Latest news with #M25
BBC News
8 hours ago
- Automotive
- BBC News
Road bridge over M25 in Surrey closed all weekend
A road bridge over the M25 is closed all weekend with diversions in place due to roadworks. National Highways South East says the closure, which began at 21:00 BST on Friday, is in place on the Cobham Road to re-waterproof the bridge and replace an 18-year-old closure does not affect the M25 and the bridge will be reopened by 06:00 BST on Monday, the agency says. A National Highways spokesperson said: "We're working closely with both major and local roadworks to ensure our closures and diversion routes are coordinated effectively." This bridge is located on Cobham Road between Shamrock Close and River Lane in to all nearby properties and businesses on both sides of the Cobham Road bridge will remain available. However, motorists will not be able to drive across the bridge during the full diversion route is available here.A second weekend closure of the bridge will be needed later in 2025, the agency says.
The Sun
2 days ago
- Automotive
- The Sun
Key bridge over Britain's busiest motorway to close for entire weekend
DRIVERS on Britain's busiest motorway will face disruptions over the weekend as a key bridge is closed for repairs. It will be the first weekend of two upcoming closures of the bridge that goes over the M25. 1 The bridge between Cobham and Leatherhead, near Stoke D'Abernon in Surrey will be shut from 9pm on Friday, June 27 until 6am on Monday, June 30. Motorists will be unable to get across the bridge during this time over the weekend. Access to nearby properties and businesses, however, will still be possible. Closure of the bridge is due to repair work to re-waterproof the structure, as well as replace one of its 18-year-old bridge joints. Drivers travelling through the area are therefore likely to face diversions and have to take longer routes. Fully signed diversion routes via Leatherhead will be in place during the closure. Southbound traffic coming from the Cobham direction will be diverted via: the A245 Woodlands Lane Woodlands Road Randalls Road eastbound Bull Hill southbound Station Road westbound B2122 Waterway Road Guilford Road southbound Cobham Road westbound Northbound traffic coming from the Fetcham direction will be diverted via: Cobham Road eastbound the B2122 Guildford Road Waterway Road northbound A245 Station Road westbound Station Approach northbound Randalls Road Woodlands Road Woodlands Lane westbound Navigating the M25 Closure: Diversion Tips & ULEZ Fee Warnings Some drivers should be aware of the railway bridge between Shamrock Close and River Lane in Fetcham where there is a 3.7 metre height restriction. Those affected should seek alternative routes. Another weekend closure is also scheduled for later in the year. This bridge closure also comes just up the road from the huge M25 junction 10 upgrade that has been happening. Last weekend, drivers were also unable to enter or exit part of the M25 at junction 10 on the Wisley Interchange in Surrey. This was due to work in restoring heathland and upgrading the junction with hopes of reducing congestion, improving safety and more reliable journeys. A further weekend closure for the A3 between junction 10 and the Painshill interchange, set for July 4 to 7.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Queues of traffic spark journey delays around M25 and QEII Bridge
Delays and queuing traffic is being reported between Purfleet and the QEII Bridge this morning. Traffic moving clockwise along the M25 from Junction 30 to the crossing is likely to be impacted. The disruption was first reported to the AA at around 6.20am and appears to be ongoing - travel time is estimated at 20 minutes. We're now on WhatsApp! Join our new channel at to get all the latest breaking news and exclusive stories delivered straight to your phone. An update from the AA said: "Queueing traffic on M25 clockwise from J30 A13 (Lakeside / Purfleet) to the QEII Bridge. Travel time is 20 minutes." Road works taking place in the area involve a new road layout being created on Euclid Way Northbound at Motherwell Way. There is currently no estimated time that the congestion could ease.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The Essex farm at the centre of an international car smuggling ring: How remote spot by the M25 is linked to London's car crime epidemic.. and its dark past as a hotbed for organised crime
