Breaking Waves: Ocean News

Rachel Cooke traces the long history of the UK’s resorts through nostalgia, deprivation and revival Anyone who has read him will know that the historian Nikolas Pevsner was not a man much given to excessive praise. But even he was inclined to sigh at the sight of the Grand Hotel in Scarborough. In his series of architectural guides, The Buildings of England, he describes the hotel, which was completed in 1867, as wondrous, a “High Victorian gesture of assertion and confidence”. Believing no other building in Britain had as much to say about a certain kind of 19th-century ambition, in his perambulation of the Yorkshire town, he instructed readers on no account to miss the magnificent view of the hotel from the harbour. And it’s true. Stand on the beach below and look up – perhaps while eating a choc ice – and the Grand really does look marvellous: a gigantic confection of towers and balconies that recalls a French chateau. From this vantage point, it isn’t hard to imagine the poet Edith Sitwell drinking cocktails in its ballroom (the Sitwells owned a holiday villa in Scarborough); to picture Winston Churchill, who once stayed in one of its suites, lighting a cigar at the bar. Continue reading...

Water companies have logged five sewage spills a day, every day, for a decade, analysis by the Observer shows Water companies in England and Wales have averaged five serious sewage spills into rivers or seas every day over the past decade, the Observer can reveal. Analysis of Environment Agency data has found that the 10 firms recorded 19,484 category 1-3 pollution incidents between 2013 and 2022, the most recent year recorded, an average of one every four and a half hours. Continue reading...

Communities in the Latrobe Valley – and those in six other locations around Australia – are on a new energy frontline. On Wednesday, the Coalition promised that, if elected to government, a part of the Loy Yang power station would be one of seven sites to host a nuclear reactor. But what do residents think of Peter Dutton's nuclear plan for their area? The Coalition's decision seems to have split opinions Confusion reigns about the Coalition’s nuclear proposal. Here’s how the rhetoric has shifted There is no shortage of Coalition U-turns on nuclear. But this Aukus example might be the most remarkable Continue reading...

Protest features 350 environmental groups demanding more robust action on UK wildlife loss Thousands of people marched through central London to urge political leaders to take more decisive action in tackling the UK’s wildlife crisis. The protest on Saturday culminated in a rally outside Parliament Square with speeches from prominent figures including the naturalists Chris Packham and Steve Backshall, and poetry readings and performances from Billy Bragg and Feargal Sharkey. Continue reading...