The developers want to build up to 78 new homes and bring new businesses into the town centre

A Cambridgeshire town could lose its bus station and a car park amid plans for a “vibrant new neighbourhood”. Capital and Centric has announced plans to redevelop Huntingdon’s bus station and Princes Street car park.

The developers say they want to “transform” the sites and turn them into a “vibrant new gateway neighbourhood into Huntingdon”.

A Capital and Centric spokesperson said: “We want to revitalise this part of the commuter town by delivering new homes, a public facing café, loads of new amenities for residents and lush green landscaping for everyone to enjoy, creating a vibrant new neighbourhood with bold architecture, lush green spaces, walkable streets, buzzing social spaces and heritage-inspired design, creating a lively new gateway that reconnects people, place and community.”

The plans could see up to 78 new homes built at the bus station and car park site. Other proposals include:

• A centralised hub with an onsite café. This is proposed at Cowper House which will “form a central zone to connect the development to the rest of the community”, said a Capital and Centric spokesperson.
• Green spaces including trees, planting, and pocket parks.
• Worker’s cottages, which will sit within the neighbourhood scheme.

Capital and Centric have proposed similar plans in St Neots and St Ives. In St Neots, the developers seek to transform Tebbutts Road with new businesses and homes. In St Ives, they propose up to 120 new homes, new businesses and green spaces in the old cattle market square and gatehouse.

Capital and Centric seeks comments on its plans for Huntingdon. Anyone who wishes to make a comment can do it here by Friday, September 4.

A man and a woman have been charged with preventing lawful burial after the body of a child was discovered at an address in Southend, Essex.

Officers attended an address in Kenway on August 7 after receiving reports from social services raising concerns for the welfare of a child.

The body was found, and two people were arrested, the force said.

Sophie Dean, 31, of Kenway, and James Thorpe, 32, of Shoeburyness, have been charged with preventing a lawful and decent burial of a dead body between July 3 2025 and August 6 2026.

Thorpe has also been charged with obstruction of a constable in the execution of their duty, the police added.

The child’s identity has not been released, and it remains unclear when they passed away.

The pair appeared at Southend-on-Sea Magistrates’ Court on Monday and were remanded in custody to next appear at Basildon Crown Court on September 7.

The force said the investigation into the child’s death will continue to be led by detectives from its crime and public protection command.

In a press release, it added: ‘We would also encourage anyone with information that could assist us and who has not yet spoken to us to please come forward and do so.’

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The body of a woman murdered almost 25 years ago by her husband will never be found if he is released from prison, her family have told the High Court.

Glyn Razzell, now 67, was jailed for a minimum of 16 years in 2003 for murdering his estranged wife Linda, whose body was never found.

But the ex-banker was released on licence by the Parole Board in April, a decision the Ministry of Justice has asked the High Court to reverse because of a failure to properly consider Razzell’s risk to the public.

Mrs Razzell, a mother-of-four, disappeared on her way to work at Swindon College, Wiltshire, in March 2002 while in the process of divorcing her husband and had been engaged to another man, Greg Worrall.

Julie Westmore, Mrs Razzell’s cousin, told the court on Monday the killer husband was a ‘master manipulator’ who had ‘always failed to take responsibility for his actions’.

Ms Westmore said: ‘The major impact on myself and our family would be the complete loss of trust in the justice system of this country if Glyn Razzell was released without revealing where Linda’s remains are.

‘It would quite simply be wrong.’

She added her family would ‘not feel safe’ if Razzell were released because they ‘know him to be a violent man and an accomplished liar’.

Mrs Razzell disappeared on the way to work at Swindon College in March 2002 and her body was never found

The Parole Board ruled three times from 2019 that Razzell should remain behind bars but allowed him to be released on licence earlier this year.

In making its decision, the board considered Helen’s Law, which makes it harder for killers to win parole if they do not reveal where victims’ bodies have been hidden.

