More than half of Britons support rejoining the EU, new research has found, as enthusiasm for full membership proves more popular among voters than only joining the single market.

A new study from Best for Britain has found that little appetite exists for a “halfway house” approach to the EU, such as a customs union or single market entry.

Polling by YouGov found that 61 per cent of people support the government’s current approach in “resetting” relations with the EU to build closer ties.

But beyond this, 53 per cent of people say they are in favour of the UK becoming an EU member again, with just 32 per cent opposed to the move.

By comparison, 49 per cent support a customs union and 46 per cent support the single market.

Naomi Smith, chief executive of a pro-EU campaign group Best for Britain, said it’s “plain to see little appetite exists for the halfway houses of a customs union or single market entry”.

She said: “Lengthy negotiations accompany all of these options, but it’s only membership that provides both the economic boon and the political safety net to fend off the concerns around sovereignty swiftly exploited by the faux-patriots on the right.”

Tom Brufatto, lead author of the report and executive director of policy at Best for Britain, said the findings indicate that the government revisiting its approach to Europe is “essential”.

He said: “Looking beyond the current EU negotiations, pushing for UK membership is the most sustainable policy option available – not only would it create the most growth, it would also galvanise support from progressives across the UK.”

Support for rejoining the EU is also highest among Labour (83 per cent), Liberal Democrat (84 per cent) and Green Party (82 per cent) supporters.

Support is lower among right-wing voters, with 39 per cent of Conservative supporters and 18 per cent Reform UK backing the policy position.

Neil Kinnock, former leader of the Labour Party and vice-president of the European Commission, said it is “now more obvious than ever” that the UK must shore up relations with the EU while Donald Trump is “playing war games with all our lives”.

He said: “With an erratic US president playing war games with all our lives, as he launches inflation-spiking conflict across the globe, it is now more obvious than ever that our ‘special relationship’ has to be with our neighbours in our continent, where the UK can have the power to share decisions and exert proper influence.”

The prime minister pledged to reset Britain’s relationship with Brussels when he took office, promising to rebuild ties with the EU that had been damaged by the previous Conservative government.

Last week, Sir Keir Starmer warned that the need to reverse parts of Brexit has been proven by the crisis caused by Donald Trump’s war on Iran.

He underlined that the economic crisis unfolding because of the war has made the case for the UK to become economically tied to the EU again.

“We cannot return to the status quo, a status quo that manifestly failed working people, who saw their living standards flatline and their public services decimated. So this time, Britain’s response must and will be different to reflect the changing world that we live in. That starts with our economic security,” he told parliament.

“It means a closer economic relationship with our European allies, because Brexit did deep damage to the economy, and the opportunities we now have to strengthen our security and cut the cost of living are simply too big to ignore.”

Rapper Tory Lanez has sued the California prison system, saying he never should have been housed with a fellow inmate who stabbed him 16 times last year.

Lanez, 33, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, filed the federal lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages on Tuesday against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the warden and guards at the prison in Tehachapi where he was being held.

The suit says he was stabbed 16 times in the back, torso, head and face in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by inmate Santino Casio, who used a homemade “shank.” Lanez had a collapsed lung and had to be airlifted to a hospital, it says.

Lanez is serving a 10-year sentence for shooting hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion in the feet after a dramatic and high-profile 2022 trial in Los Angeles.

Prison officials say he was attacked May 12, 2025, by Casio, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder. Casio had another 2008 conviction for assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon and another in 2018 for manufacturing a deadly weapon.

“The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit says. It alleges that correctional officers’ response was slow, and no special measures like flash grenades or smoke bombs were used to stop Casio. It says the institution housed the men together despite the rapper’s “high-profile celebrity status,” which made him a target.

There is no record of Casio being charged in the assault. An attorney who represented him previously did not respond to messages seeking comment at the time.

Lanez was transferred to another prison, the California Men’s Colony, in San Luis Obispo County.

The lawsuit also says the defendants unlawfully seized his songbooks with unpublished lyrics that are of great future commercial value and refused to return them.

In response to a request for comment, Department of Corrections spokesperson Ike Dodson said the agency does not comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit was first reported by TMZ.

Lanez was convicted of three felonies in December 2022: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle; and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.

A California court rejected his appeal in November.

Megan, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified at trial that in July 2020, after they left a party at Kylie Jenner’s Hollywood Hills home, Lanez fired the gun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding.