Like many farms, Baldwins in south Essex is reached by winding lanes and surrounded by green fields. But the similarities end there. Tucked away in an area of green belt just inside the M25, Baldwins Farm consists of a small cluster of bungalows surrounded by a sprawling, ramshackle industrial estate covered in shipping containers and the skeletons of old cars mined for scrap. While it's not the sort of place folk would venture unless they needed to, this strange spot - and what happens there - has long been a subject of whispered conversations among locals. Baldwins Farm has now attracted wider attention after a documentary that aired recently on national TV placed the site right at the centre of an international car smuggling ring. But as MailOnline can reveal, this is far from the first time it has been linked to organised crime. In fact, the site has been a hotbed of gang activity stretching as far back as the 1980s. From drug smuggling to gun dealing, Baldwins Farm has seen it all... The recent documentary the featured Baldwins Farm began with an Audi A4 that was stolen from a driveway in North London on March 15. Unbeknownst to the thieves, it had been fitted with a hidden tracker by the car leasing company. This tracker showed the Audi moving east towards the borough of Enfield before switching off. Then, days later, it woke up 30 miles away in a patch of woodland in Baldwins Farm. It later emerged that the tracker was not transmitting, possibly due to GPS jamming or blocking equipment. Five weeks later, it suddenly reappeared in Kaunas, Lithuania, and was tracked to a business in the outskirts of the city called Baltic Car Trade. A team from Channel 4's Dispatches filmed police raiding on the property, but instead of finding a blue Audi A4, all that was left of the vehicle was a bunch of wires. The car, like many stolen off British streets, had been torn apart. Their extraordinary investigation revealed how organised gangs of criminals are stealing thousands of cars each year to then ship abroad as parts destined for scrap yards in the Middle East and Africa. They reported that at least two other stolen cars with trackers had ended up at Baldwins Farm, in a part of the farm known as the 'Lithuanian end'. According to one active car thief who spoke to the programme, Lithuania is a common destination for cars taken in Britain by criminals who use gadgets to exploit their keyless entry systems. Neil Thomas, a former police officer who works for a private track and recovery service for stolen vehicles, was unsurprised Baldwins Farm had been used to store them. 'The access in and out is quite restricted, it's quite close to London, quite close to the docks, so if you are exporting vehicles geographically it's a really good location,' he said. Essex Police said they could not obtain a warrant to recover the car because it's tracker was not giving a precise reading. Baldwins Farm - which MailOnline visited last week - is certainly unusual: there is only one road in and out of it in the form of a dusty track, and the whole site is bristling with CCTV cameras. While much of it is difficult to see from the road, drone images show dozens of parked vehicles, row-after-row of shipping containers, piles of scrap metal and a smattering of garages and bungalows. Dispatches identified a man called Martin Clark as the director of the company that owns the lease to the part of Baldwins Farm that the car was found on. In 2007, he was jailed for six years for his part in a £4million car theft ring. The team tracked him down to a large detached house in Essex with several luxury cars, including a Bentley parked on the driveway behind a fence. Asked by journalist Matt Shea he was aware his site on Baldwins Farm was being used to store stolen cars, Mr Clark replied: 'F*** off'. This is far from the first time stolen cars have been found at Baldwins Farm, with Essex Police conducting a raid in 2020 that recovered three Range Rovers and a Land Rover Discovery. Some of the vehicles were already in the process of being broken down for parts, while others were mere shells - with the chassis and wheels virtually the only elements remaining. Essex Police carried out a raid on Baldwins Farm in 2020 that recovered three Range Rovers and a Land Rover Discovery. Some of the vehicles had already been completely stripped There are plenty of legitimate businesses renting units at Baldwins Farm, including window companies, car repairers, and a cement business run by the Bromley family, which owns three gated-off bungalows and owns much of the land. However, it has long attracted a less wholesome clientele in the form of organised criminals - who have had a presence there stretching back decades. Like many semi-rural parts of Essex, Baldwins Farm saw an influx of criminals from the East End during the 1970s and 1980s, with gangsters finding it useful to have a site near London with good transport links that was still relatively isolated with plenty of land. Dave McKelvey, a retired Met Police DCI, has carried out numerous arrests at the site from as far back as 1989, and told MailOnline it had long been linked to drugs, firearms and stolen vehicles. 'Baldwins Farm was always a hotbed for major criminals,' he said. 