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Summer travel chaos; New homes watchdog; Drive thrus

After a summer of travel disruption for holidaymakers, MPs on the Transport Select Committee grill the industry - and government - over what went wrong.

After a summer of travel disruption for holidaymakers, MPs on the Transport Select Committee are grilling the industry - and Government - over what went wrong. The MPs have a long list to consider - from flight cancellations, to long queues at Dover, to rail strikes and problems on the West coast rail line run by Avanti. What lessons will come out of it?

A new watchdog has been launched to try to prevent shoddy workmanship in the building of new homes. The New Homes Quality Board comes with a new code of practice for housebuilders, a new watchdog to police it, and an Ombudsman with powers to award compensation of up to 拢75,000 in the worst cases. We speak to the head of the new body.

Warrington Borough Council has become the first local authority in the UK to generate all of its own power from renewable sources. The last of three battery and solar farms has been handed over by developers. It means not only should the council have enough green power for all of its buildings, it should also be able to run its electric buses and sell the rest to the electricity grid. The money will go towards paying for things like social care and children's services.

And - the race is on to find sites for more drive-thru restaurants in the UK. First it was burger chains like McDonalds and Burger King, then the coffee shops moved in - and now the rapidly growing drive thru restaurant industry is seeing new players starting to move into the market. There are now more than 2,500 drive thrus in the UK - nowhere near the 200,000 in America....but still bringing in sizeable profits for companies. It's estimated we spent nearly three BILLION pounds in drive-thrus in the UK over the last year. So what's the secret behind their continued success?

PRESENTER: PETER WHITE
PRODUCER: CRAIG HENDERSON

Available now

53 minutes

Broadcast

  • Wed 12 Oct 2022 12:04

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