She had bullet fragments surgically removed from both feet. It was not until months after the incident that she publicly identified Lanez as the person who fired the gun.

The 32-year-old Canadian Lanez began releasing mixtapes in 2009 and saw a steady rise in popularity, moving on to major label albums, two of which reached the top 10 on Billboard’s charts.

Suspicious items found near the Israeli embassy in central London have been assessed as non-hazardous.

Counter terror police are investigating whether the items – including two jars containing a powdered substance – are linked to a video posted by an Iran-linked Islamist group claiming it was going to be attacked.

Kensington Gardens was closed on Friday after the video, which appears to have been shared by the group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, showing a target over an image of the embassy and individuals in hazmat suits flying drones.

The park reopened on Saturday.

Commander Helen Flanagan, of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: ‘We recognise this incident and consequent police activity may have caused concern among local residents and the wider public. We are grateful to them for their understanding while our work was undertaken.

‘Although the items found have been assessed as being non-hazardous, we continue to investigate whether they may have any link to the online video.

‘This work is being carried out by officers from Counter Terrorism Policing London and our inquiries remain ongoing.

‘While the Embassy of Israel was not attacked, we continue to work closely with the Embassy and its security team to keep the site safe and secure.’

A van belonging to the Metropolitan Police’s chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear team was near the bandstand in Kensington Gardens on Friday, around 500m away from the embassy.

A fire investigation unit from London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service’s hazardous area response team were also present at the scene, as were divers from the Met’s underwater and confined space search team.

It comes after Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia – which is suspected of being Iran-backed – also claimed responsibility for other arson attacks in north London.

Hostile states including Iran have used criminal proxies to carry out acts in the UK before.

A teenage boy and two men were arrested after the latest attack at the offices of a Persian media organisation in Wembley.

Police are not linking the attack to an attempted arson at a synagogue in Finchley earlier this week, or the torching of Jewish community ambulances in Golders Green last month.

Counter-terror police are also investigating a suspected arson attack at a building said to be formerly used by the Jewish community in Hendon on Friday night.

Kensington Palace, where the Prince and Princess of Wales used to have their main home, is located on the western edge of Kensington Gardens.

Staff from the royal couple’s household based at the historic site are still at work there.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

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You might remember the term “Grexit”. It was floating around towards the end of the last decade when there was talk that Greece might follow the UK in taking the brave decision to leave the European Union. You will have noticed that never happened. Neither did the rumours that Greece might tumble out of the euro – abandoning the single currency in favour of a new drachma – come to anything. Talk of vaults full of freshly printed banknotes ready to enter circulation from Athens to Zante proved false.

Yet this weekend it has emerged that Greece is choosing its own course to avoid the sorts of airport chaos that we have been witnessing at various European locations for the past week. As you may recall, since 10 April, every Schengen area frontier is supposed to be applying the EU entry-exit system in all its biometric glory to British passport holders:

These rules apply to all “third-country nationals”, including Australians, Canadian and Venezuelans. But British travellers to Europe outnumber all of them put together.

I had previously warned that the queues at small Greek island airports might grow alarmingly long. On some days in summer, they can have upwards of 2,000 UK passport holders arriving and departing. The Greek border authorities, like every frontier organisation, want to get people on their way as quickly as possible. But the staffing issues are considerable.

But late on Friday, Eleni Skarveli, the director of the Greek national tourism organisation in the UK, posted on LinkedIn: “When good news arrives in the midst of a crisis, its impact is even greater.”

She revealed that British passport holders are now exempt from biometric registration at Greek border crossing points – “ensuring a smoother and more efficient arrival experience in Greece”.

This unilateral move, she said, “is expected to significantly reduce waiting times and ease congestion at airports”.

The crucial aspect, in my view, is actually border processing on departure. Calamitous hold-ups at the outbound passport control at Milan Linate airport last Sunday scuppered the return home for more than 100 easyJet passengers who were booked to travel to Manchester.

So what will happen instead? Ms Skarveli told me: “Practically, this means that the entry process in place before the implementation of the EES will remain unchanged.”

In my experience, that means the frontier official taking the most cursory of glimpses at the traveller’s passport, followed by a perfunctory stamp and a polite smile. Fifteen seconds, tops, compared with five times longer for the entry-exit system.

This move has the, er, fingerprints of pragmatists all over it. The warm Greek welcome for British travellers is not just an example of xenophilia, the appreciation of foreign people; it is also an economic essential. While a northern Italian city such as Milan probably won’t notice if some UK visitors are deterred by the EES shambles, Greece wants to avoid any such problems.

