Officers were called at about 10.50pm on July 22 at Flint Close in Grangetown.

While two people were inside the property at the time, fortunately no one was harmed.

At 3.15pm yesterday (Thursday, July 23), police received a report of a gun being shot at a property on Bevanlee Road in Grangetown.

Both shootings, which are currently believed to be linked, are under investigation with extensive enquiries ongoing – including house-to-house and CCTV enquiries.

In relation to the shooting on Flint Close, a 19-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm, and a 40-year-old woman and a 42-year-old man were arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Following questioning, the woman and the 42-year-old man were bailed pending further enquiries and the 19-year-old man was charged with possession of a firearm, and with possession of ammunition for a firearm.

He is due to attend Teesside Magistrates’ Court today (July 24).

Later yesterday (July 23), four further arrests were made including a 32-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman, a 40-year-old man and a 23-year-old man.  They are now being questioned in connection with the recent incidents.

Chief Superintendent Louise Galliott-Thornton said: “There will continue to be a strong policing presence in these areas for your reassurance, and I would encourage anyone who has any concerns to please speak to our officers.

“I would also urge anyone with information, dash cam or doorbell footage to get in touch either by contacting 101 or visiting our website quoting reference number 145138.

“If reticent to come forward please contact Crimestoppers anonymously either online or by calling 0800 555 111.”

The latest crash on the country road happened in the early hours and has reignited road safety concerns on the West Pennine road.

At around midnight last night on Rivington Road, Belmont, a car landed in the ditch, with the driver suffering injuries.

Although the cause of this accident is not know it has prompted wider concerns about the road and the driving of some motorists.

A spokesperson for Lancashire Police said: “Call was 12.31 am, Rivington Road.

“One car left the carriageway and entered a ditch.

“Driver treated at the scene for minor injuries and taken to hospital to be checked over.”

Belmont residents have repeatedly brought up the concerns about the road and the driving of some motorists.

Rivington Road is a through route between Rivington and Belmont, going past attractions such as the Blue Lagoon, and is 60 mph for the majority of the route.

Elaine Brooks, landlady of The Black Dog pub leading up to the road, said: “We saw everyone going on up at about 12 am, we saw the blue flashing lights, but cars could still come up and down with no disruption.”

Speaking more generally about the road, she added:”They just fly up, they rev up just to go up and down the road, with issues near the bottom of the road next to the pub.

“I can hear them revving it past and using it as a race track; they fly up all the time.”

A councillor for the West Pennines of Blackburn with Darwen Council said she receives and hears a lot of complaints from Belmont residents.

She said at almost every community meeting, the road is brought up as a concern, now with more motorbikes driving on the road.

(Image: Google Maps)

Cllr Jean Rigby, who represents Belmont, said: “The trouble is, and it has been for years and years and years, it’s become a racetrack.

“Unfortunately, it’s got worse where particular motorbikes have a race, and they sort of seem to do it in the night as well.

“It’s very, very noisy revving their engines up.”

Discussions of how to sort the problem out, and deter people from repeated incidents on the road has come into discussion with both Lancashire County Council and Blackburn’s council.

Speed humps have come into question, but would only work on certain parts closer to Belmont, and wouldn’t have a significant effect.

Believe Housing is offering grants of up to £1,000 to not-for-profit organisations that work in areas where it has homes.

The funding can be used for a wide range of community-focused projects including volunteer schemes, training programmes, income-boosting activities and wellbeing support.

Blackhall WI tapestry – believe housing awarded a £1,000 community grant to the Blackhall Women’s Institute(WI) to fund a tapestry project (Image: believe housing)

Damian Pearson, community investment team leader at believe housing, said: “We know that small grants can make a big difference to local groups with good ideas for their communities.

“This funding is there to help organisations bring people together, support wellbeing, build skills and respond to the issues residents are facing day to day.

“We encourage any group looking to start or build on a project that could make a positive difference in their community to get in touch and see how this support could help.”

Groups can apply for one grant of £1,000 or two grants of £500 during the financial year.

The funding can cover capital or revenue expenses including equipment, venue hire, activities and training.

To be eligible, projects must support at least one of Believe Housing’s community investment themes.

These include bringing communities together, health and wellbeing, employability and training, increasing household income, a greener, fairer future, and tackling inequalities including challenges caused by the cost-of-living crisis.

Applications are open to groups working in central, east or south-west County Durham in areas where believe housing owns homes.

The grants form part of believe housing’s wider commitment to creating healthy homes and sustainable places, supporting community-led projects that help residents build brighter futures and stronger neighbourhoods.