'We arrested gangster Tony Dulieu for running a chop shop, where stolen car parts were split up, and running an amphetamine factory.' Essex Police were well aware of shady goings on at Baldwins Farm and put together a 14-month undercover investigation that looked into its owners - the Bromleys - and their associates, who were selling cocaine and firearms from the site and the Stone's Throw pub in South Ockendon. Named Operation Portwing, undercover officers struck up a relationship with the gang and were regularly sold drugs and offered guns. Family matriarch Linda Bromley was convicted of drug supply, but spared jail in 2007. A year earlier her husband David Bromley, who died aged 76 in 2022, and their son, Simon Bromley, 55, were jailed for three years and eight years respectively for cocaine supply offences, with the latter also convicted of firearms supply. The site also attracted the attention of police 2002 following the mysterious death of Lee Balkwell, 33, whose body was found wedged between the chassis and drum of a cement mixer. Simon Bromley had said the pair were each using electric Kango drills and spades to chip dried cement from inside the drum with an electric light until about 1am, when he left the drum and got into the cab with the intention of slowly rotating it. He said it spun more quickly than expected and Lee must have been ejected via a side hatch before becoming wedged where he was found. David called 999 and paramedics and police arrived on the scene. Despite the highly unusual circumstances, Simon was not initially arrested and given time to change his clothes. No charges followed, but Lee Balkwell's father would not drop the case and, after a series of reviews, it was reopened in 2010 and in November 2012 four members of the Bromley family and another man were arrested. Simon was charged with manslaughter by gross negligence and failing to ensure the health and safety of Les, as his employer. He was cleared of the manslaughter charge, but found guilty of the lesser offence. During the police investigation, a significant cannabis grow was found at Baldwins Farm and Bromley. Simon admitted to cultivating cannabis offences and was jailed for three years. He has never spoken to the media about Mr Balkwell's death, but in 2012 David gave the family's only interview, in which he insisted it was an accident and his death had deeply affected them all. Over the following years, as Mr Balkwell's father continued his campaign for answers, Baldwins Farm remained of interest to the authorities due to repeated claims the site was being used to hide stolen cars and illegally burn waste. In 2009 and 2010, raids discovered stolen cars and evidence of rubbish, including electricals, being illegally shipped to Africa. During a raid in October 2016, police, the Environment Agency, HMRC, and immigration enforcement discovered more than 900 stolen gas bottles worth £50,000. The following July, the Environment Agency secured a £120,000 fine against a company called PCS Recycling for illegal waste tipping and storage at Baldwins Farm and another site. As recently as April last year, police and environmental officials enforced a 'restriction order' to stop illegal waste dumping and burning on the farm. Despite the long association between Baldwins Farm and organised crime, the younger generation of Bromleys who now run the site insist they are doing everything in their power to clean it up. This graphic shows which brands are statistically most at risk of being stolen Simon Bromley's 29-year-old son, Jake, insisted that whatever his father or grandmother Linda did in the past have nothing to do with how Baldwin's Farm is run now. 'My grandad has died and my nan is very ill at the moment,' he told MailOnline. 'I fitted windows for eight years and I've come down to Baldwin's Farm to help my nan. That land they are on about [in the Dispatches programme] has been transferred to me. 'That stolen Audi has nothing to do with us and we have nothing to do with the land where the Lithuanians are.' Referring to Martin Clark, who Dispatches reported as holding the lease to the land that the stolen Audi was tracked to, he said: 'We rent land to Martin. He has a contract until 2026 and then we will review that. We do not like how he has run it down there.' Jake said that he and his 25-year-old beautician sister, Lily Tiger, were trying to make a legitimate living and feared negative publicity could drive away future clients. 'I'm a legitimate man who's worked hard his whole life. I worked fitting windows for over ten years and my sister is a make-up artist and runs her business here,' he said. 'My sister and I are both young. What happened years ago was not great, but as time has gone on we both have strong heads on us.' In February this year, Jake and Lily Tiger were both made directors of the new company Baldwins Farm Limited, which says it was established for the letting and operating of own or leased real estate. A family family friend also insisted the younger generation of Bromleys would have been unaware of any illegal goings on. 'Nobody has told them about the TV programme - they have no idea about stolen cars, they [the criminals] will have to get off the site,' the friend said. For local law enforcement, for whom Baldwins Farm has been a major headache for decades, this would be the dream outcome.