Just before the EU appointment for making every Schengen area frontier 100 per cent biometric and ending “wet stamping”, Brussels conceded that some locations would not meet the entry-exit system deadline.

At the three “juxtaposed” border controls in the UK – at Dover, Folkestone and London St Pancras – the expensive EES kiosks are still not hooked up to the French police aux frontieres IT system. A week ago, I wrote: “This fiasco is set to continue through the summer for 150 more days, to Monday 7 September – handily, at the end of the main summer holidays. Until then, all you can do is obey the local instructions. Good luck, everyone.”

Evidently, officials in Athens took the view: why risk cheesing off British visitors by imposing the digital borders scheme by the book, if others are not?

An end date for the Greek EES alleviation has not been mentioned, but I imagine it may stretch beyond that new EU deadline – possibly until the last taverna owner in the serene port of Naoussa on the island of Paros has shut his or her doors for winter. Greece has stolen a march on her Mediterranean rivals; expect others to follow suit.

Read more: Your EU entry-exit system questions answered

Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.

The proposed site is close to a nearby town centre offering a variety of local amentities

A new bid could see nearly 200 homes built in a Cambridgeshire town, if plans are approved. David Wilson Homes South Midlands has submitted new plans to Huntingdonshire District Council to build up to 199 homes on land south of The Malting in Ramsey.

The plans propose a new open space, play space, car parking, drainage, utilities connections, and the construction of a new access off Stoneman Way and Biggin Lane. The proposals say that of the homes, 40 per cent will be affordable.

An outline application was initially submitted to create up to 220 homes but the application was re-submitted for 199 homes instead. The applicant has acknowledged that the site lies within designated landscapes with levels of visual sensitivity, and therefore, a decision was made to reduce the total number of homes.

The applicant, in its initial design statement, said that the site “offers an excellent opportunity to create a new neighbourhood in Ramsey that sensitively integrates with the settlement whilst delivering sustainable new homes for local people”.

It added: “The new development offers significant benefits for the new and existing residents of Ramsey.”

The site is close to Ramsey town centre, and offers a range of facilities nearby including restaurants, shops, supermarkets, cafes and pubs.

The design looked to create a series of landscapes that are “interconnected” and “easily accessible”. The applicant has applied a further rigorous design rationale process to the proposed access and indicative layout of the development, to evolve the design as necessary. The designs show that the site will include areas for two-storey and 2.5-storey houses.

The musical theatre impresario, 78, said he’d got into a “downhill spiral” more than a year ago

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Musical legend Andrew Lloyd Webber has admitted he is a recovering alcoholic in a revealing interview. The 78-year-old said he attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings daily and went into a “downhill spiral” over a year ago.

The Mirror reports the composer spoke to The Times, saying: “I am a recovering alcoholic. Sixteen months ago I decided that I needed help and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

He added that for some time he focused on making it to midday to have his first drink, saying: “I started getting into a downhill spiral and about 18 months ago the family were in a desperate state. My wife was feeling she couldn’t go on.”

Lloyd Webber is among the most successful composers in history, creating 22 musicals, several of which have run for decades, including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. He spoke movingly about his visits to AA and how surprised he was that he enjoyed the visits, which take place in different locations depending on which of his London, Hampshire and New York homes he is at.

He said he’d sat with a “whole loads of rednecks” while visiting St Louis in Missouri, USA, and cites it as his most enjoyable meeting. Three years ago his eldest son Nicholas died of cancer aged 43.

Lloyd Webber said: “He was alcoholic. He was in a dreadful mess and came out of it.

“But I couldn’t help noticing how he’d changed.”

He also believes that his late dad William, an organist and teacher at the renowned Royal College of Music in London, was also an alcoholic. Lloyd Webber will now auction his extensive wine collection – a hobby of his since he was 15 – with £50,000-a-case Chateau Petrus among the items going under the hammer.

The composer began his career in the 1960s, forming a partnership with the lyricist Tim Rice, leading to West End and Broadway shows including Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. He also appeared on a series of music theatre talent search shows for the BBC including How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? and I’d Do Anything, which discovered actress and singer Jessie Buckley.

He was knighted in 1992 and made a life peer in 1997 and composed the anthem for the Coronation of King Charles III, called Make a Joyful Noise. The composer is one of only 22 people to have achieved ‘EGOT’ status – by winning a Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award.

