First UK residents to face compulsory purchase of homes for solar farm
Residents in three 'Domesday villages' fear their homes will be the first in Britain to be compulsorily purchased to make way for the country's biggest-ever solar farm. Dozens of villagers living in Hempnall, Saxlingham and Tasburgh in Norfolk have received letters from a developer saying their homes 'may be required' to create space for East Pye Solar Project. The development will cover a massive 2,500 acres - the equivalent of 1,762 football pitches or the size of Chichester in West Sussex - and is 10 times bigger than the UK's current largest in Flintshire, Wales.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Bloomberg
22 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
UK to Invest £275 Million to Train Skilled British Workers
The UK will invest £275 million ($371 million) to grow the country's skilled workforce as Prime Minister Keir Starmer seeks to accelerate economic growth and reduce reliance on foreign labor. The funding, announced on Sunday, will be used to overhaul technical training and apprenticeships, aiming to plug skills shortages in sectors like engineering and defence. It's part of a new industrial strategy that includes a 10-year plan for national renewal the government plans to outline this week.
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Starmer puts skills training at heart of industrial strategy plan
Sir Keir Starmer will set out his industrial strategy on Monday as he seeks to kickstart the stuttering economy and reduce the UK's reliance on foreign workers. The decade-long plan for 'national renewal' will include £275 million in skills investment to train Britons to do jobs in growth industries which might otherwise require imported labour. The strategy will include specific funding to train people for work in defence, engineering, digital and construction roles. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the strategy 'will help transform our skills system to end the overreliance on foreign labour and ensure British workers can secure good, well-paid jobs in the industries of tomorrow and drive growth and investment right across the country'. Monday's industrial strategy will be followed later in the week by a new trade plan intended to make the UK the best-connected country in the world to do business. The Prime Minister will launch the industrial strategy hoping it will help in his mission of delivering economic growth. The economy shrank by 0.3% in April, the biggest monthly contraction in gross domestic product for a year-and-a-half, as businesses felt the impact of global uncertainty caused by Donald Trump's tariffs and domestic pressure as a result of hikes to firms' national insurance contributions. Around one-in-seven young people are not in education or employment, and the number of people taking an apprenticeship has fallen by almost a fifth between 2016/17 and 2023/24. The Government hopes the growth sectors identified in the industrial strategy will create 1.1 million new jobs by 2035. The skills package includes capital investment from a £200 million fund which will support new facilities including 'technical excellence colleges' providing specialised training for local industries. The total funding is expected to train thousands more workers by 2029 including computer programmers, IT technicians, electrical and civil engineers. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: 'Skills rightly run right through the heart of this industrial strategy because they are key to breaking the link between background and success for young people and delivering prosperity for our country.' Stephen Phipson, the boss of manufacturers' organisation Make UK, welcomed the skills announcement. 'We look forward to working with the Government to fix the skills gap in manufacturing, which has been the sector's Achilles' heel for decades,' he said. Other elements of the plan are expected to include measures to help cut energy costs for industries which have complained they are being forced to compete with rivals overseas who face lower bills. Meanwhile some £380 million will be spent on a range of projects intended to double private investment in the creative industries. Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith welcomed the investment in skills but said 'the Government are stepping on the accelerator and the brake at the same time' by hiking national insurance for firms and introducing extra employment rights which could increase costs. 'This inherent contradiction cannot make for a feasible or serious strategy, and will hold the Government to account for it,' he said. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Workers who lost pensions call for surplus to be used
Pensioners from a plant in Cardiff who lost their pensions when it went bust more than 20 years ago have called for surplus money to be used to compensate them. Workers from Allied Steel and Wire got 90% of their pensions back, but that has been eroded because payments are not linked to rising prices. One of them, John Benson, said "retirement dreams" had been "destroyed" but that using a small portion of a £13bn surplus in the Pension Protection Fund would be enough to fully restore the pensions. The UK government said it was considering the matter but warned "these are complex matters requiring a balanced approach". Minister to 're-consider' steel pensioners' plight Steelworkers say pension loss like Horizon scandal Pension protections were strengthened after the Maxwell Scandal, when newspaper tycoon Robert Maxwell stole more than £400m from the pension funds of his Mirror newspaper group to prop up his ailing businesses. His pensioners lost half of what they had paid in. As a result of his action, the Financial Assistance Scheme was set up as a safety net to protect pensioners when the companies they worked for went bust. It was this scheme that helped bail out a group of Welsh workers from Allied Steel and Wire (ASW) in Cardiff who lost out when the company went under in 2002. Although the ASW workers got 90% of their pensions, their value has fallen since that time as they are not linked to rising prices. Mr Benson, from Dinas Powys, Vale of Glamorgan, has led a long campaign asking the government to make up the shortfall, which he said has had dire consequences. "It's destroyed retirement dreams. Some colleagues have had to downsize," he said. "One lady who was seriously ill herself couldn't afford a funeral after her husband died, and a couple of months later she died herself. "It's soul destroying. It's destroyed me. "There are some horror stories, too many to tell." Now a cross-party group of Senedd members has written to the prime minister urging him to pay the pensions in full, among them the former Conservative leader in Cardiff Bay Andrew RT Davies. "This is a massive injustice that's been inflicted on ASW pension holders and other pension holders across the UK," he said. "Through no fault of their own, they've lost their entitlement to a full pension which they paid into, and we believe the system should be corrected and that's why we've signed this letter." It has been revealed that the scheme which replaced the Financial Assistance Scheme, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), has a surplus of £13bn. Mr Benson said paying a tiny amount of that money to him and his fellow pensioners to make up the shortfall would not be a hardship, but would make all the difference to them. "This money, this surplus in the PPF, should be paid to restore our pensions in full. "They've got a £13bn surplus in the PPF – use it! "Stop making excuses that it's public money – it's our money. This money is meant for us, not other government policies." The matter was also raised with Pensions Minister and Swansea West MP Torsten Bell at a meeting of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee earlier this month. Committee chair Labour MP Debbie Abrahams asked: "I cannot understand the reason for not making a decision to enable them to spend the last few years of their life in some comfort, can you give us any hope around this?" Bell replied: "It does need to be looked at properly. "It needs to be considered in the round of those wider impacts, as all public policy matters are, but I am absolutely aware of the issues. "I am also aware of the average age of the people that are affected. "The best thing I can do is to say that I am aware and I am looking at it, but the public finance implications are more complicated than you set out." In response, concerning its £13bn surplus, the PPF said it deliberately had what it called a reserve to protect it from future claims or in case people live longer than expected. The Department for Work and Pensions said it recognised members' incomes may have been eroded in recent years. "However, these are complex matters requiring a balanced approach," it said. "The government is continuing to consider what we have heard from the Pension Protection Fund and Financial Assistance Scheme members on this issue." More on this story on BBC Politics Wales at 10:00 BST on Sunday 22 June