Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) police officers based at Hunterston launch Project Servator today (18/2), an innovative and collaborative community approach to policing.

Project Servator has been running at Sellafield and other CNC sites since 2016 and has now rolled out across the Hunterston Operational Policing Unit.

Project Servator sees see highly visible yet unpredictable deployments of specially trained officers around the Hunterston site and the surrounding local community. The operational deployments involve officers working together with our communities to report suspicious activity. These officers are deployed to deter, help detect, and provide reassurance and confidence to members of the public.

The tactics used as part of Project Servator are not new and are used regularly by the City of London Police, British Transport Police and several Home Office police forces. They have been developed to enhance the effectiveness of our resources and not as a response to any change in threat.

Supt Tony Cole, who is the CNC lead for the implementation of Project Servator, said: “These tactics are not new but allow us to have a focus on community engagement. This is not restricted to the Hunterston site but also to the surrounding areas. We are aware of the vast amount of information members of our community have and they are aware of what is out of the ordinary. All we ask is that they report any suspicions to us.

“The deployments will be unpredictable and on occasion may be highly visible or more covert on another. The aim is to work with our local communities to deter any hostile threat.

“Remember, Trust your instinct and report any suspicious activity directly to the CNC by calling 01847 811229.”

The CNC is the armed police force in charge of protecting civil nuclear sites and nuclear materials in England, Scotland and Wales. We employ over 1,500 highly trained police officers and police staff across the UK. Counter terrorism is a major part of our policing.

The CNC have launched their own twitter page, so keep up-to-date with recruitment information, Servator deployments or anything CNC follow us @nuclearpolice or on Facebook

Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns met representatives from Hitachi at its headquarters in Tokyo earlier today to discuss the future of the Wylfa site in north Wales.

It follows the announcement that Hitachi has suspended plans to build the new multi-billion pound Wylfa Newydd power station on Anglesey.

The meeting forms a key part of Secretary Cairns’ visit to Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto and Osaka where he’ll meet with Japanese businesses who have significant investments in Wales. During the visit, he will set out the UK Government’s commitment to supporting Japanese investment in Wales and the opportunities ahead as we prepare to leave the EU.

Following the meeting, Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns said:

I am grateful to Hitachi for the constructive meeting today to discuss options for their future plans in Wales. “While I fully recognise their decision was a disappointment to people on Anglesey and across north Wales, the UK Government remains committed to developing a broad-based, resilient economy. We believe that nuclear has an important role to play in the UK’s future energy mix as we transition to a low-carbon economy, but any future offer must represent good value for both the taxpayer and the consumer.

I look forward to future discussions on Wylfa’s new nuclear future and will continue to push for greater investment and additional job creation across north Wales.

Published 18 February 2019

The Countryside Stewardship (CS) scheme opened today (18 February) for farmers, foresters and land managers to request 2019 application packs.

These agreements provide a viable, long-term source of income to those who deliver environmental benefits on their land – including habitats for wildlife, pollinator plots and increased biodiversity. Improvements have been introduced this year to make the scheme easier to apply for.

Farmers and land managers who are new to taking on environmental work or with expired or expiring Environmental Stewardship agreements can apply for:

• Mid Tier – Farmers and land managers can choose from all available multi-year options and capital items to form an agreement which delivers local environmental benefits. Application packs can be downloaded through the online Rural Payments Service, or you can request to receive an application pack in the post by contacting Rural Payments Agency (RPA) by 31 May 2019.
• Higher Tier – Applicants managing more complex land in environmentally significant sites, commons or woodlands which requires support from Natural England or the Forestry Commission. Check if you are eligible to apply by contacting RPA by 31 March 2019 to receive an application pack.
• Wildlife Offers – Designed to help guide farmers to the most straightforward options for their farm type, making it easier and simpler to secure a CS agreement. Offers are split into different packages for farm types: arable, lowland grazing, upland, and mixed farming. These applications are the easiest to complete, and can be done online via the Rural Payments Service. Applicants can also request to receive an application pack in the post by contacting RPA by 31 May 2019.
• Hedgerows and Boundaries – Provides grants for farmers to restore existing farm boundaries and hedgerows on their land. Applications for a Hedgerows and Boundaries Grant can be completed on the Rural Payments Service. Applicants can also request to receive an application pack in the post by contacting RPA by 31 May 2019.

The introduction of the Agriculture Bill in September 2018 signalled a step-change in how farmers will be paid once we leave the EU. Funding for environmental benefits and public goods will be at the front and centre of our future policy, meaning those who get into CS agreements now will be well-placed to benefit from the future scheme.

The new Environmental Land Management (ELM) system is due to be introduced 2024/2025. This will follow three years of piloting the new system nationally.

Farming Minister George Eustice said:

We have taken steps to simplify the Countryside Stewardship scheme to make it easier to access. As we start to move future farming policy towards schemes that deliver sustainable food production, entering a Countryside Stewardship agreement can be an important first step and all agreements are guaranteed for their full lifetime.