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Rare extended periods on the training pitches are not yielding an improvement in results after a relentless schedule finally eased.

Howe again based his team selection on what he had seen during the week as he named Newcastle‘s youngest starting XI in a Premier League game since 2005 with an average age of 24 years 191 days.

Although captain Bruno Guimaraes would have started if he was fit enough after recovering from illness and injury, it was still striking that not a single member of Howe’s leadership group lined up from the off after Nick Pope, Dan Burn, Trippier and Jacob Murphy were named among the substitutes.

A whopping £124m worth of forwards in Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa also had to make do with places on the bench.

William Osula once again justified that call with his second goal in two games, but Newcastle are an increasingly blunt side lacking aggression, quality and ideas.

They are also leaky at the back – and that is a dangerous combination for all the wrong reasons.

It said it all that even after Newcastle equalised through Osula midway through the second half, Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola told his players “not to panic” from the touchline.

He knew there was still time for another twist as Truffert hooked the ball into the roof of the net late on.

Truffert was one of a series of smart signings Bournemouth made last summer as the club rebuilt superbly following the sales of Dean Huijsen, Milos Kerkez, Illia Zabarnyi and others.

Newcastle, by contrast, are still reeling from a poor window.

Not only are Newcastle failing to see much of a return from a £100m-plus net recruitment drive that Howe was heavily involved in.

Newcastle are still searching for a lasting solution after striker Alexander Isak pushed to join Liverpool last summer.

Over the course of a draining season, Howe has pivoted from Woltemade to Wissa to Anthony Gordon and now Osula, who came mightily close to joining Eintracht Frankfurt on deadline day last September.

It sums up Howe’s desperate search for a lasting formula as his future comes under increasing scrutiny.

“It’s disappointing when you are not delivering for your supporters,” he said.

“That is the ultimate disappointment when you feel you are letting people down who come here and support us.

“If they are critical of us, we have to accept that as that’s the game we are in.”

He woke up with a ‘crushing’ pain in his head and dialled 999, who contacted the life-saving East Anglian Air Ambulance

A Peterborough man who suffered a haemorrhage and three brain aneurysms returned to normal life just a year after his incident thanks to the East Anglian Air Ambulance. Jonathan Moran, who was 36 at the time, came home from work on a Friday in September 2022 with a headache that got “progressively worse” over the weekend.

On the Sunday, Mr Moran woke up at midnight with a ‘crushing’ pain in his head and called 999, who sent out an East of England Ambulance out to him as well as contacting the East Anglian Air Ambulance. Dr Ed Gold and Critical Care Paramedic Andy Bates found Mr Moran unconscious in his living room and seizing.

The crew were able to control Mr Moran’s breathing by giving him an emergency anaesthetic, as well as intubating and ventilating him before taking him to Addenbrooke’s Hospital. By putting Mr Moran into an induced coma, the air ambulance were able to save his life.

He said: “Due to the seriousness of my accident, if the air ambulance weren’t here, I wouldn’t be here. I don’t think I would’ve survived. They called the air ambulance because I was that critical. The air ambulance were able to put me into an induced coma and take control of my breathing. If they hadn’t done that, I don’t think I would’ve survived the trip to the hospital.”

Mr Moran spent nine weeks in a coma and underwent neurosurgery that left him with no memory of what had happened. After he was discharged, Mr Moran was able to get in touch with Lisa, an aftercare nurse working for the East Anglian Air Ambulance, who arranged a visit to the air base.

He added: “She arranged a base visit to meet the crew so I could meet the doctor and paramedic who came to me at the time with my family. They explained to me what had happened that evening I think that was quite vital considering I didn’t know what happened. From the moment I had hung up on 999, it was blank for weeks. All the gaps got filled in when I came here and spoke to the crew.”

When asked about the importance of the service and the impact it has on the community, Matthew Jones, the CEO of the East Anglian Air Ambulance, said: “On a basic level, it’s the number of people we treat each year. From the Cambridge base, we treat around a thousand people a year.

“That’s a thousand people who receive treatment that, in some cases, is the difference between life and death. That treatment can affect the outcome. Many patients are able to lead a normal life rather than one that is severely impaired. That’s the immediate impact.”

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Mr Moran had to go through rehabilitation to regain his eyesight and learn how to walk again. He was able to live independently at home in June 2023 and returned to work in September 2023, just a year after his incident.

