Latest news with #DepartmentForEnvironment
BBC News
3 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Heckmondwike and Marsden gum problem targeted by £26k grant
Efforts to tackle the problem of chewing gum stuck to pavements in two West Yorkshire towns have been boosted with the award of a £26,450 clean-up money from the Chewing Gum Task Force would be spent on a one-off deep clean in Heckmondwike and Marsden town centres, according to Kirklees task force was established by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and is run by the Keep Britain Tidy charity, but is funded by chewing gum manufacturers. Last year, a total of 16,503 pieces of gum litter were removed from streets in Huddersfield and Dewsbury following a £25,500 investment from the task force. Kirklees Council is one of 52 local authorities across the country which successfully applied for a grant this year to help efforts to clean chewing gum off pavements. 'Think twice' Councillor Tyler Hawkins, cabinet member for highways and waste, said: "We are delighted to have been awarded further funding to help us tackle the problem of gum litter across our towns and villages in Kirklees."Removing chewing gum litter will get these areas looking their best and complement our ongoing programme of regeneration work within our town centres. "With this clean-up and new signage, we hope it will make potential litterbugs think twice and help keep our home tidy."According to Keep Britain Tidy, about 77% of England's streets and 99% of retail sites are stained with gum, while estimates have suggested the annual cost to UK councils of cleaning up chewing gum litter is about £ Ogden-Newton, Keep Britain Tidy's chief executive, said: "People need to remember that disposing irresponsibly of their gum causes harm to our environment as it takes years to decompose naturally – and, ultimately, costs the public purse to clean it up."Figures from Behaviour Change – a not-for-profit social enterprise – have shown that in areas which benefited from the first and second year of Chewing Gum Task Force funding, gum littering dropped by up to 80% in the first two months, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reductions were still being observed six months after targeted street cleansing and the installation of specially designed signage to encourage people to bin their gum. Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
The Sun
11-06-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Bird flu outbreak spreads to farm in new UK region as chickens set to be culled & study finds chilling virus feature
BIRD flu has been detected in a Yorkshire farm, it's been announced. A case of the H5N1 bird flu in was found in poultry in West Yorkshire. 3 3 The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: "All poultry on the premises will be humanely culled." A 3km protection zone and 10km surveillance zone has been declared around the site near Ravensthorpe, Kirklees. It comes after a new animal study from the US Centres for Disease Control found that bird flu is capable of spreading through the air. In January, a bird flu outbreak was found at another farm in England, and experts feared the virus is one mutation from becoming pandemic. The government said all poultry on the infected site, in East Yorkshire, was humanely culled after a strain of the H5N1 bird flu virus was detected. It was the 16th outbreak of the HPAI H5N1 strain in kept birds in 2024, according to the Nation Farmers Union (NFU) AI tracker. In December, the virus was found on Turkey farms in Norfolk, which led to the culling of thousands of birds just days before Christmas. Bird flu, or avian influenza, has killed millions of birds worldwide. The highly contagious bug is now spreading to mammals, raising fears it could trigger another pandemic through potential human-to-human transmission. In December, an animal sanctuary in Shelton, Washington, announced that twenty exotic cats, including a Bengal tiger, four cougars, a lynx and four bobcats, have died after contracting bird flu. So far, there is no evidence that H5N1 can spread between humans. But this increase in transmission gives the virus lots of opportunities to mutate - a process where a pathogen changes and can become more dangerous. Experts from the US recently discovered H5N1 is already just one mutation away from developing the ability to transmit person-to-person. Scientists at Scripps Research in San Diego tested various genetic mutations on virus material from infected cattle. They found that the Q226L mutation enhanced the virus's ability to attach to human-like cell receptors, giving bird flu the potential to behave like other human flu viruses. A recent case of bird flu suggests the virus might have already mutated to better spread among humans. The case, spotted this month in a hospitalised Louisiana man, is the first "severe" bird flu case in the US, amid its rapid spread through cows this year. Tests show the case involved a mutated version of H5N1 that helps it bind to human upper respiratory cells. This could make it easier to spread between people through coughing or sneezing, raising concerns the virus is adapting to infect humans more effectively. Bird flu viruses do not typically bind to a cell receptor in human upper airways, which helps explain why H5N1 rarely infects people or spreads between them. Bird flu is spread by close contact with an affected bird. This includes touching or petting an infected bird, touching droppings or bedding, or killing or preparing infected poultry for cooking. However, bird flu cannot be caught through eating fully cooked poultry or eggs, even in areas with an outbreak of bird flu. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the human risk remains low, but urges countries to share information quickly for monitoring and preparedness as the virus spreads. Bird flu: Could it be the next human pandemic? By Isabel Shaw, Health Reporter The H5N1 bird flu is running rampant in wildlife around the world and is now spreading in cows. In recent months, it infected people in Canada and the US leaving them severely unwell. This increase in transmission has given the virus lots of opportunities to mutate - a process where a pathogen changes and can become more dangerous. Scientists fear it's only a matter of time before one of these mutations makes it better at spreading among mammals - and potentially humans. Experts recently discovered that H5N1 is already just one mutation away from developing the ability to transmit person-to-person communication. Some experts believe the virus could already be spreading among some animal species. So far, there is no evidence that H5N1 can spread between humans. But in the hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals over the past 20 years, the mortality rate is high. From 2003 to 2024, 889 cases and 463 deaths caused by H5N1 have been reported worldwide from 23 countries, according to the World Health Organisation. This puts the case fatality rate at 52 per cent. Leading scientists have already warned an influenza is the pathogen most likely to trigger a new pandemic in the near future. The prospect of a flu pandemic is alarming. Although scientists have pointed out that vaccines against many strains, including H5N1, have already been developed, others are still in the pipeline.
