Althia Barnett

Planting for The National Trust’s Ring of Blossoms Project has been taking place in Birmingham during the second half of January. This initiative sees the National Trust working with schools, residents, and community groups to create beauty and bring blossoms back to the city. Birmingham was known as a town ringed with blossom, but since the 1900s it has lost around 157 hectares of its orchards. The National Trust has revealed plans to bring back blossom trees by planting 500 trees across the city.

The Financial Services and Markets Bill (FSM) is a landmark piece of UK government legislation that will significantly changes how our country regulates its financial services industry. In particular, the Bill is designed to implement the Future Regulatory Framework (FRF), which is the UK government's answer to the question of what the UK’s post-Brexit financial industry will look like once it is fully decoupled from the European Union (EU) and its laws.

People in the UK are giving far less of their time and money to good causes than they did a few years ago, according to data from both the Charities Aid Foundation and the Office for National Statistics. Fewer donations and volunteers is bad news for charities, community organisations and other groups that rely on these resources. It is also bad news for the people such groups help, whose numbers have been increasing recently due to things such as the cost of living crisis. What can be done?