I feel the time is right, to make MPs accountable. They seem to have a free hand, to do what they please with tax payers money. Yet constantly go on about cutting this and cutting that, and never mention the group, that abuses their position themselves.

What the Next Prime Minister Should Do About Housing? with Rob Stewart piped.video/Oc0M7_3z5tk?is=qiyv… via @YouTube

It's good to see Sheffield continuing the roll-out of 20mph to all its communities. The latest Traffic Regulation Order covers Arbourthorne and Bradway.

Well said, Chris Hinchliff. This government needs to change tack and change its planning framework so it empowers local communities and protects our environment.

Very interesting article in the FT this morning on the current politics of Heathrow expansion (£). Heathrow are hoping the Burnham administration gives it the go ahead. But evidence suggests Burnham is anything but certain about it. ft.com/content/0206443e-a4ca…

France ordered big businesses to cover their parking lots in solar panels, and the businesses are embracing it. Carrefour is putting solar canopies over 350 of its store lots, 180,000 parking spaces, and using the power to run its supermarkets. Disneyland Paris started even earlier: its guest lot now has more than 80,000 panels over 11,200 spaces, producing about 17% of the resort's electricity. France passed the law in 2023 requiring most large outdoor parking lots to put renewable-energy canopies or other qualifying shade over at least half the lot. Many businesses don't pay a cent upfront. Carrefour isn't even fronting the construction cost. GreenYellow is financing the entire installation and operating it under a 20-year power agreement. Carrefour uses the electricity and says the project will significantly reduce its energy bills. The government estimates it could add up to 11 gigawatts of solar. In full sun, that's about as much as 10 nuclear reactors. The US has somewhere between 700 million and 2 billion parking spaces. Most of them are bare asphalt baking in the sun. Why aren't we doing more of this?

Every farmer I speak to is going to do the same thing… Maximise production It has been made very clear that no one is going to pay them to farm for nature despite 20 years of promises They didn’t choose this They were shafted when they tried to compromise

Our new report explains HOW and WHY @andyburnham should deliver public ownership - not just public control Take back our assets by forcing private companies to deliver LET THEM GO BUST when they fail, so the UK can own its public services 💧💡🚄🚌🏥📮 weownit.org.uk/research-and-…

For 'cost of living' read 'cost of housing' .. its time we stopped building #TheWrongHousing and boosted genuinely affordable rent-controlled social supply - we need affordable options not ultra rationing and endless over-priced towers of flats with sky high service charges.

At first sight, to some, it could be that this looks like a bit of an #SMR #nuclear scam. They would use a CfD from HMG based on pretty speculative numbers to say to investors in #SGE that they had a firm contract for the electricity and then all they would have to do is find the sites, permit and construct the reactors, acquire access to the grid and deliver the electricity at the contracted price. There would be no financial risk to HMG in agreeing to this but there would be a considerable risk to their investors if they have got their sums wrong. The risk to HMG – well NESO – would be to planned supply not being available on time at some future date. That would hand a very powerful club to SGE to get much more help from HMG later and a very big problem to the poor policy makers and NESO managers who inherited the hole in their plans. Or, put more simply if an offer looks to good to be true, it probably is. world-nuclear-news.org/artic…

John Belcher's Essentials in Architecture was probably required reading for most young architects when it came out in 1907. Here on bricks when used with dressed and shaped stone.

Well done him essexlive.news/news/essex-ne…

"Watchdog accused of failing to hold water firms to account over pollution breaches" Water companies are operating without fear and always have done, because the regulators and government are toothless cowards. mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/en…

UK free zones to date: 12 freeports, 74 SEZ's, 5 AI Growth Zones, 91 in total. The freeport model at Teesworks is effectively over, and the public development corporation is carrying £420m in debt with its accounts unsigned. The site has been re-badged as an AI Growth Zone, and @PrivateEyeNews names Anthropic as its data centre partner. Rishi Sunak launched the freeports programme as Chancellor. He now advises Anthropic. The designation changes, but the model stays the same. The UK post-Brexit is being privatised via Zone Fever.

MPs are paid salaries and expenses using taxpayer money . Furthermore they have SUBSIDISED alcohol , also courtesy of the taxpayer . But they would deny poor people a pint of beer . That is Badenoch and her grotesque band of failures. #NeverVoteConservative

Over 20,000 people have written to their MP in the last few days… …asking them to attend the debate on the UK joining the EU. Use this page to send your MP an email with just a few clicks. 👇 europeanmovement.co.uk/conta…

Walking to West Road for @bbcquestiontime reminded me again of how bonkers it is to for a busway to join Grange Rd here…

To be fair, this could be a lot worse. But, good heavens, it should be a lot better.

Why doesn’t Britain have as many trams as France and Germany? Answer: Cost. We pay roughly twice as much to build a kilometre of track. (And some projects cost a lot more!) Why is it so expensive? One challenge is the cost of moving wires and pipes. Our kit is older, badly mapped, and water/power companies get to pass the cost of utility diversions to the taxpayer when we try to build trams. We also need to move more because we have deeper track-beds. Today, I visited Coventry where they are trying a new approach known as ‘Universal Track’. It only goes 30cm (I.e. a school ruler’s length) deep, unlike existing approaches that go 60-90cm deep. That’s above most utilities in most place. It also uses less concrete. They reckon it’s much cheaper as a result. Potentially half the cost of a normal track. It was originally invented for their smaller ‘Very Light Rail’, but they’ve since learnt it’s strong enough to take full-size trams. They hope to have it commercially available in two years.

"Ruskin's 7 lamps" - an AI primer instagram.com/reel/DdoVfwDMW… #ARx