Improvements to CS in 2019 include a simplified guidance handbook, and applicants can also apply for all of the wildlife offers online this year. CS agreements are flexible – applicants can choose which parts of the land go into an agreement, freeing up other fields or assets for different priorities.

The manuals are available online with guidance on the options available and how to apply. RPA will schedule events and workshops throughout the application window where prospective applicants can ask questions about how they can establish CS options such as beetle banks as part of their agreement. Farmers and land managers can also get help from local Catchment Sensitive Farming officers if they’re based in a High Water Quality Priority area.

A project designed to test equipment used within the amateur astronomer community to track space debris saw Defence scientists harnessing the talents of a local astronomy society.

Launched at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), Project Argus brought Basingstoke Astronomical Society (BAS) members together with Dstl’s Space Programme to test readily-available astronomical equipment’s ability to see, catalogue and study space debris.

As the satellite population has grown, so has the risk of collisions involving communication, navigation or remote sensing satellites. Dstl has been working with the RemoveDebris consortium (part funded by the European Commission) to explore space debris disposal technologies using a special demonstrator satellite. The citizen science project observed several satellites including RemoveDebris.

A critical technical challenge of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is the provision of accurately-timed satellite observations from geographically distributed sensor sites – without this, precise orbit determination is impossible. Commercially available software was found to be deficient and so the BAS team created their own techniques using a novel mix of hardware and software developed within the group. To enable the efficient processing of large quantities of BAS data, Dstl scientists developed automated image processing tools and in-house orbit estimation software. These developments will be exploited at our new research telescope facility “Holmes”, planned for construction at Portsdown West.

Mike O’Callaghan, Space programme manager from Dstl, said:

It’s been a fantastic example of harnessing the expertise of talented and committed individuals to real effect. We have all enjoyed working with Basingstoke Astronomical Society on Project Argus – they went above and beyond our expectations, I was amazed at how much they achieved following their recent visit to Dstl!

This productive partnership was key to bringing large volumes of data in and led to decisions which have advanced our programme.

Trevor Gainey, Chair of Basingstoke Astronomical Society, said:

When our Secretary Alan Lorrain invited Dstl to talk to us last February having seen an article in the Salisbury local press, we had no idea this would turn out to be the start of such an involved and enjoyable project. Our members have all been enthusiastic about addressing and solving some really interesting observing problems and working with Dstl staff to enable better knowledge of space debris.

The Argus experiment highlighted key considerations for future UK operational SSA systems, including identifying the capabilities and limitations of commercially available optical equipment to observe satellites. This will feed into advice provided by Dstl into national SSA enhancement programmes across both the military and civilian domains.

Visit the Basingstoke Astronomical Society website

The life-cycle of the eel has been a mystery since at least the 4th century BC when even Aristotle pondered the question of where they came from.

Prehistoric and snakelike in appearance, the European Eel (Anguilla anguilla) is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species. Where eels spawn is still unknown, unravelling this mystery will be crucial to further understanding of the biology of the species and to protect spawning areas.

Now researchers – led by the Environment Agency together with the University of the Azores, ZSL (Zoological Society of London), Defra, Cefas, the University of Hull and DTU-Aqua – took a big step towards solving the mystery when they located European eel populations on the Azores Islands, close to the last known point on the eel migration route tracked by previous projects.

Three eels large enough to carry satellite tags were captured in a small river on the island of San Miguel following an intensive netting program conducted from October to December 2018.

In December 2018 the eels were fitted with satellite tags and released from a sandy beach into the Atlantic Ocean to begin their epic migration.

The tags are programmed to detach after 8 months so the eels have until around July 2019 to get to the Sargasso Sea before the tags detach, float to the surface and send their data to the researchers via satellite.

Environment Agency project lead and researcher Ros Wright said:

The European Eel is critically endangered so it is important that we solve the mystery surrounding their complete life-cycle to support efforts to protect the spawning area of this mysterious species.

Migrating eels are driven to travel vast distances by an innate desire to spawn. We hope that at least one of these three satellite tagged eels will become a superhero to the species by completing the migration lifecycle giving agencies and conservationists around the world the clues needed to protect this iconic species.

This is the first time we’ve been able to capture eels in the Azores and also ones that are large enough to carry satellite tracking tags so everything recorded since the eels started their journey will reveal information about eel migration that has never been known before.

There is evidence that the eels migrate around 6000 kilometres from Europe and Mediterranean countries across the Atlantic Ocean to spawn and die somewhere in the Sargasso Sea, a vast area of the Atlantic off the east coast of the United States and north of the Caribbean. The actual location of the breeding area has never been identified and spawning eels have never been seen.

At a local level the Environment Agency has installed eel and fish passes at man-made structures that can impede the movement of eels along our waterways as well as requiring screens to be added to abstraction intakes to protect eels and other species.