How often do tempers flare at parish meetings?

Temper, temper

A Zoom video of a disruptive parish council meeting in Handforth, Cheshire, went viral. It is not the first such incident.

— In December 2014 a fight broke out at a meeting of the allotments committee of Brierfcliffe parish council near Burnley, over a former parish councillor’s claim for a right to graze her sheep on council land.

— In October 2015 police were called to a parish council meeting in Long Melford, Suffolk, after members of the public in attendance became an ‘angry mob’.

— In November, police were called to a meeting at Hindolveston parish council in Norfolk following reports of verbal and physical abuse over a planning application.

New frontiers

How many countries require vaccination ‘passports’?

— The World Health Organisation lists 119 countries and territories which require a certificate of vaccination against yellow fever if arriving from a country where the disease is active.

— 15 countries, including Cameroon and Nigeria, demand the certificates regardless of where travellers have come from.

— Egypt demands that travellers produce a certificate of vaccination for polio. Three other countries demand it from travellers arriving from certain parts of the world.

Snow business

The Met Office said in December that ‘by the end of the century much of the lying snow will have disappeared entirely except over the highest ground’. What were the snowiest and least snowy years in London in the past quarter-century? (Days of lying snow at Heathrow airport)

2010 | 23

2008 | 13

2012 | 8

2009 | 6

2003, 2005, 2013 | 4

2006, 2007 | 3

1999, 2004, 2017, 2018, 2019 | 2

1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2011 | 1

1997, 2002, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020 | 0

Source: weatheronline.co.uk

Levelling up

Retail chains want a reform of business rates to stem competition from online retailers. How much revenue from business rates was collected in England in 2019/20?

Gross rates payable | £30.