Named after Helen McCourt, who vanished on her way home from work in 1988 and whose killer was freed without revealing where her body was, the rule means the Parole Board must consider whether killers have concealed the location of their victims’ remains.

Ms Westmore said the law meant it had ‘at last been recognised that it does matter when a murderer refuses to reveal where someone’s remains are’.

Earlier this year, Cathy Larkman of the Women’s Rights Network said Razzell’s release was a ‘cruel decision’ which made a ‘mockery’ of Helen’s Law.

Razzell’s previous bids for parole were rejected in part because he maintained his innocence but he was allowed to stay in an open prison during the latter years of his sentence.

In April, the Parole Board’s panel said it had ‘serious doubts’ about Razzell’s honesty and there was a ‘very serious risk’ within relationships he might become involved in, though said this was ‘not imminent’.

The panel decided he would comply with licence conditions because he was ‘strongly motivated not to return to custody’.

But Ms Westmore said if Razzell remained in prison it would be ‘the incentive he needs to eventually do the right thing’.

‘If Glyn Razzell is released now, all hope of ever finding Linda’s remains will be lost.’

The killer husband, from Somerset, attended the High Court hearing and sat in the dock wearing a dark blue suit as he opposed the effort to challenge his release.

He has always denied being responsible for Mrs Razzell’s death and the Parole Board found in 2023 he ‘does not want to lose his desired status of being a “wrongly convicted murderer”‘.

Mrs Razzell was last seen in March 2002 at Old Walcot, Swindon, parking her car after dropping her children to school in Highworth and Mr Worrall at work.

Police dug up ground in Wiltshire in 2019 near to Mrs Razzell’s former home after a tip off from a member of the public, but found nothing

An aerial view of Pentylands Close, Mrs Razzell’s former home, near to where police searched for her body seven years ago

After police searched a car driven by Razzell following his wife’s disappearance they found a significant amount of her blood in the boot.

Detectives spoke to 2,600 people during their 18-month investigation, following more than 2,200 lines of enquiry and taking 1,540 statements.

A jury at Bristol Crown Court took six hours to find Razzell guilty of murder in November 2003.

Following the trial, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Granger, of Wiltshire Police, said: ‘I don’t think Razzell will tell us where the body is and if he does, it will not be for a long time.

‘He is an evil, cold, calculated and intelligent man, but he made mistakes and that is how he ended up getting caught.’

Razzell has repeatedly appealed his conviction and appeared on a BBC miscarriage of justice programme, Convicted, in 2018 to prove his innocence.

But he refused to take a lie detector test when asked by producers and the programme did not produce any new leads.

After a tip off from a member of the public, police searched a field near Mrs Razzell’s former home in Wiltshire in 2019 but found nothing. 

Police used shovels during a 2019 search of a field near Mrs Razzell’s former home in Wiltshire 

The Ministry of Justice can refer Parole Board prisoner release decisions to the High Court if it believes they would undermine public confidence in the parole system.

For a release to be justified the court must be satisfied that imprisonment is no longer necessary to protect the public.

Tristan Jones KC, for the Ministry of Justice, said Razzell had made a ‘degree of progress’ and professionals who worked with him supported his release.

But he said the Parole Board’s decision ‘loses sight of the fact that he has not been honest or transparent’.

Mr Jones added: ‘Mr Razzell is a deeply deceitful individual who carried out a campaign of violence against Linda, some of it witnessed by their children, and then planned and carried out her murder.’

‘He is so attached to his narrative of innocence that he is willing to continue inflicting pain on the victims.’

Mr Jones said Razzell’s proposed licence conditions ‘cannot fully address the risks’ he poses.

Matthew Stanbury, for Razzell, said the Parole Board’s decision was ‘detailed and thorough’ and the Ministry of Justice’s argument ‘comes close to treating denial as conclusive to risk’.

He said the case against Razzell was based on ‘wrong assumptions’ that his denial of his wife’s murder was a ‘bar to release’.

