Amid rife speculation about the make-up of his Cabinet, Mr Burnham said: “I haven’t made any decisions yet about who will be in that top team, but I will soon, and when I have, you will see it reflects all parts of our party, all communities, and it will reflect your own place within this great party of ours – a stronger, more united Labour Party lifting up a stronger and more united Britain.”

Deep beneath the French-Swiss border, the world’s largest scientific instrument has fallen silent. After years of smashing proton particles together at nearly the speed of light, Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has stopped operations and entered a long shutdown.

While no particle collisions are taking place at the LHC, thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians are dismantling parts of the machine, installing new technologies and preparing one of the most ambitious upgrades ever attempted in experimental physics.

When it switches on again, around 2030, it will become the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC), capable of delivering roughly seven times more data than the collider that discovered the Higgs boson.

For me, this shutdown marks another milestone in a project that has shaped much of my scientific life. I first became involved in the High-Luminosity collider long before the Higgs boson particle was discovered in 2012. Over nearly two decades I have had the privilege of contributing to the programme on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the United States, I served as upgrade coordinator for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), a key experiment at the LHC. The CMS is built at one of the points within the Large Hadron Collider where separate beams of proton particles collide. CMS then captures data from these collisions so that it can be analysed by Cern physicists. I helped lead the international effort preparing CMS for the HL-collider era.

Today, in Oxford, I work on another LHC experiment called Atlas. Atlas and CMS work in broadly similar ways, but having two machines like this helps ensure significant discoveries by one experiment are cross-checked by a counterpart with a separate team of scientists. Here, my colleagues and I are building silicon pixel detector modules for its upgraded inner tracker. This will form a vital part of the HL-LHC upgrade.

A few months ago, I watched the first complete pixel ring assembled in Oxford. It was strikingly beautiful: a delicate arrangement of silicon sensors, electronics and support structures whose elegance reflected years of painstaking engineering.

For the first time, the detector we had imagined through countless design reviews, prototypes and production meetings had become real.

Our contribution is just one part of a detector being built by teams across the world. Thousands of components must come together before the High Luminosity collider is ready to explore a new frontier in particle physics.

The LHC has already transformed our understanding of nature. Its discovery of the Higgs boson confirmed the mechanism that gives elementary particles their mass. The Higgs had been the last missing piece in the standard model of particle physics. This is the best theory to explain elementary particles and the three fundamental forces that govern their interactions. But, as is often the case in science, answering one question opened many others.

Investigating the Higgs

Many of the most important questions now are no longer about whether the Higgs exists, but whether it behaves exactly as predicted. Tiny deviations from the standard model could point towards entirely new particles or forces. Such discoveries would help us understand mysteries such as dark matter or why the universe contains far more matter than antimatter.

The challenge is that these clues are incredibly subtle. Rather than requiring much higher collision energies, they demand vastly more collisions. The HL-LHC will increase the collider’s luminosity – the number of proton collisions it produces – by about a factor of seven over its lifetime.

Imagine replacing a camera that takes one photograph every second with one that captures seven. Each image looks much the same, but together they reveal details that would otherwise remain invisible.

For Higgs physics, that extra data will be transformative. The Higgs boson is remarkably elusive. Some of its most interesting decays – where it transforms into other particles – are so rare that they have remained just beyond the reach of today’s LHC. Others have only recently emerged as tantalising hints.

One example is the decay of the Higgs boson into two muons (a muon is an unstable, subatomic particle). This decay is a rare process that tests whether the Higgs couples to second-generation lepton particles. Another is the decay of the Higgs into charm quark particles. This is one of the most difficult Higgs measurements because it must be extracted from an overwhelming background of ordinary particle collisions.

These processes test one of the Higgs boson’s most fundamental properties: whether it interacts with lighter particles exactly as predicted by the standard model. Any deviation from those predictions, even a small one, could be evidence that new particles or forces are influencing the Higgs behind the scenes.

And perhaps the most ambitious goal of all is observing Higgs boson pairs, which would allow us to measure, for the first time, the Higgs self-coupling – the strength with which the Higgs field interacts with itself. That interaction determines the shape of the Higgs field that fills all of space and is thought to have played a key role in the evolution of the universe moments after the Big Bang.

These are exactly the kinds of measurements that motivated the design of the upgraded LHC. Achieving them requires a revolution not only in the accelerator itself but also in the detectors that record the collisions.

