Conservatives at Essex County Council have rejected a call to increase recycling targets across Essex. At a meeting of the council today (17 July), the Liberal Democrats group proposed that the council sets ambitious and firm recycling targets which the Conservatives voted against.
Radical tax plans that will take the basic rate of income tax to its lowest level since 1916 have been unveiled by the Liberal Democrats.
Leicester has been named as the city that will host the next Special Olympics National Summer Games in 2009.
A Lancashire charity which has been providing support for people with profound disabilities for more than 50 years is facing closure. Preston and District Scope runs a centre on Eldon Street and also supports families across the region. About 200 families receive support from the charity in the form of classes, activities and advice. Those who run the centre say people assume they receive cash from the Scope national charity which is not the case.
A County Durham sex case has prompted a High Court judge to question whether mentally disabled people should be prosecuted in the criminal courts. Lord Justice Hughes made the comment while hearing an appeal centred on a 13-year-old boy accused of groping another disabled teenager.
A 28-year-old Teesside man has been awarded £1m in damages after a hospital blunder left him disabled. Anthony Louca was born premature in Middlesbrough in 1979 and was cared for in the town's maternity hospital. He suffered convulsions but was allowed to go home after two weeks. He now has short-term memory loss and cannot work.