Details of the scheme, including full eligibility criteria and an online application form, are available at https://www.believehousing.co.uk/community-funding.

American singer Chris Brown has pleaded guilty to affray after a ‘vicious and unprovoked attack’ with a bottle on a music producer at a London nightclub.

The 37-year-old thug had been facing trial later this year after he hit a former friend twice over the head on the dancefloor at the Tape private members’ club in Mayfair in 2023.

But a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against victim Abraham Diaw was dropped along with two charges of possessing an offensive weapon – a bottle – in a public place and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, during.

Brown – who has a previous conviction for beating his former girlfriend, fellow pop star Rihanna – signed autographs for a handful of fans as he left Southwark Crown Court following the short hearing.

His vocal coach, Omololu Akinlolu, 40, also pleaded guilty to affray. The pair will be sentenced on October 26.

Detective Constable Zara Ripamonti, from the Metropolitan Police Service, said: ‘This was a disgraceful, unprovoked assault that put a man in hospital.

‘There is no place for serious violence like this in London and I’m pleased these men accepted what they did wasn’t just completely unacceptable – but criminal.

‘This has been a long investigation and we’ve worked with police colleagues in the UK to bring these two men to justice.’

Brown’s vocal coach Omololu Akinlolu admitted the same offence

Brown will be sentenced later this year

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Brown signed autographs for fans moments after pleading guilty to affray 

US singer Brown, pictured wearing a baseball cap, arrives at Southwark Crown Court 

The 37-year-old has admitted affray 

Claire Campbell, senior Crown prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service in London, said: ‘This was a vicious and unprovoked attack by Brown and Akinlolu in a crowded nightclub where Brown used a glass bottle as a weapon to strike the victim’s head twice.

‘This kind of violence is entirely unacceptable, and the Crown Prosecution Service will work tirelessly – with the police and partners across the criminal justice system – to pursue cases like this, and prove that no one is above the law.’

During a brief hearing, prosecutor Heidi Stonecliffe KC applied for an extra charge of affray to be added to the indictment, saying this had been accepted by all parties.

A court clerk then read out the charge to the singer and his vocal coach which alleged: ‘Chris Brown and Omololu Akinlolu on February 19 2023 used or threatened unlawful violence towards another and their conduct taken together was such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for his personal safety.’

Brown, who took deep breaths before the delayed hearing began, then entered a guilty plea alongside Akinlolu.

Judge Tony Baumgartner bailed Brown and Akinlolu to be sentenced on October 26 at Southwark Crown Court.

The judge set bail conditions that allow Brown to leave the UK but he must return on October 25 – the day before his sentencing.

Members of Brown’s entourage sat on the front row of the public gallery as the verdicts were entered.

The singer, wearing a tan suit, gold-rimmed sunglasses and a St Louis Cardinals baseball hat, was flanked by security guards as he arrived at court, where a small group of fans had gathered.

Fans played the artist’s music and shouted his name, with one saying ‘I love you Chris’, as others held signs.

At earlier hearings, Brown was ordered to pay a £5million security fee as part of his bail conditions, which also allowed him to go on a world tour as long as he surrendered his passport on arrival in each country.

In 2009, Brown admitted at Los Angeles Superior Court to one count of felony assault relating to an incident that occurred hours before he and Rhianna were due to perform at the Grammy Awards.

Democratic Rep. Yassamin Ansari wants Donald Trump’s son Barron Trump to testify to the House Oversight Committee about whether he knew about or “had any involvement whatsoever” in the crimes of Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are accused of strangling women unconscious and raping them.

Federal law enforcement agents arrested the “manosphere” influencers in Miami Saturday following an extradition request from the U.K., where they face serious trafficking and sexual abuse allegations.

The brothers, who maintained ties to powerful figures in the administration’s orbit, are not expected to get any relief from the White House, which will not block their extradition, according to press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

But Barron Trump was reportedly a fan of Andrew Tate and spoke to him over Zoom in 2024, according to The New York Times. Donald Trump Jr. also reportedly met Tate at Trump Tower in 2017, and Alina Habba, a former attorney to the president who briefly served as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, described herself as a “big fan” during a January 2025 podcast appearance.

Ansari has urged Republican Rep. James Comer, the chair of the powerful House committee, to “swiftly open an investigation into the Tate brothers’ coordination and extensive relationships with members of the president’s orbit, including his son, Barron Trump.”