Particle web

At the High Luminosity LHC, every crossing of the proton beams will produce up to 200 simultaneous proton-proton interactions, several times more than today. Untangling this dense web of particles demands detectors that are faster, more precise and far more resistant to radiation than anything built before.

At the heart of the Atlas and CMS experiments, entirely new silicon tracking detectors are replacing the existing ones. They must survive radiation levels that would quickly destroy previous generations of sensors while measuring particle trajectories with extraordinary precision. Achieving this has required years of advances in silicon sensor technology, ultra-fast electronics, cooling systems and lightweight mechanical structures.

One of the most innovative features of the upgraded detectors is the addition of precision timing. New timing detectors – the High Granularity Timing Detector in Atlas and a similar system in CMS – will measure the arrival time of particles with a precision of only a few tens of trillionths of a second. Although hundreds of collisions occur almost simultaneously, they do not happen at exactly the same instant.

By adding time as a fourth dimension to particle tracking, these detectors will allow physicists to associate each particle with the correct collision, making it possible to reconstruct rare Higgs events hidden within an enormous background of overlapping interactions.

One of the greatest rewards of working on these detectors is seeing the next generation of physicists preparing to use them. The students helping to assemble today’s detectors will spend much of their careers analysing the data they eventually collect.

When the HL–LHC begins operating, it will not simply extend the scientific programme of the Large Hadron Collider. It will usher in a new era of precision Higgs physics. Whether it reveals subtle cracks in the standard model or confirms our current understanding with unprecedented accuracy, it will shape particle physics for decades to come.

Jesy Nelson has slammed the government for the delay in approving SMA testing for all UK-born babies during her appearance on This Morning on Friday.

The mother-of-two, 35, revealed in January her now 14-month-old twins, Ocean and Story, had been diagnosed with SMA Type 1, a rare muscle-wasting condition. 

And after months of tirelessly campaign, Jesy announced this week that the SMA Type 1 screening test will now be rolled out across the whole of the UK.

However, Jesy voiced her anger at the delay it took for the screening test to be rolled out as she fumed ‘it should not have taken me to come along for it to happen’.

Speaking to This Morning hosts Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond about the ‘bittersweet’ moment, Jesy explained: ‘I don’t know what to say. Yesterday I couldn’t stop crying. 

‘As proud as I feel, it was also a bittersweet moment. At the end of the day, I am super proud. This isn’t just me, this has been going on for years now.

‘I feel so proud that everyone got behind it.’

She added: ‘Wales and Northern Ireland still don’t have it. Why would I stop here? It would feel wrong to just stop at England now.

The mother-of-two revealed in January her now 14-month-old twins, Ocean and Story, had been diagnosed with SMA Type 1, a rare muscle-wasting condition 

‘The noise that everyone rallied together, you can’t ignore it. It should have never taken for me to come along to be taken seriously, this has been going on for years. People have being trying to take this to Parliament.’

Speaking in Parliament before the testing was ruled out, politician Sharon Hodgson said the remaining six laboratories ‘do not currently have the requisite equipment’ for testing. ‘If that changes, more labs could be included,’ she added.

Later Jesy addressed her followers over on Instagram as she reflected on the disappointment of the day and called out Sharon, who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Health and Social Care for the decision. 

She told her viewers: ‘There is factual evidence that this treatment, if given from birth, is completely life changing to a child that is diagnosed with SMA. 

‘If it isn’t, and they get left untreated, there are facts that if your child doesn’t get treatment, they will not see their second birthday. They will die before the age of two. And there were families in that room yesterday that had children that have died from this horrendous disease. 

‘And we had the Health Minister Sharon give her argument against why it should not be rolled across the whole of England. 

‘So my question to Sharon is, if it’s safe enough for 72 per cent of England to get this tested at birth, then why is it not good enough for the 28 per cent of England to not get tested at birth? How does that make any sense? 

‘Her exact words were, “need to make sure that this does more good than harm”. Please tell me how that statement makes any sense.’

Jesy went on to explain that she spoke to Sharon after the debate and asked her whether she had ever met a child with SMA, to which Sharon said she hadn’t. 

The singer then showed Sharon a video of sisters Maisie and Amelia, who both have SMA however one was treated from birth and the other wasn’t. 

