The three-day music festival is being held at Stirling’s City Park next week

BBC Radio 2 in the Park 2026 is coming to Scotland next week as the countdown is officially on for the three-day festival at City Park in Stirling. The annual event, which changes location every year, will take place next weekend from Friday September 11 until Sunday September 13.

The event marks the first major Radio 2 live music event in Scotland since BBC Music’s Biggest Weekend in May 2018 at Scone Palace. This year’s line up across the weekend features some huge stars including Saturday headliner Chaka Khan and Sunday headliners Simple Minds.

Other Scottish acts include Emeli Sandé, Texas, Deacon Blue and Lulu while Level 42, James Blunt, Texas and The Script are also in the line up. Tickets to BBC Radio 2 in the Park are still available to purchase on Ticketmaster here and the weekend shows will be broadcast live on BBC 2 and iPlayer.

For those who are heading to the Stirling festival this weekend, here’s everything you need to know about the show including stage timings for each day, how to get there and the travel restrictions in place.

Stage timings

Friday evening’s opening DJ night party will see gates open at 4pm with the event see to finish no later than 11pm. Meanwhile on Saturday (September 12) and Sunday (September 13) gates will open earlier at 11am and the shows will finish before 10pm each night.

The entire line up for each day with stage timings can be found below.

Friday

• Sara Cox’s Wower Hour 5-6pm
• DJ Spoony’s Good Grove 6-7pm
• Gary Davies’ Sound of the 80s 7-8pm
• Michelle Visage’s Handbag Hits 8-9pm
• Rylan’s Rybiza Anthems 9-10:30pm

Saturday (Main Stage)

• DJ Set: Owain Wyn Evans 12-1pm
• Texas 1-1:30pm
• Lulu 2-2:30pm
• Jack Savoretti 3-3:30pm
• ABC 4-4:30pm
• Emeli Sandé 5-5:30pm
• The Script 6-6:45pm
• DJ Set Vernon Kay 6.45-8pm
• Chaka Khan 8-9pm

Saturday (DJ Stage)

• Tony Blackburn’s Golden Hour 12-1pm
• Shaun Keaveny’s Sound of the 70s 1-2pm
• Paddy McGuinness’ School Disco 2-3pm
• DJ Spoony’s Good Grove 3-4pm
• Gary Davies’ Sound Of The 80s 4-5pm
• Jo Whiley’s Shiny Happy Playlist 5-6pm
• Rylan’s Rybiza Anthems 6-7pm

Sunday (Main stage)

• DJ Set: OJ Borg 12-1pm
• Deacon Blue 1-1:30pm
• Appleton 2-2:30pm
• Cast 3-3:30pm
• Blue 4 -4:30pm
• James Blunt 5-5:30pm
• Level 42 6-6:45pm
• DJ Set: Gary Davies – 6:45-8pm
• Simple Minds 8 – 9:15pm

Sunday (DJ stage)

• Jeremy Vine’s Hits and Headlines 12-1pm
• Shaun Keaveny’s Sound of the 70s 1-2pm
• Jo Whiley’s Shiny Happy Playlist 2-3pm
• Gary Davies’ Sound Of The 80s 3-4pm
• Romesh Ranganathan’s For the Love of Hip Hop 4-5pm
• OJ Borg’s One Hit Wonders 5-6pm
• Vernon Kay’s Dance Sounds of the 90s 6-7pm

How to get there

There are multiple ways that ticketgoers can travel to BBC radio 2 in the park next weekend.

The closest train station to City Park is Stirling Station, which is around a mile’s walk from the event site.

However, engineering works are expected to affect the direct Edinburgh–Stirling line over the weekend, so fans will need to check their ScotRail journey route before travelling. There will also be an official shuttle bus in operation, which will run to Stirling from multiple locations across Scotland on all three days.

A seat for this service can be booked here. No public parking is available within the residential streets around the festival site or at the venue and there will be a number of road closures in place.

Parking is available in a number of dedicated locations around the city but is limited and must be booked in advance here. A pick up and drop off point will be based at Castleview Car Park, operating 11am-1am on Friday and 8am-11.30pm on Saturday and Sunday while a taxi rank will sit on Queen’s Road, which is around a 10-minute walk from the venue.

Road closures

To ensure Radio 2 in the Park 2026 can take place safely, some roads around Stirling City Park will be closed or subject to restrictions for extended periods on September 11, 12 and 13. They are listed below.

• A811, Dumbarton Road from King’s Knot roundabout to the junction of Kersebonny Road
• Dumbarton Road West – from the junction of Albert Place to King’s Knot roundabout
• A84, Millennium Way – for its entire length
• Raploch Road – from King’s Knot roundabout to Ballengeich roundabout
• Back O’Hill Road – from Ballengeich roundabout to the junction of Raploch Road at the Fire Station

These roads will be shut from Friday September 11 (12 noon-midnight), Saturday September 12 (8am-midnight) and Sunday September 13 (8am-midnight).

