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BBC News
27 minutes ago
- BBC News
Council confirms Ryhall library will remain open
A councillor has confirmed that a previously under-threat library in Ryhall is to remain open. Christine Wise told a Rutland County Council meeting that the authority would continue to run Ryhall Library in its current form after "careful consideration" of alternative options. The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said the library in Coppice Road came under threat in January when the council stated on budget papers that closure may be an option. An action group was then set up which called on the council to take a vote on any decision to close the library. Wise said: "I can confirm that Rutland County Council will continue to operate Ryhall Library service in its current form from its existing premises."This follows careful consideration of a range of alternative options. "It has always been our intention to maintain library services in the east of the county. The question we've been wrestling is how best to do this." The Liberal Democrat councillor said Arts Council funding awarded for upgrade work was not enough to complete extensive repairs found to be necessary, and instead this money would be used to upgrade added: "Having weighed all the factors and with no alternative venues immediately available to support a move of the library service, we have concluded that a prolonged process to relocate the library service and then dispose of the building would not be in the interests of library users."However, Wise said if the building falls into serious disrepair, the council may need to look at is a process under way to register the building as a community asset, which means it would have extra protection.
Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Why is the NHS spending hundreds of thousands of pounds attacking women?
On Wednesday, the Sandie Peggie tribunal resumes. This is the case of the nurse who said no. Peggie, a nurse with three decades of experience at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, found herself having to share a changing room with a biological male: the transgender doctor Beth Upton. She had gone into a hospital changing room after experiencing heavy menstrual bleeding, saw Upton there, and felt so uncomfortable that she spoke up. Exactly what Peggie said is disputed, but it's claimed she told Upton that ' a man couldn't be in the changing room '. This happened in December 2023. Upton had begun transitioning in 2022 but claimed to be both 'distressed' and 'afraid'. If you've ever been physically assaulted or intimidated, you'll know what it's like to truly feel that way. But Peggie is small – and Upton is certainly not. Nonetheless, Peggie was suspended by her managers and faced a disciplinary hearing. Somehow, in these cases, it's always the woman who says no who ends up being portrayed as threatening and bullying. The gender cult demands unquestioning acceptance of the idea that trans people are always victims. After some months, Peggie was allowed to return to work, but only with restrictions. NHS Fife refused to guarantee that the changing room would be reserved for biological women. In May 2024, Peggie decided to take her case to an employment tribunal, claiming she had been subjected to sexual harassment, belief discrimination and victimisation by both NHS Fife and Dr Upton. NHS Fife wanted to keep this quiet. Understandably. They sought to keep Upton anonymous and have the upcoming hearing held in private. Neither of these things is happening, which is just as well, because what's being exposed is a muddle of mismanagement and deep stupidity. The board of NHS Fife also did not want to disclose how much this has all cost, but they have been forced to: £220,000 so far. Another 11 days of hearings could push costs up towards £1 million. The taxpayer, remember, is paying for both Upton's and NHS Fife's defence. The board itself is now under scrutiny: even an SNP politician, Carol Potter, is breaking ranks on the gender dogma and saying heads should roll. Lest we forget, the SNP was the party whose (unsuccessful) fight with the campaign group For Women Scotland led to the landmark Supreme Court ruling that 'sex' as defined in the Equality Act means 'sex at birth'. This is the level of madness we have reached – where individual women take on public bodies that seem to have no conception of women's rights. A nurse wanting to change in a single-sex space is something most people would see as reasonable, not because they are 'transphobic,' but because until recently there was some respect for female privacy. At the heart of this case is a story about class and male entitlement, albeit dressed up in medical garb. Peggie is upending the medical hierarchy as a nurse standing up to a doctor. She is doing so in a place where trans mania peaked under Nicola Sturgeon. Trans mania dictated that she should, as women are always told to do, simply put up with it. Whenever women have said there is sometimes a conflict between trans rights and women's rights, many in power have repeatedly told us this is not the case. We have been patronised with the phrase 'rights are not a pie' – ie, rights are not a finite resource, and that adding rights to one group doesn't mean taking away from another. Yet sometimes rights are a pie, and in terms of physical space this is self-evident. We can solve these problems by having men's, women's and gender-neutral changing rooms. This would actually give someone like Upton a choice of two spaces to change in (men's and gender neutral), and protect the rights of women to be in a single-sex environment. This was a right women assumed was ours until the past few years. A current row over the Ladies Pond at Hampstead in London also brings this issue into sharp focus and illustrates how public bodies still believe they can ignore the Supreme Court ruling that, in legal terms, sex means biological sex at birth. This means self-identifying as a woman does not permit men to invade women's spaces. There are three ponds at Hampstead: Men's, Women's and Mixed. But men who identify as women have been using the women's pond. The City of London Corporation does not think it has to comply with providing a single-sex facility for women as, until it has sought legal advice after a complaint brought by campaign group Sex Matters, its policy remains that anyone who thinks they are a woman can use the pool. Quite clearly some women won't care about this, but some do. What is incredible is that this in effect means giving men access to all three ponds. Isn't two enough? Currently, we are in a situation where many of our institutions are so immersed in gender ideology that they cannot respond to the actual needs of women. Or, indeed, correctly and swiftly interpret the law. This immersion, though, was never organic – it did not come from a place of wanting fairness for everyone. If it did, I would support it. The truth is that it has been imposed from on high as a response to intense lobbying and acquiescence to activist demands. One can see this particularly in the case of the BBC, whose top brass started taking meetings with Stonewall activists in 2012. Everyone was sold on the idea of trans rights being the new civil rights and a symbol of being cutting edge. This is how the full-scale abandonment of both women's rights and any notion of safeguarding has been enacted by supposedly progressive institutions – in the name of some non-specific idea of modernity. It has been appalling. And where do we end up? With public money being spent to fight a working-class nurse who doesn't want to get undressed in front of a man? How is this right?
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Waste disposal practices are harming the environment
Your article (Millions of tonnes of toxic sewage sludge spread on UK farmland every year, 7 July) gives some insight into the environmental impact of the practice and the paucity of regulatory control. The legal case had been made as far back as 2015 that the spreading of sewage sludge – which the water industry prefers to call 'biosolids' – should be brought under the potentially much tighter environmental permitting system that applies to the spreading of other industrial wastes applied to land for agricultural benefit. Not surprisingly, the very mention that sewage sludge be treated as a 'waste' drew strong resistance from water companies that feared a collapse in the market. However, this is only part of the story. The ban on dumping at sea, coupled with the move away from landfill, has seen a huge shift from putting waste in one place to smearing it in ever more discrete parcels over farmland and elsewhere, purportedly for ecological improvement. In additional to sewage sludge, there are construction waste soils, waste compost and anaerobic digestate, plus a range of non‑waste soil improvers deposited. Examples such as pig carcasses in compost on farmland testify to what some people will try to get away with if not properly regulated. While there may well be good examples of using treated waste to improve soil, the cumulative environmental burden of the range of practices is largely unchecked and GalvinFormer policy adviser, Environment Agency and Defra There is a £6m research project studying the use of pyrolysis on sewage sludge that should assist in sequestering carbon in the soil and which may reduce pollutants like Pfas – so-called 'forever chemicals'. The project undertaken by Thames Water, Ofwat and other collaborators aims to deliver a continuous flow system that could be widely deployed, and the research is due to complete in 2027. If successful, this technology would allow our sewage sludge to be used as an agricultural input while meeting our wider needs to reduce pollution and climate emissions. However, we will need to further invest in our water-treatment system. Can the privatised water industry meet the challenge?Andrew WoodOxford Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