She explained that they have the exact same diagnosis but one is in a wheelchair but the other is running along, pulling her sister along. 

This week, Jesy announced the SMA Type 1 screening test will now be rolled out across the whole of the UK as a result of her campaigning’ (pictured with CEO of SMA UK Giles Lomax) 

However, Jesy voiced her anger at the delay it took for the screening test to be rolled out as she fumed ‘it should not have taken me to come along for it to happen’

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Jesy continued: ‘When I showed her in this video, her exact words were, “Wow, is that what the treatment does? Wow”. She was gobsmacked.’

Sharing the latest update exclusively with the Daily Mail Jesy said she was ‘so proud’ of everyone involved as she celebrated the difference this will make to babies with SMA as she added ‘this is all I ever wanted’. 

Revealing the news, Jesy said: ‘OK, so yesterday I had a phone call with Sharon [Hodgson], the health minister, and James Murray [Secretary of State for Health and Social Care] and they have decided to roll it out across the whole of the UK.

‘It’s an emotional day. I’m still taking it in to be honest. It’s amazing. It’s just mind-blowing. I feel so proud. I just feel so proud of everyone that’s been a part of getting it to this place because now future SMA baby’s lives are gonna look completely different. And that is all I ever wanted.

‘It will never not be heartbreaking to hear that your child has SMA, but to know that their life will not have to look like this is just amazing.’

Last month, Jesy headed to Parliament for a debate on whether a newborn screening for the disease would be rolled out across the whole of England. 

Devastatingly the result of the debate was not what Jesy and the SMA community had hoped for and the decision remained that only 72 per cent of the country would have access to newborn screening when it is introduced in October, while the other 28 per cent still wouldn’t. 

However the Government have now confirmed the expansion of the scheme that will see hundreds of thousands of babies screened in the roll-out which will begin in October this year. 

SMA can leave babies unable to sit up, crawl or walk. In the most severe cases, it stops them breathing or swallowing but caught early enough treatment can significantly improve outcomes for affected children.

Testing works through a simple heel prick to collect a small sample of blood from the baby, taken shortly after birth.

The SMA screening evaluation will begin across England in the autumn, and the programme is moving faster than originally planned. 

Labs are set to start testing babies for SMA from October 2026, three months ahead of schedule, after the government committed to speeding up the rollout earlier this year. 

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, James Murray, said: ‘No parent should have to watch their child lose the ability to move or breathe, knowing that earlier treatment could have made all the difference.

‘This expansion means babies across England will be tested from birth, giving them the best possible chance of a full and healthy life, and another step in the right direction as we do all we can to reduce health inequalities.

Jesy said: ‘I feel super proud that my girl’s story has been a part of change and I can’t wait, when they’re a bit older and they understand to be able to tell them that’

‘I’m in awe of the campaigners who’ve worked tirelessly to raise awareness of this rare but very serious genetic condition. We’re moving faster and rolling screening out more widely to ensure children get the best treatment from the earliest possible moment.’

Meanwhile Chief Executive Officer of SMA UK Giles Lomax said: ‘After years of campaigning by the SMA Community and our partner organisations, this is a hugely important step forward. 

‘When newborn screening for SMA begins later this year in October, thousands of babies will benefit from earlier diagnosis and access to life-changing treatment.

‘We are delighted to see the confirmation that the remaining six screening laboratories will begin screening from October 2027, this demonstrates a clear commitment to making newborn screening available across England.

‘No family should face a postcode lottery when it comes to a condition where every day without treatment can lead to irreversible loss of motor neurons. 

‘We are incredibly grateful to the families, clinicians, researchers, supporters and campaigners who have helped us reach this point, and we look forward to the day when every newborn across the whole of the UK is offered this simple, life-changing test.’

Andy Burnham was officially ‘coronated’ as Labour leader today – and immediately blamed Margaret Thatcher for the country’s problems.

The Makerfield MP has been unveiled as the winner of the bizarre one-candidate contest at an event at the TUC headquarters in London, watched by fawning would-be Cabinet ministers.

In his speech, Mr Burnham – who ditched his trademark black t-shirt for a suit and tie – harked back to a time before the ‘wrong turns’ of the 1980s as his ‘coronation’ at the top of the party concludes.