Closed roads with clearways

• Drip Road (from Kildean Roundabout to the point where it meets Raploch Road)
• Raploch Road – for its entire length
• A84, Millenium Way – for its entire length
• Back O’Hill Road – for its entire length
• A811, Dumbarton Road – from the junction of Touch Road to the junction of Albert Place

These clearways will be in operation across Friday, September 11, Saturday, September 12 and Sunday, September 13 from 6am until midnight.

Resident only closures will also be in place on a number of roads from Friday September 11 from 12 noon until midnight and September 12 and 13 from 8am to midnight. The full list can be found here.

Residents are also concerned that there will be an increase in traffic

Locals fear “long queues of traffic” and potential bad smells coming from a new energy plant that is planned for land right next to an existing one. Pretoria Energy has submitted plans to build a large anaerobic digestion plant in Chatteris.

If approved, the plant could use around 220,000 tonnes of feedstock every year, including chicken and poultry litter, straw, and blended liquid food waste, to produce energy. People living in Chatteris fear the new plant could cause problems for the area.

Some people believe the smell could get worse being next to an existing plant. Neil Holmes, who doesn’t live in Chatteris but frequently uses the A142 that travels past the existing plant, said the current site already produces an “awful smell”.

He added: “As you drive by, some days are worse than others. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live anywhere close to it with that smell. And if the second plant produces the same amount, it would be unbearable to live anywhere within a 10-mile radius, especially if the wind is blowing it towards your property.”

Neil is also concerned about a potential increase in traffic. He added: ”At the moment there are a lot of tractors backwards and forwards along the A142 delivering to the site. If a second plant is built, I would assume that tractor traffic would at least double.”

Claire James is also concerned about the “effect of increased HGV traffic on the local roads”. She added: “[The roads] are already disintegrating due to huge farm vehicles, taking loads of chopped maize and other loads [to the plant].”

Gillian Baldry, who lives near the current plant, is more concerned about the smell. She said: “Since the expansion, there has been horrible smells coming across the fields and a significant amount of light and noise, as well as increased traffic along the main road. I would not want another plant to be built.”

Annabel Deaves described the current traffic along the A142 as a “nightmare”. She said: ”The traffic in and out of the current plant is a nightmare. It’s 20mph and [you’re unable] to overtake because of opposing traffic for the same reasons from Ely all the way to Mepal.”

Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, fears the smell could put off people coming to Chatteris, or moving to the area. She said: “The smell is bad enough now, what is it going to be like when a second one could be built? It smells like gone off food most of the time, I don’t want more of that smell.

“It’s going to disgust people visiting here, let alone driving through Chatteris. Also the traffic is going to get worse. The roads are bad enough as it is with all the current tractors and lorries that use the roads. I don’t think the roads can cope with more vehicles on it.”

In a planning application, Pretoria said that its current plant produces 120 HGV movements per day, including 60 vehicles in and 60 out. Pretoria said there could be an overlap in HGV movements, but that would be for a “temporary period”.

In response to potential smells, the plans are accompanied by an odour assessment. Pretoria said this assessment will assess the “potential source of odour” and the cumulative impacts it could have.

Pretoria has been contacted for further comment.

The deputy leader of the Green Party, Mothin Ali, is linked to two buy-to-let properties, despite his party’s opposition to private landlords.

Ali is the sole director of a company, which he set up and controls, that owns two rental properties in Leeds, bought in June 2022 and March 2025 – although he does not appear to profit from either of them.

The property purchases happened before the Greens adopted a policy committing to phasing out ownership of rental properties by private landlords in October 2025.

The Green Party told the BBC that, at the time Ali had set up the company, and since, he “has acted solely in the interests of vulnerable close family members for whom he has caring responsibilities”.

Ali’s connection to the rental properties via real estate company MA Holdings, which purchased them with buy-to-let mortgages, was first reported by the Times newspaper.

Records held by Companies House show that Ali is the sole director of MA Holdings, incorporated in December 2021, and he is listed in the records as the sole person with significant control, owning more than 75% of the shares.

The company’s business includes “buying and selling of own real estate”, “letting and operating of own or leased real estate” and “management of real estate on a fee or contract basis”.

The BBC has spoken to the previous owner and resident of the second property, who confirmed that Ali’s company had purchased the property and believed it was bought with the intention to be let out.

Asked why MA Holdings owns the rental properties, a Green Party spokesperson said: “We have provided deeply personal information to the BBC in confidence which shows that Councillor Ali has acted solely in the interests of vulnerable close family members for whom he has caring responsibilities.

“At Councillor Ali’s request, we are not going to make this information public to protect his family.”

