Day: July 5, 2019

    Britain’s motorways have never felt particularly life-affirming, but they could become even more soulless under proposals to bury the dead alongside major roads to free up room in cemeteries. Around 20 per cent of people are now buried, with the majority of people now cremated. Professor John Ashton, former president of the Faculty of Public Health, has called for green burial corridors next to roads, railways and country footpaths. British graveyards are close to capacity, and with 500,000 deaths in England and Wales each year, it is estimated there will be no more plots left within five years. To combat the squeeze, Prof Ashton has proposed the creation of rustic cemeteries, similar to those proposed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1711, where corpses would be buried...

    Children as young as seven are being targeted for grooming, violence and exploitation by drug gangs enslaving them into criminality, says a report from the Children’s Society. The charity says the main age bracket for criminal exploitation of children is 14 to 17, but warns the age at which youngsters are being targeted for grooming is getting younger. “There is evidence that primary school age children as young as seven are targeted,” states the report. There can be a lack of recognition of criminal exploitation of younger children and so opportunities to protect under-10s can be missed, it added. The report focuses on the criminal exploitation of children, best known via the county lines tactic, whereby drug gangs use children to break into new markets. Children...

    Boris Johnson’s campaign has been funded by a billionaire family behind a development he approved while mayor. The scheme was labelled unacceptable at the time as there is no social housing. Labour’s Len Duvall said: It begs the question of whether this is a sign of what’s to come if he enters Downing Street. Johnson has boasted in his Tory ­leadership battle he is the man to unite Britain, but the Daily Mirror can reveal as London mayor he signed off a property development with no affordable homes excluding hard-pressed residents. And the frontrunner’s battle to replace Theresa May was supported by a donation from one of the tycoons he is accused of helping to get the scheme through. Johnson controversially gave the nod to ­Westminster council’s recommendation f...