He hinted at nationalisations and more public control, telling activists he would ‘return to a Labour they once knew’ and ‘eradicate’ Reform. 

He said the movement was ‘forged in the steelworks’ and dockyards, committing to end ‘Neoliberalism’ – a vague term often used on the Left to denounce capitalism. 

Despite mounting a concerted effort to kick Keir Starmer out, Mr Burnham ehthusiastically praised his ‘service to our party and our country’. 

However, Mr Burnham – who will officially replace Sir Keir as PM on Monday – is still not expected to take any questions from the media.

Instead he has been posting soft-soap social media clips, including him chatting about how he likes his tea, whether he wears socks with sandals, and his disapproval of Yorkshire puddings with Christmas dinner.

Teeing up his confirmation earlier, Mr Burnham posted on X that he will ‘put power back where it belongs’.

‘The next few days are about more than changing who governs Britain. They’re about changing how Britain is governed,’ he wrote. 

Mr Burnham has become Labour leader after a token process that saw him nominated by nearly 95 per cent of MPs, weeks after he returned to the Commons in a by-election. 

He did not stand on Labour’s manifesto in 2024 and the 25,000 voters who backed him in Makerfield represent just 0.05 per cent of the British electorate. 

One of the few backbenchers who did not endorse him, Graham Stringer, said he did not want to sign a ‘blank cheque’ – warning the former Greater Manchester Mayor needs to be more up front about his intentions. 

On another dramatic day in UK politics:

• Mr Burnham hinted he will expend ‘quite a lot of political capital’ on social care reforms – after previously backing a ‘death tax’ charge on inheritance;
• Close ally Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool Metro Mayor, has given another strong hint at a ‘wealth tax’, arguing that it should be targeted at raising spending for a ‘sector or area’; 
• Sir Keir will not attend his successor’s official confirmation, after spending yesterday on a farewell visit to Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv;
• Removal vans have been seen outside Downing Street as preparations for the handover continue; 
• Wes Streeting has denied a bizarre claim that he was spotted in tears near Mr Burnham’s Parliamentary office.  

The Makerfield MP has been unveiled as the winner of the bizarre one-candidate contest at an event in London, watched by fawning would-be Cabinet ministers

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Deputy leader Lucy Powell introduced Mr Burnham, admitting the contest was not a ‘nailbiter’

Mr Burnham will say ‘political power was centralised and economic power privatised’ during Thatcher’s time as premier

Removal vans have been seen outside Downing Street as preparations for the handover continue

Staff were packing away boxes with Sir Keir and his family set to move out shortly  

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In his address this lunchtime he promised to be ‘unashamedly Labour in our priorities and in the decisions we take’. 

He said his government will have the ‘courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected’ and the ‘conviction to argue for our plans’.

Mr Burnham insisted Britain took ‘a series of wrong turns in the 1980s’ when ‘political power was centralised and economic power privatised’.

Making the economy work for people across the UK will require ‘a new path to the one we’ve been on for the last 40 years’, he said.

‘This country does not work for working class communities like the city of my birth,’ he said.

‘In fact, it turned its back on them. Political power was used viciously against them to protect vested interests.

‘Economic power cruelly stripped with the deindustrialisation of the 1980s, as it was against so many places up and down the land.’

He added: ‘Change starts with honesty. We must recognise that this generation of politicians, myself included, have failed to challenge a political culture and an economic model that simply doesn’t work well enough for ordinary people.’

Mr Burnham said he would not try to ‘out-Green the Greens’ or shift Right to head off the threat from Reform, but instead insisted the party could be ‘authentically Labour’.

Mr Burnham was backed by 369 of the party’s 403 MPs, far surpassing the 81 needed, and secured the support of eight of the 11 unions affiliated with the party.

He steps into the job at a time when his party has trailed Reform UK in opinion polls for nearly 18 months and Labour will be hoping his presence will spark a bounce and turn around its fortunes.

Sir Keir has said he would have won the next general election if he had not been ousted, but is ‘proud to hand over the party in good shape’ to his successor.

But there is no clarity about Mr Burnham’s policies, or how they might differ from Sir Keir’s agenda.

Business and unions have been alarmed at the idea of ‘Red’ Ed Miliband being made Chancellor – a prospect that seems to have receded.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is now being tipped for the crucial job. 