The BBC is not publicising the personal information shared with it, at the request of the Greens, as it relates to private family matters.

In October last year, delegates to the Green Party’s annual conference, passed a motion titled “Abolish landlords”, external, headed “the private rental sector has failed, it is a vehicle for wealth extraction, funnelling money from renters to the landlord class”.

The motion states: “The effective abolition of private landlordism and the private rented sector, coupled with the mass expansion of council housing, is the only way to end the housing crisis.”

This is now official policy for the Green Party of England and Wales, with a plan to increase regulation and taxes on private rentals to make it difficult for landlords to make a profit, while boosting housebuilding by councils.

The policy would use existing Green policies such as imposing rent controls, ending buy-to-let mortgages and giving councils the right to buy a rental property when it is sold at a discounted price.

Asked whether Ali had sought to take any steps since the policy had been adopted to change anything with regard to the rental properties, a Green Party spokesperson told the BBC he fully supported the policy.

“The policy does not literally seek to abolish landlords, but rather to put in more regulations and taxes on private rentals through measures such as rent controls and expanded social housing,” they said. “All of which Mothin Ali supports.”

When the policy was introduced, Green Party MP Carla Denyer told the BBC “while the motion to conference had an eye-catching name, it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords”.

“It does, however, address the housing crisis, empowers tenants and improves their wellbeing,” she added.

“It contains a range of policies which, over time, would reduce the proportion of the housing market that is privately rented, and increase the proportion of socially rented homes.”

Delegates from 196 nations plus EU officials have met in Mongolia to discuss how best to tackle drought and desertification.

Often overlooked by the larger and busier climate summits, this small UN desertification summit, known as Cop17, felt more important than ever. Yet countries still could not agree on what needs to be done.

Negotiations that were often inconclusive and frustrating continued until 4am on some nights. The closing plenary was gavelled to a conclusion on August 29 at 2.36am.

The issue of drought split the negotiation room from the start. On behalf of the African Group and Togo, South Africa pushed a legally binding global drought protocol. The UK, Australia and Cook Islands rejected a binding instrument. India and Suriname wanted flexibility and country-driven design, not a one-size-fits-all approach.

After days of bilateral consultations with the summit presidency, some form of agreement was announced — a deferral, not a resolution. This debate will continue at the next UN desertification summit, due to take place in Egypt in 2027.

Much of the UK has been struggling with severe droughts, empty reservoirs and hosepipe bans following its hottest summer since records began in 1884. Indeed, 71.3% of England is still in drought now.

Across the world, every continent – even Antarctica – is dealing with drought or flooding in some form due to climate change. In August, a devastating wall of mud, rock and water swept through the Nepal-Tibet border region following a glacial collapse. The death toll continues to rise after flash floods resulting from this rock-ice avalanche in the Himalayas.

During Cop17 in Mongolia, everyone agreed drought was a serious problem. But countries got stuck arguing about what kind of promise to make about it.

They disagreed on three things. First, how strict the promise should be: a firm rule everyone must follow, a gentler agreement, or just voluntary goals each country sets for itself. And second, how to describe the problem: is drought hitting the whole world equally, or something that hurts some places much more than others?

The final question — which is connected to the second — is whose job is it really to deal with this issue? Should there be one big global agreement binding everyone, or should each country be mainly responsible for handling drought within their own borders?

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Solutions

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is often described as the global community’s legal instrument for land. It is the only legally binding international framework set up specifically to address desertification, land degradation and drought.

Its history can be traced back to the 1970s, when discussions around desertification heightened in the aftermath of severe drought in sub-Saharan Africa, which killed more than 200,000 people and millions of animals.

The UNCCD was formally established in 1994 following the introduction of three major conventions. These were set up during the UN’s Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992, and are known as the Rio conventions. Aside from land, the other two annual Cop summits focus on tackling biodiversity and climate.

À lire aussi :
The climate and biodiversity crises are entwined, but we risk pitting one against the other

But climate, biodiversity and land are one interlocking problem. Degraded land releases carbon and worsens climate change; a hotter climate dries out soil and drives drought and desertification; and biodiversity loss strips ecosystems of the very functions that hold water and hold soil together.

Yet the treaties that govern them often run on separate tracks, each with separate secretariats, national focal points, reporting systems and rules.

This is the fragmentation that negotiators in Mongolia kept bumping into. Tellingly, the word “synergies” (shorthand for making the three conventions talk to each other) was one of the agenda items the US blocked at the start of the summit.

To solve this, I believe a two-fold approach is necessary. First, strengthening the capacity for advocates from movements could increase the scope for transformative political action. Second, legal clarity is urgently needed across the Cops.