After consideration by an ‘experienced’ Parole Board panel, Mr Stanbury said there was ‘no… basis’ for overruling the decision to release Razzell.

The hearing before Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb is set to conclude on Tuesday.

Canada put its military on standby Monday to help battle deadly wildfires in British Columbia as a local mayor warned that one of the blazes had wreaked huge destruction on his community. A woman has died and some 20,000 people have fled their homes so far.

For days, scores of wildfires have burned across the province, nearly half of them out of control in hot, windy weather and prolonged drought. Thousands have fled on jammed roads as officials said even more communities could be threatened.

The mayor of Summerland — home to about 12,000 people, which was ordered evacuated on Saturday night along with about 8,000 people in and around nearby Peachland — warned that the affected areas remained too dangerous to enter and that it was impossible to determine the scope of the destruction.

The blaze — known as the Bald Range wildfire — remained out of control after racing toward Summerland and other communities along Okanagan Lake over the weekend.

“It’s going to be quite a bit,” Mayor Doug Holmes said of the expected destruction. “We need to brace ourselves for that bad news when it’s time to go back. Everybody will know somebody who has lost a home.”

The military is ready to respond, minister says

Defense Minister David McGuinty said the Canadian Armed Forces were in constant contact with provincial and federal officials and were ready to respond if British Columbia formally requested assistance. The federal government has already approved provincial requests for help with shelter and accommodations.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said an 80-year-old woman died while trying to escape the fire near Summerland. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the death was heartbreaking and that the federal government would continue supporting British Columbia.

The British Columbia Wildfire Service said Monday the fire had grown to about 156 square kilometers (60 square miles), from 136 square kilometers (53 square miles) on Sunday. Officials warned clearer skies and direct sunlight could increase fire activity.

In Summerland, Peachland and the surrounding areas, about 10,000 homes remained under evacuation orders, while more than 3,200 were under evacuation alerts — meaning they could be told to evacuate at any moment.

Ravi Parmer, British Columbia Minister of Forests, said 19 helicopters were assigned to the Bald Range wildfire but that its intensity made it impossible to halt the blaze.

Canada has endured increasingly destructive wildfire seasons in recent years, forcing mass evacuations and repeatedly sending smoke across large parts of the country and neighboring United States.

Summerland — a farming community that grows cherries, peaches and apples, and also boasts some vineyards — is in a mountainous area where wildfires have been known to break out.

Holmes said the blaze started around 5:30 p.m. on Friday and was within the city limits in just a couple of hours. By midnight, it was so out of control that people were unable to flee on the highway north, so they began evacuating to the south, he said.

“We had to pack up our cars, neighbors were helping neighbors,” he said. “People said they’ve never seen a fire move so fast.”

A woman has told of the ‘most traumatic night’ of her life after Travelodge reception staff gave her domestic abuser the key to her room.

The victim, who has not been named, said she was attacked by her abuser at the London hotel in October last year.

She contacted the BBC after hearing about Kyran Smith, who was jailed for seven and a half years for attacking a woman at a Travelodge in Maidenhead, Berkshire. 

The woman booked a stay in the capital city for a ‘night away from the fear’ following a period of abuse, but her attacker was reportedly given her room key by staff.

Recalling the terrifying ordeal, the woman said: ‘He walked into the hotel and told the receptionist that his girlfriend was upstairs having a seizure.

‘He asked what room I was in and what floor I was staying on.’

She added that once her attacker received the key, Travelodge staff directed him to her room. 

After forcing his way inside, the man physically attacked her and tried to grab her phone, she said.

Travelodge chief executive Jo Boydell, pictured, during a Bloomberg Television interview in London

The victim then managed to calm her abuser down and convinced him to leave before he returned even more aggressive.

‘Not long afterwards, I heard him knocking at the door. He was banging, shouting. He was just getting more and more aggressive,’ she said.

‘I was terrified. I was hoping that he was going to stop, but instead, he kicked the hotel room door completely off the hinges.’

