comprising 32 bags of 14 different types of freeze-dried meals (her favourite is vegetarian Tuscan stew) to a drone she can send aloft to scan for icebergs. Her preparations have not, however, been without incident. She only got visa approval on Tuesday from Russia to allow her to sail within its 12-mile coastal territorial zone – a critical necessity to enable her to harbour away from storms. Without such permission, she admits she was 'not sure I would have still done it. It certainly would have been a big risk'. She added: 'They sent me an apology email last week, when it was taking a while for the permissions to come through, saying visiting yachts are such a rarity in our waters, bear with us.' A trial of the boat in the Barents Sea in the Arctic Circle last summer also exposed the perils of the northern seas. Lashed by 20ft waves, her steering failed, leaving the boat going round in circles. Realising she could not fix it, she used her hydrovane, an emergency rudder and steering system to get back to port for repairs. The biggest challenge of the five-month expedition is, she admits, sleep deprivation. Around-the-world yachtsmen and women are 'offshore' in the open ocean which means they can sleep. 'Whereas I'm going to be very coastal for a lot of the trip,' said Ella. 'When I was out last year, I never slept for more than 20 minutes at a time, which I maintained for up to a week but any more than that would be quite difficult. 'Luckily, there are areas in the Northwest and the Northeast passages shallow enough to anchor, so I could get a longer rest and then keep going.' Then there is the risk from icebergs, sea ice and wind chill with temperatures plummeting to minus 30C. She has an ice pick and snow shovel to clear ice that could destabilise the boat. She has been taught to use radar for ice navigation but she admits: 'It's something you really can't practice for until you get there.' Ella admits her father and mother, Nina, are nervous: 'I'm the youngest and their only girl, so they're probably more than slightly worried about it, but they know that once I've got my mindset on something, I'm going to do it.' Her father is on standby to provide forecasts and ice routing if she loses internet on her satellite phone. Through the trip, her boat will take depth soundings to map uncharted areas of the Arctic seabed for the International SeaKeepers Society, while Yeva will be auctioned on her return to raise funds for the charities Polar Bears International and the Ocean Conservancy. Asked if she has any fear, she said: 'Not yet, but I will when I go. When I leave will be an emotional moment. I tell everyone that what happens with the ice and weather is out of my control but what I have been able to control is running a campaign without a boat or blip on the radar and a successful expedition that is setting sail in just under two weeks.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
