A huge shortfall in the number of beds in UK care homes may place more pressure on NHS hospital beds which already cost £900 million a year.
Up to 3,000 elderly people will not be able to get beds in UK care homes by the end of next year, research by BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours programme reveals.
Increasing demand from an ageing population could see that grow to more than 70,000 beds in nine years time, and although local authorities in England have been given an extra £2 billion to help fund social care, one in 20 UK care home beds has closed in the past three years.

Producers and retailers of electrical equipment have launched a fund of £665,000 aimed at supporting projects to deliver increased levels of WEEE reuse.

A new £3 million waste transfer station has officially been opened on the outskirts of York.
The station has been built by Yorwaste at its Harwood Whin facility. It will handle 75,000 tones of waste each year that comes from households in the City of York and Selby District Council areas, as well as Yorwaste’s commercial customers in North Yorkshire.
Waste will be sorted by Yorwaste before being taken to the new Allerton Waste Recovery Park (AWRP), where it will be recovered into renewable energy.

Seventeen councils in Yorkshire have said that they want to unite behind a devolution deal.
A ‘coalition of the willing’ is being called for by several leaders as part of a Yorkshire Day declaration.
Despite a range of proposals, councils have so far failed to agree a pan-Yorkshire deal.
Sheffield and other councils in South Yorkshire and the north Midlands agreed a government deal for the Sheffield City Region. However, the election of a mayor for the region was postponed following a court ruling about a flawed consultation process.

Removing speed bumps will do little for air quality but will reduce safety, charity organisations have warned Michael Gove.
Living Streets has partnered up with Campaign for Better Transport and Cycling UK to write a letter to Gove expressing concerns at proposals in the government’s air quality plan for NO2 to remove traffic calming measures, such as speed bumps.

Northumberland County Council has secured £5 million in national funding for major road improvements.
The authority successfully bid for its share of £75 million from the government’s national Highway Maintenance Challenge Fund.
Glen Sanderson, the county council’s cabinet member for environment and local services, said: “This is absolutely fantastic news for the council,the people of Northumberland and all those who use our road network.

The North Devon link road is to undergo a £5 million road resurfacing and drainage, the Transport Minister has announced.
Following Devon County Council’s successful bid for Challenge Funding, sections of the A361 will be improved. Low noise surface will be used on the link road and new junction which will be constructed to access developments to the east of Tiverton.

Work on a new £1.2 million cycleway in Harston is to begin soon.
The aim of the scheme is to provide a safe and attractive pedestrian and cycle route through the village to develop local journeys, as well as providing the ‘missing link’ in the Cambridge to Melbourn foot and cycle route along the A10.
The 3 metres wide foot and cycleway will be on the west side of the High Street. The work will start at the southern end of the village, and then continue to London Road.

Reading Borough Council has proposed to move to a new model in the form of a council-owned property for delivering children’s services.
As part of its improvement journey, the council is suggesting setting up a council-owned trading company to build on progress made to date and to deliver long-term and sustainable improvements for children and young people.

Resources charity WRAP is encouraging more local authorities in England to explore the business case for greater consistency.
WRAP has said that it is keen to work with ‘more urban authorities, where we know achieving consistent service that deliver high recycling can be even more challenging’.
It is looking to work with councils or waste partnerships planning to tender collection contracts in the next few years, emphasising that ‘working towards consistency doesn’t mean you have to do it all at once’.