The woman said she fled downstairs ‘shaking’ and ‘begging for help’ from staff.

‘I think the receptionist just panicked. She didn’t call the police. She didn’t check if I needed any medical attention,’ she said.

‘She didn’t ask if there were any family members I could call, anyone that I needed. She just offered me a room, another room in the hotel.’

A Travelodge spokesperson said: ‘We are deeply sorry for the significant distress experienced by the customer and we apologise for the way the incident has been handled.

‘Customer safety and security is – and remains – a priority for us.

In a separate incident Wendy Griffith witnessed a ‘vile’ spectacle through the door’s peephole while staying at the chain’s London Stratford branch in July 2025

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Kyran Smith (pictured) was jailed for seven and a half years in February over an attack at a Travelodge in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in 2022

 ‘Any case of an unauthorised person entering a guest’s room is a significant cause for concern and we want to be clear that this should not have happened. 

‘Our room access security policies at the time were not correctly followed, which is not acceptable.

‘Earlier this year, we made changes to strengthen our room access security policy and incident escalation procedures, supported by training for all of our customer-facing colleagues.

A spokesperson added: ‘Our investigation indicates that the individual provided the guest’s full name and room number at reception.’

Following Kyran Smith’s sentencing for the attack in 2022, Travelodge chief executive Jo Boydell said immediate changes were made to its room access security policy.

In an apology issued to the victim, Ms Boydell confirmed that explicit permission is required from guests before additional or replacement keys are issued for their room.

While a crackdown on issuing spare keys has taken place, women have still been victims of vile acts at Travelodge hotels. 

Wendy Griffith was ‘trapped’ in her Travelodge hotel room for an hour while a naked man knocked on the door and performed sex acts outside. 

She was staying at the chain’s London Stratford branch in July 2025 when she witnessed the ‘vile’ spectacle through the door’s peephole.

The marketing consultant, from Norfolk, recalled her ‘rising panic’ over the hour in the middle of the night as she tried and failed ‘multiple times’ to contact hotel staff.

Sharing her story, Ms Griffith told the BBC that the incident involving her, last summer, had caused a lasting ‘psychological impact’.

She described feeling ‘incredibly traumatised and not able to summon help’ before dialling 999 in desperation.

Ms Griffith praised the police response adding that ‘three cars pulled up within five minutes’ to arrest the man.

The culprit, Trevor Reece, 40, pleaded guilty to outraging public decency in September 2025.

He was sentenced to four months of alcohol dependency treatment and ordered to pay £185 court costs and £50 compensation to his victim

Ukrainian drones are regularly striking warehouses belonging to Wildberries – Russia’s largest online marketplace, often described as its answer to Amazon.

This is the latest front in a campaign that has made the economic costs of the war harder for ordinary Russians to ignore. Earlier this summer, strikes on oil refineries and fuel infrastructure contributed to shortages, rising prices and queues at petrol stations.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has grown used to managing hardship and western sanctions. But as I have previously argued, Russia is increasingly sustaining the war by passing its costs on to households and businesses. The attacks on Wildberries show how directly those costs may now be felt.

Wildberries began in 2004 as an online clothing business run from a Moscow apartment by Tatyana Kim and her then husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk.

A major breakthrough came in 2008, when it introduced a flat delivery charge across Russia. It later added local pickup points with fitting rooms and free returns, reducing the cost and perceived risk of buying clothes online, and attracting customers beyond the largest cities.

By 2016, Wildberries had become Russia’s largest online retailer. Two years later, it was operating as a marketplace, allowing independent producers and retailers to list goods while the company handled warehousing, payments and delivery.

Wildberries says it now reaches more than 79 million users each month through over 90,000 collection points across Russia and a handful of other countries, mainly former Soviet republics. It reports that sellers generated 2.9 trillion roubles (£26 billion) in sales in 2024, 44% more than the previous year.