Business and unions have been alarmed at the idea of ‘Red’ Ed Miliband being made Chancellor – a prospect that seems to have receded

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Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is now being tipped for the crucial No11 job

Mr Burnham has spoken about how he wants to push powers to local leaders outside Westminster as part of his devolution agenda and to create a ‘No 10 North’ outpost of Downing Street based in Manchester.

He has said he will stick to Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules as well as manifesto pledges not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance, but declined to rule out a wealth tax in an interview this week.

The Liberal Democrats have urged him to overhaul the water industry in his first weeks as prime minister and immediately place Thames Water into a special administration regime.

Mr Burnham has drafted in Matthew McGregor, who has worked on elections in the UK and abroad and is currently chief executive of campaign group 38 Degrees, as his No 10 director of political strategy.

The summer is in full swing as thousands of tourists embark on a journey to Greece, hoping to soak up the sun and enjoy the water.

But seven Greek islands in the Aegean Sea are beginning to declare drought conditions to preserve water, and one is relying on bottled water entirely.

Astypalaia, Tinos, Alonissos, Leros, Patmos, Symi and Karpathos are all facing dry conditions this summer, which they fear could impact the number of tourists the islands see each year.

Astypalaia relies on bottled water for drinking and didn’t receive much of the rain which drenched the rest of Greece this winter.

Nikos Komineas, mayor of the island, said: ‘If we collected all the water dropped throughout the year in a bucket or in a washbowl, it would be 2.5 centimeters deep.’

Hotel owner Maria Alkalai, 42, said she’s incentivising guests to save water by offering vouchers.

Anyone who skips the daily cleaning service receives a 5 euro coupon – ‘Clients have embraced it,’ she said.

Greece’s Environment Minister Stavros Papastavrou has approved 15 million euros ($17 million) for desalination, grid upgrades, and water tanks on nine of Greece’s islands.

Water resilience is becoming a major issue in Greece, however, potentially stunting economic growth and locals if not addressed soon.

In 2025, to tackle some of the water scarcity, hotels said they would fill their pools with seawater.

Despite tourists’ complaints, Greece is under increasing pressure to reimagine tourism in a sustainable way amid climate change and rising visitor numbers.

Greece has long been a popular tourist destination but the number of visitors has exploded in recent years. In 2023, Greece saw record highs with 33 million foreign visitors in total. 

But this rise in tourism has sparked protests across several Greek islands, where locals are increasingly concerned about the impact of overtourism.

In the summer, several protests were held across the Cyclades, a collection of Aegean islands that includes popular tourist destinations like Santorini and Mykonos. 

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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The way England’s run at this World Cup ended was desperately disappointing, but there are still plenty of positives for them to take away from the tournament.

I’ve co-commentated on all of their games and my most memorable moment has to be their epic win over Mexico at the Azteca Stadium in the last 16. It was the best game of the tournament, at the best stadium and with the best atmosphere.

I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed togetherness or team spirit like that before, either. That’s why I described it as the best team performance I’ve seen from any England side in my lifetime, particularly away from home. It made me think anything was possible from this team.

Overall, the players can be very proud of all their efforts because they got through lots of tough situations. When they did fall short, it was not for the want of trying either.

What next from England? Well, Tuchel is going to lead pretty much the same group of players into next year’s Euro qualifiers – but I’d expect three or four changes to his next squad, because this one lacked balance and it was not the one I would have chosen.

One area of concern is the centre-forward position because Harry Kane turns 33 in a couple of weeks and I would ask where are our strikers who are screaming to replace him.

But, overall, I don’t look at the players Tuchel has available and think they are far away from what we will need.

Whatever happens in Saturday’s third-place play-off – which is a nonsense by the way – England will end this World Cup the same way they seem to finish every major tournament.

By that, I mean they will look back with frustration, and look ahead with the same hope that things will be different next time.

Tuchel should believe it too, because so much of Euro 2028 will be played on home soil and we saw how close we went when we last hosted matches in 2021, reaching the final – like we did two years ago.

There I go again, though, dreaming of glory. That won’t change until we finally get over the line – and all we really know for certain is we will be back to try again.

Alan Shearer was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan

Residents in two postcode areas around the borough are celebrating after landing cash prizes in the People’s Postcode Lottery.

Players on Stoneyside Grove in Walkden and Chorley New Road in Lostock have each won £1,000 after their postcodes were announced as daily prize winners.

