Future Countryside News Today

Rishi Sunak claims deploying clean technologies will cost households thousands of pounds, as Keir Starmer promises that Labour would invest in renewables to bring down bills

So now, it seems, we know: Tony Blair’s government pursued a hunting ban after an animal rights group bunged the Labour Party a mere £1 million. Lord Mandelson let the fox out of the bag recently, saying that the debate had got “pretty transactional” and that Labour then went “too far” in promising a ban in its manifesto.

Ripping up red tape, building on the green belt and bulldozing the blockers. That is Sir Keir Starmer’s plan for quicker and cheaper infrastructure delivery and more houses.

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, who is worth £345m, had opposed an application to register part of his massive Hertfordshire estate as common so the public could access the grounds.

Hertfordshire council rules area of land on Hatfield House estate – owned by Marquess of Salisbury – is common land

The inaugural Future Countryside conference revealed a rural economy struggling to navigate the seemingly irresolvable tensions and intensifying pressures it now faces

Sir, Alice Thomson makes a powerful case for integrating nature restoration with farming (“Farming today means thinking of tomorrow”, Jun 7). But at the Future Countryside event on Tuesday, nature felt like a footnote. In a speech to hundreds of delegates, Lord Mandelson declared that the narrative

The Labour peer warned the party against stoking culture wars with rural minorities, calling for Labour MPs to ‘bring people together.

Labour peer urges Opposition to make a pitch for countryside vote, but warns it has to challenge perception the left wants to 'pick a fight' with rural communities

Thérèse Coffey, Rory Stewart and Henry Dimbleby are among those set to speak at the Future Countryside conference in Hatfield.