Drought is a climate obligation

Drought linked all three of the Rio conventions on climate, biodiversity and land. Yet at Cop17, negotiators fought over whether even to mention synergies.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) had already given drought legal weight through the advisory opinion it published in July 2025. This treated the UNCCD as binding law, and therefore found the fight to combat drought and desertification to be legally intertwined with countries’ climate obligations.

The ICJ advisory framed drought as an issue that affects basic human rights, rather than simply being a misfortune. In other words, the court had already answered in law the question that people in the negotiating room in Mongolia could not resolve through politics.

While advisory opinions are not legally binding, they carry considerable legal authority and political weight – and often shape how international treaties are translated into domestic lawmaking, court decisions and implementation on the ground.

Yet that advisory opinion went unmentioned across the entire Cop17. I heard no mention of it during negotiations, at side events or in the pavilions. That silence was striking.

By CIARA FARMER, ASSISTANT SHOWBUSINESS EDITOR

Published: 12:16 BST, 6 September 2026 | Updated: 14:09 BST, 6 September 2026

English 60s pop star Craig Douglas has passed away aged 85. 

The star, real name Terence Perkins, was popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s, with his UK chart-topper Only Sixteen outselling Sam Cooke’s original version.

Family confirmed on Sunday that the star, who was known as The Singing Milkman, had died peacefully at home after a short illness. 

The statement read: ‘It is with great sadness that I have to inform you that Craig peacefully passed away this afternoon. He will be greatly missed by myself, his family, and his close friends. Rest in peace, Craig.’ 

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At the height of Craig’s fame, he outsold acts including Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. He was managed by esteemed producer Bunny Lewis. 

He recorded eight cover versions of American hit songs with nine of his tracks among the Top 40 UK singles, including Only Sixteen, which he recorded in 1959 at Abbey Road Studios.

English 60s pop star Craig Douglas has passed away aged 85 (pictured in 1959)

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In 2010, he sang three songs from his wheelchair at the end of the Amersham Rock ‘n’ Roll Club benefit concert in his name

In 1961, Craig entered the A Song for Europe contest with his original song A Girl Next Door. He also starred in the 1962 film It’s Trad, Dad! and topped the bill for the Beatles’ first major stage show.

His final record, Town Crier, was released in February 1963 and reached number 36.

In an interview with Wooley’s Beat in 2024, Craig was asked if he had any regrets, to which he said: ‘Well, I didn’t get married to start with, which was a shame..

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‘I would have liked to have had a couple of children, but if I had, I’d miss them like mad while I was away’. 

Following his huge success it the 60s, through the rest of his career Craig performed in nightclubs and on cruise ships as well as touring venues in the UK.

In 2010, he sang three songs from his wheelchair at the end of the Amersham Rock ‘n’ Roll Club benefit concert in his name.

Family confirmed on Sunday that the star, who was known as The Singing Milkman, had died peacefully at home after a short illness (pictured in 1962)

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Craig pictured in 1963

Manchester City striker Erling Haaland scored his third goal of the campaign as the Blues continued their 100 per cent start to the Premier League season

Erling Haaland said he was annoyed after missing a couple of chances during Manchester City’s 1-0 victory over Coventry on Saturday afternoon. The Norwegian talisman was denied on a couple of occasions before opening the scoring with a powerful header following a deep Antoine Semenyo cross.

City piled on the pressure after that but failed to extend their lead over Frank Lampard’s side. The Blues’ wastefulness nearly came back to bite them when Gianluigi Donnarumma was forced into an impressive point-blank save from an Ellis Simms effort. However, City held on for another three points to continue their good start under Enzo Maresca.

After the game, Haaland looked frustrated on the pitch despite the victory. When speaking to ViaPlay about this post-match, he said: “Yeah, a little bit [frustrated]. I could have scored a couple more and killed the game off. So I’m a little annoyed with myself.”

After a World Cup summer, Haaland believes he is now getting up and running again and is ready for the hectic months to come.

“I needed a couple of games to get into it. I’ve had those now, so I’m starting to find my rhythm,” he explained. “Now we’re playing again on Tuesday, then Wednesday and Sunday. So before the international break, there are four games. It’s going to be pretty relentless this year, to put it that way, with all the games and travelling.”

This summer has seen a major turnover of players at City. Enzo Fernandez and Iliman Ndiaye made their debuts on Saturday, adding further strength to City’s options.

On the new signings and summer window as a whole, Haaland said: “Arsenal have played together for a long time and have built this up over a longer period, a bit like City had when I first joined. We’re still in a kind of rebuilding phase, but the transfer window has been fantastic, I have to say. Well done to the club and the people at the club.

“First and foremost, they’ve brought in fantastic footballers, but also great people who fit in really well. So well done to the whole club, and especially Khaldoon [Al Mubarak].”

City begin their Champions League campaign on Tuesday night when they visit Porto.