The East Anglian Air Ambulance has launched an appeal to raise £8.2 million to be able to build a new air base in Fulbourn to continue providing its service after Cambridge Airport closes in 2030. Mr Moran said: “You never know when you might need them”.

He said: “I must admit I didn’t donate to the air ambulance before. I did a few other charities but since my incident, I now do a few things to help out like the lottery. I think it is vital that people donate. You never know when you might need an air ambulance.

“I didn’t come home on that Friday thinking I would need the air ambulance to come out to me. You don’t go through everyday life thinking you’ll need the air ambulance.”

Mr Jones added that having an air base in this area is “really important” to allow the air ambulance to continue its work. He said: “The need for this service in this particular location is very easy to justify. This is a very central location.

“We are really important to the people of Cambridge and Cambridgeshire but we also need to be in this location because we can reach the other counties in the region relatively easily. Within 10 minutes flight time, we can reach 1.2 million people from this location.”

To help the East Anglian Air Ambulance reach its fundraising target, you can donate through the East Anglian Air Ambulance website or by texting BASE10 or BASE20 to 70480. You can call the donation hotline on 03450669999 or by using the appeal envelopes that are being delivered to houses across the region.

As a major, he served bravely in the Flanders trenches with the Durham Light Infantry, but in 1916, he was called back from the front because, above all, it was his skills as a railwayman that got him noticed.

Stanhope Road, Darlington, by JH Smeddle. Robert Albert Smeddle photographed by his father, John Henry Smeddle at the gate of No 51 Stanhope Road North in Darlington. The Smeddles lived at No 51 from 1898 to 1906 (Image: NERA)

But he was also not a bad cameraman, as his pioneering pictures of Stanhope Road in Darlington show, and he may even go down in history as the first man from Shildon to ever make a mobile phone call.

When he retired in 1931, the LNER magazine said of him: “No sounder piece of manhood is to be found in the North-East of England.”

He was born in Byerley Road in Shildon in 1866, went to Bishop Auckland Grammar School and started as an apprentice in Darlington’s North Road railway workshops in 1882.

He began working his way up the railway career ladder, although he first came to prominence on the sporting field. Darlington FC was formed in 1883 and in 1885, he became one of their earliest captains, playing regularly with goalkeeper Arthur Wharton who famously went on to become the first black professional footballer.

JH Smeddle (Image: NERA)

In January 1887, the Northern Review described him as “a splendidly built young fellow…in build he is a model full back, but in play he can sometimes be erratic and impetuous”,

In March that year, the Quakers took on Redcar at the seaside. As Wharton was away playing for Preston North End, The Northern Echo described it as “an uninteresting game” which Redcar won 2-1.

But Redcar lodged a formal complaint against Smeddle for punching one of their players. They had 17 witnesses who saw him do it.

It became known as “the Smeddle incident”, and at a hearing, Darlington produced seven witnesses, including four professional Middlesbrough players who just happened to be watching the match. They said he was acting in self-defence against a more brutal Redcar player.

The hearing asked Mr Howcroft, a Redcar club official who was refereeing the match, why he hadn’t sent Smeddle off, and he explained that he “considered the crowd to be in such an excited condition they would have lynched Smeddle had he done so”. Police confirmed that at the final whistle they had given the Darlington player “safe passage” to the railway station.

The Boro players’ testimony swung it for Smeddle and he was found not guilty, although he did have a reputation for “rough play”.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, but at the end of the season, the Quakers terminated Smeddle’s captaincy and he went off to play rugby, joining the Durham City club and quickly becoming their vice-captain.

On October 1, 1892, he was sprinting towards the try-line when a Westoe opponent, Walter Pawson, came flying across to tackle him. Pawson’s jaw hit Smeddle’s hip but he couldn’t prevent Smeddle touching down.

However, Pawson was paralysed from the waist down. A changing room door was prised off its hinges and used as a stretcher to take him to hospital where he never recovered, dying on January 2, 1893. At the inquest into his death, no blame was attached to Smeddle and he left on good terms with the deceased player’s family.

In 1894, promotion took Smeddle, who was also a swashbuckling batsman at cricket, to Sunderland. He returned to Darlington as locomotive foreman in 1898 and took up residence in Stanhope Road where his son, Robert, was born in 1899.

In 1902, he became District Locomotive Superintendent based in York and in 1906, he moved to Harrogate where he remained for the rest of his life, although he never lost his ties to south Durham.