Today’s draw, on 17 July, awarded cash prizes to players based on the postcode linked to their subscription, with daily draws taking place across the UK.

Winners in BL6 4BA and M28 3PD received the prize individually, meaning every ticket registered within the winning postcode is eligible for the £1,000 award.

The surprise windfall has brought a welcome boost for local players, who join thousands of winners across the country sharing prizes throughout the year.

As well as rewarding players, the lottery raises funds for a range of charities and community organisations across Britain.

The winning postcodes were announced as part of the lottery’s latest daily prize draw, with each successful player receiving £1,000.

Raven Adams died in the incident on Thursday, July 16, in the York Street area of Belfast

A man has been charged to court after a fatal crash in North Belfast.

Raven Adams, originally from the Tipperary area of the Republic of Ireland, was pronounced dead at the scene of the collision in the York Street area. A 22-year-old man was also seriously injured as a result of the crash.

Police received a report at 2:40am on Thursday, July 16, regarding the single vehicle collision involving two pedestrians.

In an update on Friday morning, police said a man has been charged to court after the fatal crash. A PSNI spokesperson said: “Detectives from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Collision Investigation Unit investigating a fatal collision in the York Street area of north Belfast on Thursday, 16th July have charged a man to court.

“The 22-year-old has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, causing grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving and other driving-related offences.

“The man is due to appear before Belfast Magistrates’ Court this morning, Friday 17th July. As is usual procedure, all charges will be reviewed by the Public Prosecution Service.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

A funeral notice from William Pressdee Funeralcare on Friday, on behalf of Tyler’s family, said she would be remembered as “a warm, generous artist whose music touched generations and continues to fill dance floors and karaoke booths around the world”.

It described her as a dear sister of Marlene, Angela, Avis, Paul and the late Pauline and Lynn, much loved sister-in-law of Paul and Angela, Michael and Winnie, Gwyn, Jan, Teresa, Margaret and the late Billy, and a “devoted and wonderful Aunty Gaynor” to all her nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews.

The notice requested “family flowers only” at the funeral, but said anyone who wished to could make a donation in her memory to two charities where Tyler was a patron – Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales and Cerebral Palsy Cymru.

“Her legacy lives on in the timeless songs that made her a legend,” it said.

The North Pennines National Landscape Partnership has criticised the lack of information provided so far by Fred. Olsen Renewables, which is drawing up plans for 23 turbines, each more than 200 metres high, on moorland between Arkengarthdale and Teesdale.

In its response to the developer’s scoping report, which asks what information on environmental impact should be included with a future planning application, the partnership likens the lack of details on how the scheme will be connected to the national grid and on roads which will be built on the moorland as “asking someone to house a dangerous animal without explaining the cage in which it will be kept”.

The organisation adds: “The material published thus far specifically states that there are no clear plans for how the electricity generated would be transferred to the grid.

“There would be a likely significant local impact in this and to not present plans for it as part of the scoping opinion means that the developer is asking for comment on what amounts to only part of the scheme.”

The partnership adds: “On-site, the report talks about ‘tracks’ — please refer to these structures as roads, rather than tracks — it is disingenuous to do otherwise.

“Considering the impact of similar-sized development in open moorland elsewhere, we can expect between 22km and 28km of internal
roads.

“Whilst we know the precise figure cannot be given, it is important that a realistic figure be provided early in the next phase including: total permanent track length, length of floating roads over peat, length of cut-and-fill roads and total area of permanent hardstanding.

“Only then will you be able to understand long-term impacts on landscape, hydrology and habitats associated with the internal road layout.”

The partnership also criticises the developer’s claim that the cumulative effects of the scheme would be “minimal at worst”, which it says “completely ignores the cumulative impact of wind farms along the A68 corridor”.

It adds: The additional impact of the proposed development would make it, and the current wind farms, both visible from some key locations, clearly adding to the erosion of the special quality of relative remoteness, wildness and tranquillity in those places.

“There needs to be deeper engagement on this, as the issues are not currently adequately considered.”

Fred. Olsen says it welcomes the feedback received through the scoping process.

A spokesperson added: “We will continue to work closely with the North Pennines National Landscape Partnership to ensure environmental effects, including landscape, peat, ecology and cultural heritage, are assessed thoroughly and robustly.”