Latest news with #Varley
BBC News
04-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
The Scarborough sight loss charity using gardening as therapy
A charity is using the power of gardening to help people living with sight and hearing loss in North Coastline Sight and Hearing is running allotment sessions to give people the opportunity to come together to garden, chat and have plenty of cups of Graham Varley said when he lost his sight in 2017 after multiple strokes he felt like his world had said: "I spent two years in bed – then I met this lot and my whole life just changed." In Scalby, among the raised allotment beds, is a mix of people tending to an array of fruit and allotment is one of five in North Yorkshire established by the charity as part of a project backed by the National Lottery. Mr Varley, who has developed Charles Bonnet syndrome, a condition associated with sight loss which causes people to have vivid hallucinations, said: "When you first lose your sight the world does end."But then when you get something like this, and everybody comes together, you grow again."Fellow trustee Dave Tayne said socialising and mixing with other people "gives you a feeling of worth".I've got a garden at home and I won't touch it."Coming out here, we've got a lovely day in the sun, a bit of fresh air, it's good for your health."Mr Tayne was declared legally blind in 2011 after years of eyesight issues, including losing sight in one eye after being hit by a firework when he was a child. "You could either be downbeat about it, sit in the house and sulk about 'oh poor me' or you can get out, mix with people and have fun," he said. Sir Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at the University of Manchester, said gardening was a form of therapy which had physical and mental benefits. "The sensory experience is very important, particularly for people with sight or hearing loss. It can be a form of escapism and a release from tension or issues."There's that social connectivity too, you'll often be doing it with someone."Mr Varley said the allotment sessions had encouraged him to try something added: "It gives you a great feeling of self-esteem. "When you do something you've never done before and it works, it gives you a big uplift."You think, well if I can do this, what can't I do?" Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
Irish Times
24-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Former EY and PwC bosses launch UK boutique targeting Big Four clients
The former UK head of EY and PwC's former chief operating officer are launching a rival accounting and consulting firm with backing from private equity, vowing to peel off British clients and partners from the Big Four. The new venture, Unity Advisory, has quietly begun recruiting for a launch expected by June, under the chairmanship of Steve Varley, who ran EY for nine years until 2020. The boutique advisory firm will be backed by as much as $300 million from Warburg Pincus, the private equity group. Unity's chief executive will be Marissa Thomas, who was one of the most senior female UK executives at PwC until last year, when she was passed over for the role of senior partner. She left the firm in February. The pair are pitching their new venture as an alternative to the Big Four that can offer tax and accounting services, technology consulting and mergers and acquisition advice to chief financial officers in the UK, with none of the conflict of interest worries that plague their former firms. Unity will not have an audit business, which Big Four partners often complain triggers heavy regulatory scrutiny and can tie them up with complicated compliance procedures. READ MORE 'CFOs are open to a new proposition,' Mr Varley told the Financial Times. 'The Big Four are a classy bunch of service providers, but people are looking for a proposition that is super client-centric, has really low administrative cost, is AI-led rather than based on legacy infrastructure and, crucially, has no conflicts.' Warburg Pincus's backing of up to $300 million to build out the firm underscores the growing influence of financial investors in a professional services sector that used to be dominated by partner-owned business models. Grant Thornton UK last year sold a majority stake to the private equity group Cinven, following a wave of similar deals for accounting firms overseas. In 2019, Warburg Pincus backed veteran insurance broker Steve McGill in creating an independent speciality risk insurance business. 'Partnerships have a lot of advantages,' Mr Varley said, 'but one of the things they don't do well is medium to long-term investment.' Mr Varley left EY at the end of 2023 and is chair of the law firm DWF Group, which also has private equity backing. Thomas spent 31 years at PwC, running its UK M&A advisory business and its tax unit before becoming chief operating officer. She was widely tipped internally as a contender for the senior partner role that went last year to Marco Amitrano but failed to reach the shortlist of candidates put to a partner vote. Ms Thomas said Unity would be hiring staff with Big Four experience, including those who have left those firms for jobs in industry, and targeting mid-size corporate clients with revenues in the £500 million-£1.5 billion range, particularly those backed by private equity. The new firm's lower central cost base and the absence of audit clients would allow 'different fee models', such as a larger proportion of performance-based fees or 'value sharing' from advising on efficiency gains, she said. David Reis, Warburg Pincus managing director, said Unity would be 'a new kind of platform that challenges the status quo in how CFOs and finance teams are serviced', and that there was 'substantial market opportunity for disruption'. - Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
BBC News
05-02-2025
- BBC News
Wrexham teens died in crash after new driver sped into tree
Three teenagers died in a crash after the driver lost control of the car while travelling at speed over a humpback bridge and hit a tree, an inquest has Hûw Craven-Jones, 18, from Wrexham was driving the Ford Ka on Cannock Road in Penkridge, Staffordshire, just before midnight on 25 May last year when the crash and Morgan Jones, 17 - also from Wrexham - were pronounced dead at the scene, while Sophie Bates, 17, from Stafford, died three days later in other rear seat passenger, Brooke Varley, was seriously injured but survived. The inquest held in Stafford on Wednesday was told neither of the girls sitting were wearing seatbelts and Mr Jones was not wearing his correctly, but Mr Craven-Jones was wearing his the night of the crash, Mr Craven-Jones, who had held his driving licence for five months, had driven to Penkridge in Staffordshire from Wrexham to pick up Mr Jones, who was at a house party Sophie Bates and Brooke Varley also got into the car and the four went for a drive to Cannock, before heading back on the same road in the direction of Richard Moores from Staffordshire Police told the hearing Ms Varley had said Mr Craven-Jones was driving "a bit fast" on the way back from Cannock and she had asked him to slow down, while telling Ms Bates she "didn't like the way the car was driving".Ms Varley told police at the time that she had a "rollercoaster feeling" and was holding on to the headrest of the passenger seat in front of her when she felt the car swerve and then blacked woke to hear someone on the phone to the emergency services. It is not known how fast the car was travelling at the time of the accident. A tracker app on Ms Varley's phone showed a top speed of 85mph during the journey - but Sgt Moores said this was not reliable.A Snapchat video recovered from Ms Bates' phone showed a video Mr Craven-Jones had made when driving earlier in the evening, in which he said he was worried he would get a ticket for driving 90mph in a 70mph inquest was also told warning signs for the bridge had been under consideration for improvement by Staffordshire County Highways. Giving her conclusions of death by road traffic collision, Kelly Dixon, assistant coroner for south Staffordshire, said on the balance of probabilities " inappropriate speed" had led to the Craven-Jones was a new driver, having passed his test five months previously, in November 2023, she fact that no seat belts were worn in the back of the car and at least one of the girls collided with Mr Craven-Jones was likely to have contributed to his injuries, she Dixon said she would be making a prevention of future deaths report to Staffordshire County Highways regarding the hazard road markings and signage for the bridge where the accident took place, which had been "under consideration for improvement" since January 2024, but which still had not have been three crashes on the road since 2017, two with fatalities.