Major JH Smeddle, of the 8th Durham Light Infantry (Image: NERA)

After his sporting career finished, he became a keen member of the territorial army, and in 1914, when the First World War broke out, he was called up as a major in the 8 th Durham Light Infantry and sent to Flanders.

He wrote a couple of letters to the North Eastern Railway Magazine, telling of his experiences as the enemy used gas against the DLI for the first time near Ypres.

“Our battalion lost heavily in officers and men; but they did splendidly and stuck to their trenches until they were overwhelmed by superior forces,” he wrote. “We accounted for a great number of the enemy, who advanced in close formation; but their gun and shrapnel fire was terrible and a great many of our men fell.”

However, before 1915 was out, he was recalled to York to make the railways run on time.

In 1919, a new position was created for him as Running Locomotive Superintendent, in charge of all moving locos, and in 1920, he was awarded the OBE for his wartime services. In 1921, the railwaymen of Shildon invited him back to his hometown to unveil a memorial plaque in the Railway Institute to all NER employees who had served – it carries the names of 30 dead railwaymen plus 215 and five female nurses who had returned.

Mr Smeddle was by now clearly one of the leading railwaymen in the north. As such, in 1930, he went on a fact finding tour of German railways and from a speeding Hamburg to Berlin express, was given the opportunity of using the new mobile phone to call his son in London.

He retired in 1931. “His fellow officers will miss a breezy, but sympathetic, companion and a loyal colleague of distinct personality,” said the LNER Magazine. “Their thoughts will often flit to the pleasant garden at Harrogate, where Mr Smeddle will now have leisure to mulch his rose-trees.”

Stanhope Road, Darlington, by JH Smeddle (Image: NERA)

Stanhope Road North as it looks today on Google StreetView from outside the Smeddle’s old house at No 51 (Image: Google StreetView)

His pin-sharp photos of Stanhope Road are among the 50,000 photographs and 9,000 documents in the North Eastern Railway Association’s collection. The majority of items have been digitised and are available to members to view online. For further details, go to ner.org.uk

• With thanks to Peter Sykes, Robin Coulthard and Neil Mackay

Liberal Democrat Rural West York ward’s Cllr Anne Hook said there were reports holes dug in verges in Poppleton’s Springfield Road and Riverside Gardens were not being filled in properly.

Mark Mawhood, Northern Gas Network’s operations manager, said they fully understood the importance of protecting verges and the appearance of local areas when carrying out works.

City of York Council’s environment lead Dave Atkinson said the works had been inspected and were found to comply with legal standards.

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Cllr Hook said residents had contacted her claiming contractors were using bitumen and Type 1 MOT to fill in holes dug as part of the works.

One said rocks were still visible beneath a couple of inches of soil on top of a filled-in hole.

The councillor said there were fears it could lead to lasting damage to grass verges and trees.

Cllr Hook said: “This is incredibly frustrating for residents who take pride in their local environment.

“We are seeing verges and trees put at risk because the work simply isn’t being done properly.

“There are clear rules about how excavations should be reinstated, and using materials that prevent regrowth is completely unacceptable.”

Northern Gas Networks carried out the works in Poppleton (Image: File)

Mr Mawhood said works had been carried out in line with strict industry procedures and approved utility protocols.

The operations manager added their works had two-year guarantees and they were happy to revisit any that had caused concern.

Mr Mawhood said: “When excavating in sensitive areas such as verges and around trees, our teams use controlled excavation methods.

“The materials and methods used for reinstatement are governed by national specifications.

“In certain areas, Type 1 MOT and bituminous materials are required as part of a structured backfill to ensure long-term ground stability and protect critical infrastructure.

“This verge was temporally backfilled with Type 1 and bituminous material to then allow the full reinstatement of the carriageway and relevant kerbs.

“This material in the verge was then removed and replaced with topsoil and seeding, this is consistent with our standard approach across all public verge reinstatements.”

Mr Atkinson said officials would monitor the works during the two-year guarantee period and take action if necessary.

He said: “We have inspected the sites raised and the necessary remedial actions required under the relevant legislation have been undertaken by Northern Gas Networks.

“We have engaged with Northern Gas Networks management to ensure that there are no future occurrences of stone being used as backfill within verges, particularly in the vicinity of trees.

“Our hard-working team of inspectors continue to monitor utility works across the city to ensure that reinstatement works are completed correctly and residents’ concerns are addressed.”