The platform hosts more than 1 million sellers, over 85% of them small and medium-sized businesses. Together with Ozon and smaller rivals, Russian marketplaces facilitate transactions worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia’s GDP and support around 4 million jobs.

The network is particularly important in smaller communities, where conventional shops often offer less choice. Wildberries is therefore more than an online shop: it is commercial and logistical infrastructure connecting businesses with customers across a vast country. Its scale makes its warehouses unusually consequential targets.

Why the warehouses matter

Ukraine says Wildberries’ logistics hubs form part of Russia’s military supply chain. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the first warehouses targeted distributed navigation systems and components for drone production. The Kremlin and Wildberries deny this allegation.

The bombing campaign began on July 18. By August 5, at least 20 Wildberries warehouses had been attacked across Russia.

Whatever the stated military rationale, the economic consequences extend far beyond the front line of war. Wildberries relies on large distribution hubs that store and process goods belonging to many sellers. A single strike can destroy stock belonging to thousands of businesses, interrupt deliveries across several regions, and affect customers far from the site that is attacked.

The consequences can be particularly severe for smaller producers and retailers. Many have already paid for manufacturing and transport before their goods reach a warehouse. If that stock is destroyed, they lose both the products and the expected sales income, while still facing wages, taxes, loan repayments and supplier bills.

Wildberries says it has begun making payments to affected sellers and introduced other relief measures. But the amounts vary considerably. One seller told Forbes he had received 41,365 roubles in compensation, amounting to just 5.6% of what was destroyed in the fire.

The method used to calculate such payments remains unclear. The company’s terms classify drone attacks as force majeure (an uncontrollable and unforeseeable event), limiting its liability for destroyed stock.

Because the attacks were beyond the control of both Wildberries and its sellers, affected businesses might have expected the Russian state to share the burden. As of July 28, the government was considering loans, tax relief and subsidies, but no decision had been made. Sellers were therefore uncertain about how much of the loss they would ultimately have to absorb.

Consumers may bear some of the cost too. Sellers seeking to recover their losses could raise prices, while warehouse disruption may cause delayed orders and reduced product availability. Damage to a distant logistics hub can therefore spread through the platform, becoming an economic shock for businesses and households across Russia.

Testing public morale

These disruptions will not automatically weaken support for Putin. Russians may blame Ukraine rather than their own government, while attacks on civilian workplaces could reinforce patriotic sentiment. The losses may also generate solidarity with affected Russian businesses, rather than anger towards the Kremlin.

The greater political risk is cumulative. Fuel shortages, higher prices, disrupted deliveries and losses for small businesses make it harder to maintain the impression that the war can continue without significantly changing everyday life in Russia.

Putin’s economic resilience depends not only on energy revenues and financial reserves, but on the willingness of households and businesses to absorb the costs of war. By targeting a platform embedded in everyday consumption, Ukraine is testing that willingness.

The significance of the Wildberries campaign may therefore lie less in the warehouses destroyed, than in the millions of Russians whose incomes, shopping and sense of normality depend on them.

Holidaymakers will need to know all the entry requirements ahead of their trip to avoid disappointment and potentially being refused entry into the country.

Children aged 17 or younger travelling to Portugal alone or with someone who is not their parent or legal guardian will need a letter of authorisation in order to travel there.

The letter must contain key details in order to be accepted.

What does the letter to enter Portugal need to include?

Authorities in Portugal have asked that a few things be included in the letter, such as a signature from the child’s parent or legal guardian and the date it was signed.

The signature must be certified by a notary or solicitor and the notary or solicitor’s signature must be legalised by the Legislation Office.

The letter must be issued alongside a copy of the child’s parent’s or guardian’s passport.

Are you going to Portugal this year? (Image: Getty)

It must include:

• full name, date of birth and passport number of the child
• the dates the child plans to arrive and depart the country
• why they are visiting
• the address where the child will be staying
• the name and passport number of the adult in Portugal who is responsible for them while in Portugal
• the full name, date of birth, passport number and contact details of the parent or guardian

What happens if you don’t have a letter of authorisation?

