Loss of shops is threatening rural communities | Letter

Without shops, fuel supplies and post offices with banking facilities, will remote communities face further depopulation? The closure of the shop in Kilchoan follows a number of other closures of similar local assets in Lochaber and Argyll (‘Morrisons killed us’: Britain’s most westerly mainland village shop closes after half a century, 30 October). But is it a policy failure or just a case of market forces?Nearly 50 years ago, a government-funded scheme offered a lifeline to communities that were keen to save key assets. A programme was initiated by the Highlands and Islands Development Board in 1977 as a way of supporting community-led development. It offered to match local financial contributions and provide practical support through an outreach team, of which I was a member. Tested in the Western Isles, by 1979 it was expanded to the rest of the Highlands and islands

Why Labour lacks credibility when it comes to housing | Letters

Phil Tate (Letters, 30 October) calls for the ramping up of the supply of social housing to reduce the housing benefit bill. Housing benefit represents a constant leakage of public finances into the pockets of private landlords, and the UK carries approximately double the burden of the EU average as a proportion of GDP. Such an appeal is doomed to failure unless there is a cessation of right to buy, which, as Andy Burnham has neatly put it, presents local authorities with an impossible task comparable with trying to fill a bath without a plug.An illustration of this no-win situation is the social-housing development Goldsmith Street, Norwich, which was built by the city council in 2019 and won the RIBA Stirling prize for architecture the same year. This scheme created a carefully designed community of ultra-low-energy Passivhaus homes

Young people in the UK: share your experiences of living in a coastal town

The Guardian is launching a year-long reporting series, Against The Tide, that will put young people at the forefront. For the past six months, along with documentary photographer Polly Braden, we have been travelling to port towns and seaside resorts around England to discover how younger people feel about the places they live and what changes would enable them to build the futures they want. We will continue our reporting over the next 12 months.Are you aged between 18-25 and live in a coastal town around England? If so, what’s it like living there? What are the bonuses and also the challenges? How do seasons affect your experience? If you’re a parent or work with young people, please get in touch.And if you live in a coastal area around other parts of the UK, we’d like to hear from you too

Mistakenly released prisoner Billy Smith turns himself in

A fraudster mistakenly released from prison this week has handed himself back in as a hunt continues for a convicted sex offender who was also accidentally freed.While David Lammy, the justice secretary, insisted the government would clampdown on clerical errors, William Smith was filmed waving to cameras and hugging his partner before he walked back into HMP Wandsworth, in south-west London.Smith, 35, usually known as Billy, had been sentenced to 45 months for multiple fraud offences at Croydon crown court on Monday, but was then released in error by the prison.A clerical mistake by the court led to the prison being told it was a suspended sentence, which meant he no longer had to be detained. The court corrected the error but HMP Wandsworth was not informed

Overcrowding, understaffing and old IT: chaotic context to prison release errors

If anyone was surprised at the idea that a single prison could accidentally release two people within a matter of days, then a brief glimpse at an inspection report for HMP Wandsworth from last year would quickly explain things.Despite a high-profile escape from the south London jail only months earlier, conditions were so chaotic at the time of the inspection that most staff could not reliably say where all prisoners were during the day, Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, reported with obvious near disbelief.“There was no reliable roll that could assure leaders that all prisoners were accounted for,” he wrote. After the escape of the spying suspect Daniel Khalife, who strapped himself to the underside of a delivery van, “it was unfathomable that leaders had not focused their attention on this area”, he said.As ever with the Prison Service, there is considerable context to this

Woman with stage 4 cancer has welfare benefit stopped after falling ill abroad

A woman with stage 4 colon cancer has had her universal credit payments stopped and is at risk of losing her home after she fell ill while visiting family abroad to tell them about her diagnosis.Ana Paula Cabral, 65, who moved to the UK from Portugal eight years ago, started receiving universal credit (UC) in July as she was unable to work after her cancer diagnosis, which required extensive chemotherapy.Her payments were abruptly stopped in September after she fell seriously ill while in Portugal, with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) saying she was no longer eligible as she had been out of the country for more than a month.With a significantly reduced income, Cabral said she feared she would lose her London home as she was unable to pay her rent and bills, which may mean she is forced to give up her job at a nearby homewares shop.“I’m supposed to pay the rent and all my bills but I am not going to be able to pay