Environment

Workers in the UK working via employment agencies are not getting a fair deal, says the Resolution Foundation. The problem is growing as the number of agency staff has increased rapidly in recent years. The Think-Tank found that agency workers are disproportionately drawn from ethnic minorities and are concentrated in low-paid industries and lower-skilled jobs. There are now 865,000 agency staff in the UK, which has risen 200,000 since 2011. Over the last 18 months, 14% of agency workers were also...

More good news for cyclists in the capital as the Mayor of London has announced a plan to invest £770m on cycling initiatives across London. The funding will be spread over five years, seeing £154m per annum to fund infrastructure and promote cycling. Khan wants to make cycling in the capital a "safe and obvious choice for Londoners of all ages and backgrounds". There have been numerous deaths of cyclists in recent years, prompting calls for safer cycle lanes around...

A charity has raised serious concerns about the neglect that teenagers are suffering. The Children’s Society Troubled Teens report found that over one in seven year ten pupils suffer neglect at the hands of their parents or guardians. These shocking statistics are “deeply worrying’ according to the report. The researched consisted of two thousand 12-15-year-olds who completed an online questionnaire and the research was conducted by York University. The survey was spread across the country and involved over seventy different...

British boffins have developed nuclear-powered batteries which could generate power for thousands of years. An elite team of physicists and chemists at the University of Bristol have grown a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radioactive field, is able to generate an electrical current. This will enable it to generate power, potentially soling the problem of batteries ever running out. The team at the University of Bristol reckon the development could solve some of the problems of nuclear waste,...

They say that the grass is always greener on the other side, but in this instance they could be right! An eco pioneer says he has found the answer to Britain's growing energy needs by making gas from grass. Dale Vince claims the ultra-green technology is a viable alternative to fracking and could produce enough energy to heat 97 per cent of the country's homes. He said if fully developed the new industry would pump £7.5 billion each year into the economy and...

A police station is believed to be the first in the country with NO front-line officers - and is run by a part-time volunteer who is a WAITROSE manager. Hucclecote police station in Gloucestershire once had several full-time police officers and a sergeant patrolling the streets. But thanks to budget cut-backs it is now staffed by a team of 10 'specials' - who are not fully trained or paid - although less than half are on duty at the same...

Forget cutting edge green technology, according to a new scientific study bird poop could be the key to combating climate change. Researchers at the Colorado State University who are working to better understand key components of Arctic climate systems have linked ammonia emissions from summertime Arctic seabird-colony excrement, called guano, to newly formed atmospheric aerosol particles which can in turn influence Arctic cloud properties and their effects on climate. Publishing in Nature Communications and featured by the American Association for the...

There has been some sobering news for the majority of people who are struggling to get on the housing ladder or simply want to live in decent accommodation. New figures show that only just over 32,000 “affordable homes” were built in the year leading up to March 2016, a worrying 24-year low. In the previous year 66,600 cheaper homes were constructed, double the following year. The figures were supplied by the DCLG (Department for Communities and Local Government) and the...

Britain, for almost six full days last quarter, was completely coal free – the first instance Britain burnt no coal to produce its electricity since 1881. These findings are more positive renewable energy news for the UK, which follows on from Scotland’s ability to power itself, using only green energy. Also in the third quarter of 2016 the UK was able to produce over half of its electricity from low-carbon sources. In period between July and September biomass, nuclear, wind,...