Two days before their arrests, the brothers were guests of Paolo Zampolli, who serves in the Trump administration as a special envoy for global partnerships, at a party in Washington, D.C.

Paul Ingrassia — the acting general counsel of the General Services Administration who previously served on the Tates’ legal team — also criticized their arrests as “politically driven prosecutions.”

But Trump’s allies appear to have distanced themselves from the Tates in the wake of their arrests.

“Recent reporting and public disclosures raise extremely grave national security, diplomatic, and ethical concerns about whether political networks in the president’s orbit, including members of his family, and other public officials leveraged their influence to shield these men,” Ansari wrote to Comer on Thursday.

Ansari’s letter also follows a statement from a Republican colleague who came to the brothers’ defense after the charges were announced.

Rep. Abe Hamadeh called the charges against them “unclear and political.”

“No American court has charged them with a crime despite years of false alarms and innuendos,” Hamadeh wrote on X on July 20. “The US government should either charge them with a crime or protect them from reckless court proceedings in the UK and Romania.”

He said the brothers are “American citizens and so they deserve full American Constitutional protections — which means innocent until proven guilty.”

In her letter, Ansari urged the committee to “investigate whether back-channel communications between the Tate brothers, presidential advisors, and members of the First Family such as Barron Trump influenced official actions or administration policy regarding criminal prosecution and investigation of the brothers or international law enforcement cooperation.”

She also is requesting records from the Department of Justice and the State Department, including “all communications, cables, internal memoranda, notes, and logs of contact” between U.S. and British or Romanian authorities.

Ansari is also seeking “all records of communications” between the White House and federal agencies “regarding the Tate brothers, including, but not limited to, investigation into the Tate brothers’ crimes, potential prosecution of the Tate brothers, political or legal favors given to the Tate brothers by members of the administration such as slow-walking criminal investigations and failing to detain the brothers upon entry into the United States, and the status of extradition requests involving the Tate brothers.”

The committee “must learn from Barron Trump about his knowledge of the Tate brothers’ crimes, if he had any involvement whatsoever, and if he communicated with members of his father’s administration or the president himself regarding their legal proceedings,” she wrote.

The Independent has requested comment from the White House.

The Tates were banned from traveling outside Romania in late 2022 after their arrests on allegations of trafficking and money laundering.

They have been under a Department of Homeland Security investigation since 2023, and the state of Florida opened a criminal investigation into the brothers last year.

On Saturday, U.K. prosecutors unveiled 38 additional charges against the brothers in addition to 21 counts stemming from previous allegations.

The new charges against Andrew Tate include three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation, three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and 19 additional charges stemming from “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography.”

Tristan Tate is also facing one count of sexual assault, two counts of rape and three counts of arranging or facilitating trafficking for sexual exploitation.

After U.S. Marshals arrested them in Miami, their attorney Joseph D. McBride called the allegations “madness” without a “shred of evidence.”

He told The Independent that the brothers are victims of “political persecution” in the U.K. and characterized the charges as an attempt to “disrupt the judicial process” in the U.S.

The Tates are expected to remain behind bars in Florida while a federal judge determines whether British authorities have met a legal threshold for extradition, which would be approved by the State Department.

Asked about the extradition request this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “there’s no role for us to play at this moment or maybe ever, but I’m not going to opine on that.”

Jess Wright looked tearful as she discussed her appearance and her struggle to fit in four gym sessions a week as a mum in a candid post.

The TOWIE legend, 40, took to Instagram on Friday with a relatable clip of herself sat in her car as she reflected on life.

She wrote: ‘Me just casually thinking about the fact I’m suddenly 40, my hair is thinning, I need Botox or some sort of face lift.

‘My eyelids DEFO need doing, knowing that 4 gym sessions a week ain’t going to do sweet fa & I’m still going to a retail park thinking it’s the answer to all my problems’.

She then added: ‘Oh I forgot, also work & be the best mum I can be,’ she wrote alongside the post as she poked fun at herself with the ‘zany’ face emoji.

Her followers flooded the comments, praising the star for being ‘so relatable’ and reassuring her that she ‘still looks amazing’.

Jesy Nelson said: ‘Still absolutely beautiful though.’

Her other followers commented: ‘I’m loving all your funny relatable content recently,’

‘You look perfect the way you are, you don’t need any tweaks,’

‘I have never felt so seen,’

‘You look amazing. But us ladies always beat ourselves up about something. Every single day. Retail therapy is always the answer.’

Last year, Jess revealed that she had secret breast reduction surgery just before Christmas.

