Fire crews put out fire started 'deliberately' on Holton Heath
DWFRS said crews found fires in multiple places on areas of the heath.The fire service said: "The cause is believed to be deliberate, and we are working closely with our colleagues at Dorset Police."An amber warning of a rising risk of wildfires is in place. The alert covers Dorset and Wiltshire.One of Dorset's national nature reserves, the area of heath is owned by Natural England and spans 117 hectares (289 acres) of woodland and lowland heath.The reserve's compact bushes provide nest sites for Dartford warblers and stonechats - its areas of bare sands are home to burrowing bees and wasps, and egg-laying sand lizards.
On Tuesday evening a wildfire took hold of an area of Turbary Heath in Bournemouth.Fire investigators later said the nature reserve fire was being treated as arson and police were investigating.
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The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
My nosy neighbour showed me pictures of my husband cheating with his colleague – but has she done me a favour?
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Times
an hour ago
- Times
Special needs children deserve a better start
Alfie is 11 and looks angelic in the rare moments he is asleep, but the minute he wakes up he begins to rock and grind his teeth. At school he was friendless, getting into fights, smashing his fist through windows. He no longer speaks, can barely write his own name and has been diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum, with ADHD and low self-esteem. His single mother has spent four years trying to get a formal assessment, while Alfie languishes on the waiting list. Flick through Mumsnet, switch on Woman's Hour, listen at the school gates and you will hear horrific stories of distraught parents fighting to get provision for their challenged children so they can receive specialist help. Yet now the government is threatening to reform the special educational needs and disabilities (Send) system. Ministers are considering scaling back the use of education, health and care plans (EHCPs) which legally require councils to provide these vulnerable children with a set amount of support, from a dedicated teaching assistant to special schools or paid transport. • Keir Starmer faces fresh Labour revolt over special needs support reforms 'First, they went for the pensioners over winter fuel allowance, then they picked on adults with disabilities [over personal independence payments] and when they couldn't stuff them, they came for our children. This is not why I voted Labour,' says Alfie's mother, who has given up her work in Tesco to care for him at home and is desperate. But what can the government do? I feel sorry for the education secretary Bridget Phillipson as she attempts to get to grips with this inherited crisis. Help for children with learning difficulties and disabilities costs £12 billion a year, up from £8 billion in 2021-22. 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For the past 11 years, since EHCPs were introduced, we have incentivised heads to offload and exclude their most challenging children rather than finding the means to embrace their differences where possible and help them to interact with their peers. This has created an unsustainably expensive system that diverts money from mainstream schools, threatens to bankrupt councils and thwarts stressed parents and children with learning difficulties. Let's hope that in contrast to their recent intervention on welfare reform, Labour backbenchers have the courage and intelligence to support necessary change.
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Telegraph
Littering tourists turn riverside beauty spot into ‘mini Glastonbury'
A riverside beauty spot close to a rural scene has been likened to a 'mini Glastonbury' after being blighted by litter. Dedham Vale nature reserve is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty, famous for its water meadows and the River Stour. The village is half a mile from the iconic scene of Constable's 'The Hay Wain' – a famous landscape painting by John Constable from 1821, which depicts the river glistening in the sun. The small village in Essex has seen an increasing number of tourists visiting because of the recent spell of hot weather. Concerned residents said the village has been tarnished in recent weeks by visitors littering and engaging in 'reckless behaviour' during the heatwaves. In a video posted on social media on June 30, Darius Laws, a Tory councillor, likened the scenes to last month's Glastonbury festival. He joked: 'You'd think there was a headline act performing. You'd be forgiven for thinking that I'm in Glastonbury. No, f--- that, Left-wing, so-called green, hippies. No, I'm in Dedham.' Cllr Laws called on tourists to start 'following the countryside code' and pick up any litter. Thomas Rowe, a fellow Conservative councillor, echoed the concerns, saying: 'Just remember, this isn't a festival, it's a village.' Cllr Laws added: 'Hopefully, it gives people the confidence to tell people to pick up their litter and act appropriately. 'The amount of rubbish and reckless behaviour we are seeing is really concerning. It looked like a mini-Glastonbury. Bins were overflowing, people had dumped empty crates of beer, vape wrappers had been dropped on the ground.' He added: 'This is a beautiful part of the country and it's not ok. It makes local wildlife sick and ruins nature. We're welcome to visitors but they've got to be responsible.' Colchester county council said that they supported the campaign and called visitors to remove their waste. Elsewhere, rubbish and discarded camping gear in the Lake District led to a surge in complaints from residents who claimed they had been left 'heartbroken' by the behaviour. Campers using sites around Ullswater Lake and Glencoyne Bay in Cumbria were accused of chopping down trees for firewood, playing loud music through portable speakers, smoking cannabis and harming wildlife. One resident claimed that they found a discarded 12in zombie knife at one of the sites.
