Jenny Rhodes

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Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk pylons: £250 energy bill sweetener derided as ‘patronising’

Mar 11, 2025 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Piers Meyler |Jenny Rhodes

The government’s new energy infrastructure plan is key to their commitment to meet their carbon reduction target. They are trying to avoid a public backlash against new pylon infrastructure with a plan to reduce the bills of those affected. Homes in East Anglia within 500 metres of a long line of new pylons could receive a government discount of about £2500 over ten years, amounting to £250 a year off their energy bills.
Equal pay for women: still out of reach 50 years after Discrimination Act

Jan 13, 2025 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

This legislation aimed to protect women and men from discrimination due to gender or marital status, but this article shows that equal pay is still some way off, and gender still influences the likelihood for women of being in poverty. The 1970s were very different; women earned about half what an average man did, so we have clearly made progress. But the pay gap is still significant – and has recently increased, according to the Fawcett Society.
Winter 2025: how to find wellbeing from nature

Jan 1, 2025 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

So the Christmas season is over again, and now what to look forward to? I remember as a child that on Boxing Day the TV adverts were all about summer holidays, as if we wanted to leap over thinking about the intervening months. What about winter – January and February? Is it all just cold, grey skies and mud? Must we really hibernate gloomily indoors till the March daffodils emerge, or does winter have its own charms to enjoy?
Lowestoft MP petitions government to outlaw pimping websites

Dec 10, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

The United Nations is currently running a campaign called 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. On 29 November, the fifth day, Lowestoft MP Jess Asato formally presented a in the Commons on behalf of her constituents. It asks the Government to outlaw pimping websites and paying for sex. Tonia Antoniazzi MP and Sharon Hodgson MP presented the same petition on the second and third day, and others will do so daily until 10 December, the last of the 16 Days.
Controversial new plan for huge industrial estate near Stansted airport

Nov 27, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes |Matthew Critchell

Plans have been submitted for a proposed industrial development on land north of the village of Takeley, just two miles southeast of Stansted Airport. Residents, heritage, and nature organisations are demanding that the council fully assess the development’s environmental impact. Pigeon (Takeley) Ltd has submitted initial plans for the proposed development with light industrial units, strategic warehousing and distribution uses on land north of Taylors Farm, The Street, Takeley in Essex.
The truth about an archaic tradition Labour wants to abolish

Nov 14, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

The Labour government has announced plans to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords, fulfilling a manifesto commitment. The proposed legislation aims to abolish the right of hereditary peers to sit in the upper chamber, a move they believe will bring the upper house into the 21st century.
Looming crisis for councils in funding special needs plans

Oct 29, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

Children can experience a range of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) which affect their school learning. These can include communication difficulties (like autism), emotional and behavioural concerns, cognitive issues (dyslexia, dyscalculia), sensory impairment (sight or hearing), and physical disabilities. They need extra support or a tailored curriculum to succeed, but their parents are being fobbed off by local authorities when they try to access it.
Floods and wildfires show the best of EU cooperation

Sep 20, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes |Peter Thurlow

This week we have heard of the dreadful flooding in central Europe, but we may have missed news of the wildfires raging in the central area of northern Portugal. Over 5,000 firefighters are fighting more than 100 wildfires. After weeks of hot, windy weather, they take hold easily in the hilly terrain. Tragically, seven people, including four firefighters, have died. Over 200,000 residents are in danger. The smoke carries far, making the air acrid to breathe.
New LibDem MP wants ‘winds of change’ from new government

Sep 15, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

It was awarded city status in 2012. A new John Lewis and Everyman Cinema arrived in 2016, a new sports centre in 2019, then a revamp for Chelmsford Theatre. Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) opened a new School of Medicine in 2018. There’s much new house-building, including a huge development at Beaulieu Park, served by the first new railway station on Great Eastern Main Line for over a century. It has issues, but it’s a place that, in general, is positive and forward-looking for its 180,000 residents.
The River Colne: where nature, history and modern life collide

Sep 12, 2024 | eastangliabylines.co.uk | Jenny Rhodes

So, shall we follow the river from the source to the mouth, like a molecule of water coursing towards the sea; or from the estuary inland, like a Viking invader sailing as far as was possible? (A thousand years ago the Essex coast was plagued by Danish Viking raids.) Let’s be the molecule, and look around as we drift downstream through history. In the gentle, green landscape of Essex, tributaries rise and join to form the Colne.