The reality star had her implants removed after first getting a boob job which was documented on the show in 2011.

After having them done originally she went up to a 32DD but after her latest surgery they will now be a C cup.

She told Closer of why she decided to have them removed: ‘I was so sick of my big boobs – every single red-carpet dress I wanted to wear I had to dress for my boobs. 

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Her followers flooded the comments, praising the star for being ‘so relatable’ and reassuring her that she ‘still looks amazing’

Last year, Jess revealed that she had secret breast reduction surgery just before Christmas 

The reality had her implants removed after first getting a boob job which was documented on the show in 2011

‘My recommendation to any girl out there who has lovely boobs to begin with – which I did have and I still do have, thank God, since having them out – is don’t have any implants.

‘As I’ve got older, I was just worried about having foreign bodies in my body. I just got to the point where I didn’t want anything in me anymore – and if I ever have a daughter, I wouldn’t want her to either. I want to be able to enjoy me. I want to be me again.’

She added that her recovery has been tough while trying to look after her two-year-old son Presley who she shares with husband William Lee-Kemp.

Jess told how she now wants to ‘go back to her roots’ and is also now embracing her natural darker hair.

In 2016, Jess told how she ‘hated’ her boob job but two doctors had refused to perform a reduction for her.

Previously, she told the Daily Mail: ‘They went too big when I had my boob job and I’ve been back to two surgeons to get a reduction and they’ve both said: ‘You’ve got great boobs, don’t change them’ but I just think they’re too big.

‘I was happy with them at first but I was younger – times have changed and fashion has changed.’

Jess added that she wished that she hadn’t had featured her boob job on TOWIE.

She said: ‘One thing I do regret is my boob job being on TOWIE. It probably wasn’t the best of moves but at the same time whatever.

‘I think wait till you’re at a good age before surgery. All these young girls getting their lips done and getting fillers I don’t agree with that.’

‘I wouldn’t get anything done except my boobs, I could probably do with something but I don’t like the fake look so I try and avoid that and keep it real.

‘My lips are fortunate because they are quite big but if I had really thin lips I might because of the pressures. I could probably have them down now but I choose not to.’

This roundup of The Conversation’s environment coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.

Drastic climate action can feel overwhelmingly difficult and far away. But making changes to your home, whether you rent a room in a city centre or own a house in the countryside, is a tangible and effective way to shift the dial towards a more environmentally friendly society.

This week, we’ve chosen our favourite sustainable solutions – steps you can take now to lower the carbon footprint of the place you live in, make it more nature-friendly and improve its resilience to extreme weather.

1. Do up your driveway

Think about using gravel rather than hard surfaces to make a driveway as that can make a difference in terms of flood risks, but also look to create planted areas around the space where you park your car as well. These can help with air pollution and biodiversity, and might even attract bees and butterflies to your garden. (RJ)

2. Assemble a building ‘passport’

Before upgrading your home with low-carbon technologies, think about how the equipment you install might be repaired, reused or recycled.

“Solar panels and home batteries are not designed to be repaired. Heat pumps quickly become outdated and need upgrades. Without a comprehensive plan of action, this new energy tech could soon end up as electronic waste with nowhere to go,” according to sustainable architecture researchers at Lancaster and Ulster universities.

Retrofit solutions need to prioritise the use of renewable, sustainable materials that minimise the consequences of resource consumption and pollution, alongside technologies that can be repaired and reused. And policymakers need to consider the wider green energy supply chain before rapid rollout to avoid replacing one problem with another by turning our houses into skips filled with life-expired technologies.

Having a building “passport” (an online logbook of information about all aspects of your building) can help record any retrofit strategies, from building fabrics to the type of materials installed and the maintenance required. (AT)

3. Create more shade

We’ve all been grappling with very hot days in Europe recently. And for those of us who live in homes with a lot of glass, we are looking for ways to create more shade and lower the temperature inside the house. As Ben Rogers from Loughborough University points out, many older houses used to have external shutters built in, but in many cases these have disappeared over time.

It’s worth testing out if you can hang a sheet over the outside of a big sunny window, as stopping heat getting into the house makes a significant difference. My niece in Cardiff did this with a hot, hot bathroom and with some ad hoc hanging has found the room is much cooler. It’s definitely worth a try. (RJ)

4. Check your building’s A, B, C

Energy performance certificates for buildings can be hard to decipher but ratings across the EU and beyond are starting to be standardised, thanks to a new directive. Class A indicates a building has zero emissions, while Class G is “among your nation’s worst”, as Lala Rukh at the University of Galway explains. Rukh

“If you are buying, selling or renting in the next three years, check the date on any certificate,” advises Rukh. “A label issued before your country’s rescaling means something different from one issued after, and most existing certificates remain valid for up to ten years.”