Reuters
11-06-2025
- Health
- Reuters
UK confirms case of bird flu in poultry in northern England
LONDON, June 11 (Reuters) - Britain has detected a case of the H5N1 bird flu in poultry in West Yorkshire, northern England, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Wednesday. "All poultry on the premises will be humanely culled," a notice on the department's website said.
BBC News
03-06-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Thames Water should be put in administration, MP says
An MP has called for Thames Water to be put into administration after a US firm pulled out of a deal to buy the struggling utilities company. Lib Dem Charlie Maynard, who represents Witney in Oxfordshire, said the government had a "big problem" after private equity giant KKR withdrew from a £4bn deal. Maynard had previously argued against a £3bn rescue deal for Thames Water, but an appeal against it was dismissed in March. Thames Water has called news of the failed bid "disappointing" but said it would proceed to work with other potential investors. Speaking to BBC Radio Oxford, Maynard said the government would now be "scrambling to try and fix" the situation. He renewed his calls from earlier in the year that the company should be put into government-supervised administration. "They should be in bankruptcy, because you can't deal with this enormous amount of debt... you've got to cut it down into something sustainable."He added: "The government is just doing anything it can to not do the fundamental thing that will actually fix it." Maynard said he was considering taking his case for putting the company into special administration to the Supreme Court. The government has previously said it is ready to take over Thames Water in the event that it cannot continue to Thames Water and the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have been contacted for comment. You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
Times
01-06-2025
- General
- Times
Respite for hares as officials back a close season for hunting
Brown hares could finally have a respite from year-round shooting after the government said it supported ambitions to introduce a close season. Unlike other game such as deer and pheasants, brown hares — the numbers of which have declined by more than 80 per cent over the past century — can be hunted all year. Last week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said England and Wales 'stand out as being among the few European countries not to have a close season,' adding that it had failed 'to give it the protection we should'. It said it would look for 'a suitable primary legislative vehicle to deliver this close season'. Chloe Dalton, the former Foreign Office adviser who wrote the acclaimed non-fiction book Raising Hare, which is based on her experiences living with the animals in her rural home, said the absence of a close season meant hunters turned their attention to brown hares when all other game species were protected. 'The hare you can shoot at any time and commonly, because of the prohibition on shooting these other animals, such as pheasant, which you can't shoot from February 1, it is a good time for business reasons to shoot hares in February. 'So the peak shooting season for hares coincides with their breeding season, during which period most female hares are either lactating or pregnant or both. If you shoot a mother hare, her young [leverets] starve to death. It is an animal welfare issue,' she told the Hay Festival. 'It is a core principle of conservation that you don't kill an animal when it is breeding,' Dalton added. • Chloe Dalton: My father read Joseph Conrad to us at the kitchen table Brown hares are one of Britain's most extraordinary — and previously revered — species. In his account of the Gallic Wars 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar said native Britons refused to eat the animal because it was sacred. Dalton's book outlines how brown hares are able to carry two litters of leverets simultaneously, in a process known as superfetation. They can move at 37 of their own body lengths per second, while a cheetah, the fastest land animal, can move at 23 of its body lengths per second. Dalton said: 'I think it is straightforward. We should grant to hares the same protection that we give to every other game species. Scotland already has, and most of Europe. So what happens is that they [European hunters] come over to [England and Wales] to do it.' A petition calling upon the government to protect hares and leverets from shooting during the breeding season from February 1 to September 30 has now been signed by over 20,000 people. According to the Hare Preservation Trust, there were about four million brown hares in Britain in the late 1800s. It said numbers had declined by more than 80 per cent during the past century — which it said was at least in part also due to the intensification of agriculture — and has also stated that in parts of Britain, such as the southwest, 'the brown hare is almost a rarity and may even be locally extinct'. Dalton, who was being interviewed at the Hay Festival by Lord Hague of Richmond, her former boss, who also supports the introduction of a close season, said the case should be made that the hare was 'an iconic national animal'. 'There is something about the quietly persistent, unassuming hare that speaks to who we are in this country,' Dalton said. 'I hope we can reverse these years of inattention.'