The UK government website has made it clear that if a child is taken to Portugal without a letter of authorisation, their entry will be delayed and could be refused.

Recommended reading:

It adds: “Teenagers aged 17 and under who travel alone, or with friends of the same age, and who are not being met on arrival by a parent or guardian, may be refused entry if they do not have a letter of authorisation.”

If a child is a resident of Portugal and aged 17 or under, they “must carry a properly certified letter of authorisation if travelling without their parent or legal guardian.”

Did you know these rules were in place for travelling to Portugal? Tell us in the comments below.

Labour has been accused of setting a ‘bonfire of patient safety’ with a new Health Bill that rips up key safeguards and removes protections for whistleblowers.

Ministers have made a ‘catastrophic misjudgement’ that risks another scandal on the scale of Mid Staffs unless Andy Burnham intervenes to stop the changes, the Liberal Democrats warn.

The Bill will remove the duty for the NHS to cooperate with the Care Quality Commission, will remove automatic ‘safe space’ protections for whistleblowers and result in the closure of local Healthwatch organisations, which provide independent advocacy for patients and uncover failings.

The Liberal Democrats have tabled amendments to the Health Bill that would cancel these changes and are urging the new Burnham administration to adopt them.

They have vowed to robustly fight the Government in the House of Lords, where Labour does not have a majority.

It comes after figures revealed the NHS in England recorded 403 ‘never events’ in 2025/26 – serious, largely preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if appropriate safeguards are in place.

Many patient protections currently at risk, including Healthwatch and key whistleblower safeguards, were established following the major NHS hospital scandals in Mid Staffordshire, Morecambe Bay, and Basildon and Thurrock that took place during Andy Burnham’s tenure as Health Secretary and before that a Minister of Health.

Wes Streeting, the then health secretary, announced in June last year that hundreds of NHS quangos employing 7,000 staff would be axed or merged under plans to cut wasteful spending and bureaucracy.

It was championed as a way to simplify regulation and reduce the ‘overwhelming’ number of recommendations they issue.

Oversight by the healthcare regulator, the CQC, is under threat as the changes would remove the NHS’ ‘duty to cooperate’.

The CQC has warned this will restrict its access to safety-critical information, such as patient safety incident reports.

NHS whistleblowers could lose key legal protections under the planned Bill.

Currently, staff who raise safety concerns with the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) are guaranteed anonymity.

But HSSIB is losing its independence, meaning cases will move to the Care Quality Commission, which offers no such guarantee.

The shift comes as the National Guardian’s Office, which oversees whistleblowing support, is closed down and its role passed to NHS England, which has been accused of downplaying internal reports on poor care.

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Helen Morgan said: ‘Decades of tragic NHS scandals – from Mid Staffs to Morecambe Bay to Shrewsbury and Telford – prove our health service needs accountability at the heart of its DNA.

Liberal Democrat Health Spokesperson Helen Morgan (pictured) described the bill as a catastrophic step backwards.

‘Yet Labour’s Health Bill guts hard-won safety measures and lets the NHS mark its own homework.

‘This is a catastrophic step backwards.

‘Many of the protections and organisations being abolished or neutered came in following the scandals that erupted during Andy Burnham’s tenure as Health Secretary.

‘He promised lasting change and to listen, but is now overseeing the greatest backward step in patient safety in a generation.

‘Andy Burnham must urgently put an end to this, and fix the Health Bill so that modernising the NHS doesn’t come at the expense of accountability, transparency or patient safety.’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said the NHS Modernisation Bill ‘explicitly preserves safe space provisions’ and ‘staff will continue to be protected’ but critics have questioned how this will be possible in the way proposed.

The spokesperson added: ‘The reforms we are introducing will give patients a stronger, clearer voice at the heart of health and social care.

‘By bringing the voice of patients closer to the people making decisions, we will ensure a more direct impact on services.’