She suggests asking which scale your building’s energy performance certificate was issued under. “And trust the number more than the letter: the kilowatt-hours per square metre, per year, printed beside the grade is the one language every scale, old and new, EU and UK, has in common.” (AT)

5. Plant humble hedges

When it comes to marking boundaries, fences provide privacy and a very definite “edge”. But they lack the wealth of environmental benefits offered by hedges, explains Tijana Blanusa, principal horticultural scientist at the University of Reading.

“Hedges act as barriers for pollution, provide habitat for wildlife, support pollinators when in flower, produce berries for birds to feed on, capture rainfall and reduce flood risks, and (to a lesser degree) reduce noise.” For these reasons, hedges deserve more attention, she says, and they don’t have to be showy, expensive or elaborate to bring brilliant benefits. (AT)

6. Exchange at the window

Electric-powered heat pumps are all the rage – they work like a fridge in reverse, but while most of them keep homes consistently warm, they waste the cold air that is released as part of the process. Plus they are usually expensive and big. In the US, window-mounted heat pumps are cheaper and more portable. These self-contained devices are easy to plug in without professional help and they can provide heat and cooling.

The New York City housing authority has been installing window-mounted heat pumps in apartments in Queens, for example. Each unit serves only one room but they cost much less than a permanent system and can be moved to a new property if the owner relocates, as Moncef Krarti, an engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, explains. (AT)

7. Put nature first

Urban planning can be nature-centric. Ecologist Tom Oliver explains that this begins with being sensitive to the history of a place when designing housing, asking what other beings already have their homes there and considering how people can live alongside them.

Nature-centric housing solutions already exist in places such as Brazil, Italy and the Netherlands. The challenge, Oliver describes, is scaling these solutions up, while adapting them to the nature in each local region.

Experts agree that “the technical expertise to build such homes already exists. What is missing, they said, is the deeper mindset shift needed to bring about such an ambitious programme of social change”. So, as Oliver writes, the biggest challenge is “to expand our imaginations” – for how we can live more in harmony with other species and build political courage for such housing. (AT)

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Wildfires are becoming a feature of the UK’s hotter, drier climate.

In July 2026, major fires swept through parts of the UK in a matter of days – notably setting Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano in the centre of Edinburgh, alight. The Scottish Greens labelled wildfires a “national emergency” after that fire.

Meanwhile, the Welsh government activated its crisis plan to tackle ongoing blazes in north Wales, while raising concerns about a shortage of helicopters to manage the flames. Other UK fire services said they were under extreme pressure.

In 2025, fire and rescue services in England and Wales responded to nearly 1,000 wildfire incidents, beating the previous record from 2022. Expert projections suggest more days like this ahead.

Over a million Britons live in fire-prone landscapes, according to Ordnance Survey data. “The homes identified … are located within a patchwork landscape, generally without managed firebreaks as is common in other parts of the world,” said Duncan Moss, co-chair of a national group which provides advice on wildfires to the government.

So far, there’s not a unified UK approach to wildfire management. While Scotland published a plan in March, management in England is largely driven by independent public bodies such as Forestry England – although the UK government recently announced the creation of new wildfire firefighting teams for England.

The UK public mainly hears about wildfires through a mix of news coverage and information from land management agencies and other public bodies. But wildfires remain a largely unrecognised risk, with gaps in understanding of the hazards and their consequences. So, many communities are now asking for clearer information on how to respond.

One potential solution is more real-time emergency alerts sent directly to mobile phones in affected areas. While the UK has a national emergency alert service, so far this system has only been used for floods and storms.

But we believe that emergency alerts should just be one part of a wider communication strategy. The UK is at a critical moment to shape public understanding – not just of the risks, but of the nuances of fire itself. Ultimately, there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to fires.

À lire aussi :
Wildfire risk is now spreading to cool climates like the Scottish Highlands and Irish uplands

Wildfires can be both destructive and beneficial. Safe, proactive risk reduction often involves lighting small, low-intensity fires to reduce vegetation that could act as fuel and lower the risk of future wildfires. This approach is used widely in other countries.

Managing fire well takes more than early warnings. It will take a public that understands how to live safely alongside it.

What does Australia do and is it effective?

