A house fire in Boston yesterday (Tuesday, April 21) has caused ‘severe’ damage to part of the home, Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue Service has said.
My colleague Hilary Friend, who has died aged 82, had a fiercely intelligent mind. She combined a career in adult education with an active interest in music, and was a skilled pianist, recorder player and sang in several choirs.
From 1999 to 2012, she led the Women’s Revolutions Per Minute (WRPM) project, a non-profit company involved in the research, marketing and sales of music by women in many genres, especially world music and political songs.
Fundraising under way to fix uneven floor at Dry Doddington’s 14th century church as stone slabs shift
A church in the Midlands that leans more than the Tower of Pisa is in need of more than £100,000 in repairs to renovate its wonky floor.
Dry Doddington’s St James church tower in Lincolnshire is famous for its jaunty angle of 5.1 degrees, compared to the landmark in Piazza dei Miracoli, Tuscany, which has a lean of about 3.97 degrees.
Residents are trying to raise money for the Grade II-listed building, which was built in the 12th century.
Constituents’ frustration with Richard Tice reflects growing problem for party and its leaders’ climate-sceptic stance
“The worst part of it was the smell,” says Audrey Crook, 58. A full-time carer who lives with her 20-year-old son, Crook woke up at 11pm one night to find a foot of flood water on the ground floor of her home. “It was like black water. It had sewage and everything in it, it was absolutely disgusting.”
Crook’s home – along with more than 30 others on Wyberton West Road and Park Road in Boston, Lincolnshire – was flooded in January last year when heavy rain swept across the region, raising river levels and exceeding flood defences.
In one corner, clean energy champion Ed Miliband. In the other, residents – and Reform politicians – outraged at plans for more large-scale solar farms in Lincolnshire than anywhere else in the UK
As night descends on the grand offices of Lincolnshire county council, everything appears orderly and calm. Paintings of long-forgotten councillors and dignitaries stare out into an empty drawing room. The council chamber is silent and dark. Bored receptionists glance at their phones while a handful of admin staff hunch over glowing screens. But a rebellion is brewing in the office of the council leader, Sean Matthews, who took charge last May, when Reform replaced the Conservative old guard. The affable former royal protection officer is plotting an apparently radical campaign of civil disobedience against a series of giant solar farms planned for Lincolnshire.
Despite a quarter of a century in the Metropolitan police, Matthews is willing to break the law to stop solar developers. He is planning to lie down in front of the bulldozers. “They can arrest me – I’ve arrested plenty of people,” he says, leaning forward on a sofa. “It’s much bigger than me and my criminal record. For goodness sake, it’s the future of the county, it’s the future of our land. I am passionate about that and I will do what I can.”
My father, Peter Smith, who has died aged 97, set up a pioneering health food store in the unlikely setting of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, in the late 1950s, at a time when the pursuit of vegetarianism and healthy eating was a fringe interest.
He ran the shop until the mid-1960s before spending a number of years living and teaching in Japan and then opening up another health food outlet in Surrey in the early 70s, guiding it successfully into the late 90s, by which time his advocacy of healthy diets had become much more mainstream.
Campaigners say campus near Scunthorpe could generate emissions close to those from all UK domestic flights
Plans for a new datacentre in Lincolnshire have been approved, despite warnings it could be a major new source of emissions.
On Wednesday, North Lincolnshire council voted unanimously to approve planning permission for the Elsham Tech Park, a proposed AI datacentre campus near Scunthorpe, next to the Elsham Wolds industrial estate.
Government says it is working to solve ‘postcode lottery’ of access to green or blue spaces
There are urban areas of England where no one lives within a 15-minute walk of nature, government data shows, as ministers scramble to meet their access to nature targets.
While the data shows 80% of people live within walking distance of green or blue spaces such as a river, park or woodland, it also reveals a disparity between rural and poorer urban areas.
Deividas Skebas given minimum term of 25 years for killing Lilia Valutyte outside mother’s shop in Boston in July 2022
A man who murdered a nine-year-old girl by stabbing her in the heart while she played with a hula hoop in the street has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 25 years.
Deividas Skebas, 26, attacked Lilia Valutyte in the town centre of Boston, Lincolnshire, on 28 July 2022 while the girl was playing outside her mother’s embroidery shop.
Businessman, who says he is a ‘big, bullish believer’, would combine Scunthorpe steelworks with Italian plant
The British investor Michael Flacks is reportedly “very” interested in buying British Steel and combining it with another plant in Italy, in a deal that would create one of Europe’s largest metals groups.
The businessman’s Miami-based investment group, Flacks Group, which specialises in buying distressed companies, is working with bankers to prepare a bid for government-controlled Scunthorpe steelworks, the Financial Times reported.
