Selby MP John Grogan will don a hard hat this Friday when he oversees the start of a major Environment Agency project to lessen the flood risk to Selby and surrounding villages.

The area suffered flooding from the River Ouse in autumn 2000 when some lower sections of existing flood defences were overtopped, inundating residential and industrial properties.
Emergency work was carried out following this flood and this week Environment Agency contractors will begin to make that work permanent.
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The fascinating relationships between woods and the animals that live in them are explored in a new Forestry Commission publication.
Managing Woodlands and their Mammals draws together the expertise shared during one of Britain's most successful ever gatherings of woodland and mammals experts.
Squirrel management, dormouse conservation, woodland stock grazing and species reintroductions were among the topical subjects under the spotlight at the event, which was jointly organised by the Forestry Commission and the Mammal Society.

Wildlife will need significant government help to adapt to climate change, and the vital habitat creation required will actually support our efforts to mitigate the effects, a major new report from RSPB Scotland reveals today. Such action must be made a legal reuqirement of the Scottish Climate Change Bill, and funds should be ring-fenced to back these guarantees.

Schoolchildren are swapping the classroom for the forest in an exciting new project designed to make them think more deeply about the world we live in. Led by Cumbria Development Education Centre (CDEC) in partnership with the Forestry Commission, the Exploring Values activity sessions will be launched in Grizedale Forest on Wednesday 23 March.Pupils, aged between 11 and 14, will take part in the innovative programme that includes a series of both physical and mental challenges.

On July 12 celebrity gardener, television personality and conservationist Alan Titchmarsh opened a new Butterfly Conservation nature reserve at Alners Gorse in the Blackmore Vale.
Alners Gorse, approximately half way between Blandford Forum and Sherborne, is home to several beautiful and rare butterflies and moths. It is a remnant of the wet grasslands that once prevailed on the extensive commons of the Blackmore Vale. Along with nearby Lydlinch and Deadmoor Commons, it shows us what the landscape used to be like.