But it warns them not to delay in bringing in restrictions on customers if the drought continues.. Police raided the historic National Sporting Club run by Bob Willis, the former England cricketer, yesterday as part of an investigation into alleged illegal ticket sales for this year’s European football championships and the FA Cup final. Seventeen people were arrested in raids on 11 companies in London, which police suspect have been offering unauthorised tickets for either Euro ‘96, which takes place in England in June, or the Cup Final in 10 days’ time.
Although no tickets were found during the raids detectives believe that some companies specialising in lucrative hospitality deals may have been planning to use stolen tickets or obtain supplies from foreign Euro ‘96 allocations.But David Willis, a director of the National Sporting Club and brother of the former England fast bowler, last night denied any wrongdoing and said that the club believed that it had been authorised to sell tickets for Euro ‘96.”As far as we are concerned everything we have done from the word go has been completely legal and therefore we were completely astonished to get a visit from the constabulary this morning,” said Mr Willis, who took over the club with his brother five years ago.”We applied for tickets for Euro ‘96 on official forms about seven months ago. But it warns farmers in East Anglia that there are likely to be restrictions on spray irrigation of crops.However, it says the water companies have learnt from last year’s drought, and praises them for spending hundreds of millions of pounds to boost their supplies and distribution networks over the winter. The report does not anticipate any rota cuts, standpipes or tankering operations. Since February last year, only September, December and February have had above average. November had exactly the mean and every other month was well under.If there is another hot, dry summer, then half the country is likely to be put under hosepipe or non-essential use bans, says the agency, which protects the natural water resources of England and Wales.Furthermore, a dozen water companies are expected to seek permission to take extra water from rivers and boreholes.Even with average summer rainfall this year, five companies – Yorkshire, North West, South West, Southern and South East – are planning to extend existing drought measures or take additional action.

Much of England has suffered five months of below average rainfall over the past year, a drought report from the Government’s new Environment Agency warns today. Serious shortfalls in reservoirs and underground rock aquifers have resulted, but the problems were made worse by bitterly cold winter weather, says the report sent to John Gummer, the Secretary of State for the Environment.
Freezing conditions led to a spate of burst pipes, which meant that across most of the country more water had to be put into the mains than during the previous winter, further stretching the impoverished supplies.This April had just over 70 per cent of the long-term average rainfall for the month in England and Wales. No money has been earmarked for any of the plans.Announcing the strategy, Steven Norris, the minister for transport in London, said that people needed to be encouraged onto public transport. “Fare rises will be substantially lower than in recent years when they have tended to be 2 or 3 per cent above the rate of inflation,” he said. However, he did not commit himself on precise levels.Peter Ford, chairman of London Transport, welcomed the document but said that catching up the backlog of investment by 2008 “was too slow”.Glenda Jackson, Labour’s spokeswoman on transport in London, said that the strategy was at odds with the cuts being imposed on investment on London Transport “Actions speak larger than glossy documents.”. The document, the first attempt by the Government since the Tories came to power in 1979 to set out a plan for London’s transport needs, rejects the need for a overall transport authority for the capital but promises an “integrated transport strategy”.
The strategy contains few new plans apart from the three river crossings for which no timetable is set out. These will be a tunnel or a bridge at Blackwall to relieve the congestion on the existing twin tunnels; a rail tunnel connecting the North London and North Kent lines, allowing development of an outer circle rail route; and a road/rail crossing between Beckton in East London and Thamesmead.

Three new river crossings, lower Tube fare rises and a commitment to clear the backlog of investment on the London Underground by 2008 are the main pledges in transport strategy for London published yesterday. In exchange, his EU colleagues were prepared to offer only the carefully worded assurance that this “forms part of a process which should allow the export ban to be progressively lifted on a step- by-step basis”.Diplomats said the statement reflected the concern among other member states that Mr Hogg should be given a face-saving formula to allow him to sell the need for more radical slaughter plans to British farmers and Euro-sceptics.. They advised that a 50 per cent to 60 per cent target should be reached. They also expressed serious doubts about how identifying and tracing back suspect animals and herds – the foundation of Mr Hogg’s plan – would be implemented in the absence of complete data on animal movements.Mr Hogg was last night edging towards acceptance of a draft deal which inevitably means he must return to the drawing board, to come up with a more extensive and watertight plan entailing the slaughter of perhaps thousands more animals. Instead they turn out embittered, hardened individuals who are far more likely to re-offend.”.

EU agriculture ministers last night rejected Britain’s demand for a timetable for the lifting of the ban on British beef exports and attacked the Government’s new selective slaughter plans as inadequate. Demanding more radical steps, ministers said the latest British plans to target 42 000 high-risk animals, although a step in the right direction, would produce an insufficient decline in BSE cases to reassure public opinion.
Veterinary experts, called in to provide an initial assessment yesterday said the 15 per cent to 30 per cent decline in cases forecast by Britain was not enough. Crown Courts are sending 20 per cent more people to jail than three years ago.John Major told the Commons that although monthly figures were volatile “there is no doubt that crime fell in the last two months of 1995″.However, compared with the year before, the figures had risen and Jack Straw, Labour’s home affairs spokesman, said the figures “seriously undermine” Mr Howard’s claim to be turning the tide on crime. “Both he and the Prime Minister have dined out on recent minor falls in the recorded figures, yet crime rose in the last six months of last year and the trend appears to be continuing into 1996.”Paul Cavadino, chair of the Penal Affairs Consortium, said: “In just three years the Home Secretary’s penal policies have shattered the rational approach of his predecessors and have shifted the emphasis towards toughness for its own sake rather than effective justice Overcrowded and overstretched prisons do not work. The prison population now stands at 54,178 – far higher than civil servants were predicting and at a rate far outpacing the prison building programme. The memorandum said that for the past six months crime has been rising despite the fact the courts have been sending people to jail in record numbers.