Sky News AU
5 days ago
- Politics
- Sky News AU
The 'counter-productive' Greta Thunberg product is about to expire after getting nowhere - as emissions are still rising
There's a difference between being brave and being performative. Greta Thunberg, once hailed as a pint-sized prophetess of climate doom, seems unable to grasp that distinction. Her recent attempt to sail into Gaza as part of the so-called 'Freedom Flotilla' - only to be redirected by the Israeli navy, crying 'we've been kidnapped!' - wasn't just farcical - it was a masterclass in moral cosplay. Thunberg, now 21 and apparently moonlighting as a Middle East conflict expert, embodies a broader problem: the narcissism of Western activism. These aren't efforts to change the world. They're acts of self-affirmation, like posting a black square on Instagram - but with more diesel flotilla she joined wasn't bringing meaningful aid. It was there to 'enforce' international law, or so the Thunberg brigade claims - quoting selectively from recent International Court of Justice rulings as if they were binding military orders. This wasn't humanitarianism. It was a cargo cult of global virtue-signalling, with Thunberg as its figurehead. And predictably, the Western commentariat went into meltdown. Owen Jones - never one to miss an opportunity for online hysteria- actually suggested Israel might murder Greta Thunberg. Yes, really. We've entered a realm where online outrage has looped back on itself and become indistinguishable from satire. But Thunberg's antics are part of a broader trend: the collapse of modern activism into what some critics have dubbed neotoddlerism - a worldview where impulsivity, emotionalism and moral absolutism are mistaken for virtue. It's political 'tantruming', fuelled by smartphones and retweets. If 'neotoddlers' had a clubhouse, Thunberg would be its is enabled by what's been called the Omnicause: a kind of ideological soup where every fashionable grievance blends into the next. One week it's climate change, the next it's Palestine, then it's trans rights or anti-capitalism or whatever else is trending. The specific issue doesn't matter. The performance performance is what it is. When Just Stop Oil blocked the M25 or hurled soup at Van Gogh paintings, they weren't building public support. They were feeding the beast of clickbait activism - and feeding their own egos in the process. Thunberg's Gaza voyage is just the same formula applied offshore. This shift towards omnidirectional outrage reflects a deeper cultural trend. The youthful rebellion that once expressed itself through music or fashion has now migrated to politics, especially online politics. That rebellious impulse, once harnessed by punk rockers and hippies, now manifests as TikTok lectures on settler colonialism by people too young to remember dial-up internet. But rebellion on its own rarely leads to real change. The Civil Rights Movement didn't succeed because it blocked train stations or used trending hashtags. It succeeded because it had focused leadership, realistic goals, and a strategy. Today's activists, by contrast, are mostly decentralised, addicted to social media, and allergic to compromise. They have no means to create, only to disrupt. And disrupt they do, often in spectacularly counterproductive ways. Pro-Palestine protestors chant for peace while glorifying Hamas. Environmental activists call for an end to fossil fuels while also attempting to halt nuclear and electric innovation. The irony is lost on them. Neotoddlers don't do also don't do strategy. 'Ceasefire now!' is a nice chant, but who enforces it? Hamas? 'Just Stop Oil!' sounds great until you realise it would plunge the West back into pre-industrial darkness. These movements have no viable endgame. Just feelings, slogans, and a need to be this performative activism often alienates the very people it claims to speak for. It's no coincidence that many of these protestors are affluent, highly educated, and, quite frankly, a bit bored. Philosopher Eric Hoffer noted in 1951 that mass movements thrive on boredom. When real problems are scarce, the privileged invent new ones. Enter Thunberg, stage left. Let's be honest: Thunberg was never a serious intellectual force. Her fame didn't come from original thought, but from emotional appeal - her plaintive 'how dare you?' speech, her youth, her autism, her uncanny resemblance to a real-life Pippi Longstocking. She was a media product: carefully packaged, widely distributed, and now, inevitably, close to the reality is, Thunberg is no longer young enough to be novel or old enough to be wise. She's ageing out of her niche. Her climate movement, once radical, is being absorbed and neutralised by the same institutions it claimed to oppose. She's addressed parliaments, the UN, even Davos - like the activist equivalent of signing a multi-album deal with HMV. And yet, global emissions are still her pivot to Palestine reflects this creeping irrelevance. But her new slogan of 'no climate justice on occupied land' is little more than a slogan. It's vapid. It's emotionally manipulative. And it reveals how little she understands the complexities of either issue. Gaza isn't a climate problem. And its overlords, Hamas, Qatar and Iran, are hardly green pioneers. The idea that climate justice can be achieved by shouting empty phrases at a crowd is absurd. Worse, it dilutes legitimate environmental activism by tying it to unsolvable geopolitical conflicts. It muddies the waters, both literally and metaphorically. So where does that leave Thunberg? Probably where she began: as a symbol. But what she symbolises now is less inspiring. Not youthful purity, but institutionalised angst. Not bravery, but attention-seeking. Not change, but performance. And frankly, that's a shame. Because there are real problems in the world. Real wars. And real injustice. But none of them will be solved by a flotilla of Westerners yelling into the wind, hoping someone somewhere will applaud their bravery online. In the end, activism that's more interested in being seen than being effective is just another form of narcissism. And no amount of chanting or crying will change that. Esther Krakue is a British commentator who has regularly appeared on Sky News Australia programs, as well as on TalkTV and GB News in the UK. She launched her career with Turning Point UK, with whom she hosted a show featuring guests including Douglas Murray and Peter Hitchens
