An extra 71,000 care home places will be needed in the next eight years to cope with rising numbers of older people unable to live independently.

The public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire will not deal with broader questions of social housing policy, the government has said.

A £200 million plan to build a garden bridge over the River Thames in central London has officially been scrapped.
The Garden Bridge Trust said it failed to raise private funds for the bridge, which would be covered in 270 trees and thousands of plants, since losing Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s support in April.
The review of the project in April recommended it be abandoned because of spiralling construction costs and a funding gap of over £70 million.

A new round of funding for Northamptonshire businesses has been launched under the Ready2Grow project.

Work is taking place to help design the first new railway station in the Bristol area in over 20 years.

The ‘Programme for the Capital’ has been published by the SNP and Labour groups and is built around their 52 commitments.

The latest wall cladding combination tested as part of the government’s series of large-scale fire safety tests meets current Building Regulations guidance.

16 per cent of care home companies in the UK are showing warning signs that they are at risk of failure due to financial distress.
The percentage of care homes showing signs of financial distress has increased over the last 12 months, Moore Stephens, an accountancy firm, has found.
Last year, 12 per cent of care homes in the UK were at financial risk. This year, 16 per cent are.

More than 600 children and teenagers are being treated for type 2 diabetes, reinforcing the need for urgent action on obesity, councils warn.

Thousands of vulnerable children in England are ‘left in limbo’ by social services because they are not at crisis point, a charity has warned.
A new report by Action for Children predicts that 140,000 children referred to social services over issues like alcoholism, drugs, domestic abuse and neglect are not getting the help they require. It says they often are forgotten as they are not at crisis point.