A long history of devastating wildfires has forged Australia’s fire-risk warning framework – very few countries have grappled with this as thoroughly. There are two systems: one that forecasts the level of risk before a fire starts, another that communicates what to do after it has.

The Australian Fire Danger Rating System was introduced in 2022 to provide a clear, nationally consistent warning system. It is designed to communicate to the public how dangerous a fire could be if one was to start.

The system has four levels. Each carries a clear set of messages and recommended actions for people to take before and during days of fire risk: moderate (plan and prepare), high (be ready to act), extreme (take action now to protect life and property), and catastrophic (for your survival, leave wildfire risk areas).

The danger ratings are calculated and communicated by Australian state and territory fire agencies. They consider weather, dryness factors and potential fire behaviour.

These warnings reach the public through several channels:

• Roadside signage showing current fire danger ratings;

• Weather forecasts, with fire danger ratings rolled into standard weather reporting and weather apps;

• State emergency websites and apps;

• News coverage, including ABC Emergency, Australia’s national emergency broadcaster, which provides up-to-date information and advice on protecting lives and property.

What happens when a fire starts?

The Australian Warning System (AWS) activates when a fire starts, and sends warnings directly to the public for every fire.

This national approach was established in 2021 to provide consistent, public information for wildfires, floods, storms, cyclones, extreme heat or severe weather. Before this, warnings had been issued separately by state, with inconsistent alert levels and terminology, and different warning systems for different hazards. The AWS has three warning levels:

• Advice (yellow): incident has started but there is no immediate danger. Stay up to date in case the situation changes.

• Watch and act (orange): heightened level of threat. Conditions are changing and you need to start taking action now to protect yourself and your family.

• Emergency warning (red): highest level of warning. You may be in danger and need to take action immediately. If is too late to leave, take shelter immediately. Any delay puts your life at risk.

From October 1 2026, Australia will add another layer to its warning protocol. AusAlert will send emergency messages directly to every compatible mobile device in an affected area during local and national disasters, after a royal commission found this would be an increasingly valuable approach to natural disasters.

Layering messaging channels this way is deliberate, but there can still be problems. During a fire in central Victoria in January 2026, a power outage overloaded mobile networks and the fire destroyed a major telecommunications tower, leaving many residents without access to official warnings, emergency apps or broadcast guidance.

During Australia’s 2019–20 fires, it’s estimated that more than 60,000 people heeded advice to leave fire-prone areas. Official warnings almost certainly played a significant role, but so did the visibility of the crisis, with smoke blanketing entire regions and constant media coverage of mass evacuations.

However, research into people affected by wildfires in New South Wales in 2017 showed that while most people found warnings easy to access and understand, this did not necessarily translate into the response emergency services had called for. Instead, many people chose to stay and defend their homes.

All warning systems face the same basic problem: too much messaging results in communication fatigue, too little messaging and lives can be lost. Australia has spent decades learning how to warn its public. The harder lesson – getting people to act on this advice – remains a work in progress.

A large stretch of track is being replaced

A warning has been issued to rail passengers ahead of a planned track closure due to key engineering work.

As the school holidays begin, Network Rail has urged all commuters seeking to travel between Wigan and Southport to plan ahead.

Engineering teams will begin replacing ‘ageing track’ in the Parbold area of Wigan from next Monday – July 27 – in a programme of work set to last until Friday, July 31.

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In a statement, Network Rail said: “This means no trains will run between Southport and Wigan Wallgate during this period. Replacement buses will be available between the two destinations. Trains between Manchester and Southport will terminate at Wigan. Trains will begin running again on Saturday 1 August.”

Sleepers and ballast will also be replaced, together with around a a kilometre of track.

Derek Davies, project manager for Network Rail, said the current track was ‘nearing the end of its life’. “Once renewed, the track will benefit from improved drainage and offer a more resilient, smoother, and more reliable railway,” he said.

“We know there is never an ideal time to close the railway and we are using this closure to complete multiple pieces of work, avoiding the need for two or three weekends of disruption. We would like to thank passengers for their patience during the closure.”

Stuart Taylor, Northern’s director of service delivery in Greater Manchester, said: “We’re advising customers to check before they travel and allow extra time for their journeys while this essential engineering work is being carried out. There will be no trains between Southport and Wigan Wallgate, but we will be running rail replacement buses to get customers where they need to go and their tickets will be accepted on alternative routes.”

Northern customers will be able to use their tickets to travel on Merseyrail’s Southport-Liverpool services, and Northern’s Liverpool-Manchester, Preston-Ormskirk and Preston-Manchester services.