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The UK is to encourage the development of driverless cars on its roads, it was announced on Wednesday, with a multimillion-pound research fund and a review into the relevant laws around road safety. The business secretary, Vince Cable, said a £10m fund will be made available for driverless car researchers in the UK, joint funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) and the Department for Transport (DfT). “The excellence of our scientists and engineers has established the UK as pioneers in the development of driverless vehicles through pilot projects,” said Cable. “Today’s announcement will see driverless cars take to our streets in less than six months, putting us at the forefront of this transformational technology and opening up new opportunities for our economy and society.” Fully autonomous and driver-equipped The DfT will also kick off a review process of the laws governing road use, including the Highway Code and the Road Safety Act, ...

Bills are to be reduced by £12 a year on average after new price controls were agreed by five of the six companies that run Britain's electricity network. Ofgem said the cut had been driven by £2.1bn of savings it had secured from the companies' business plans since last year. The regulator's proposals will see the distribution companies spend £17bn to upgrade and maintain Britain's local electricity network. At the same time, the distribution part of the energy bill - which accounts for 8% of an annual dual fuel bill - will be on average £12 a year lower than it is today for the eight-year period between April 2015 and 2023. Last November, Western Power Distribution was the only company to have its prices agreed early after Ofgem judged that its business plan for the eight-year period showed sufficient value for consumers. Ofgem returned five out of the six companies' plans - UK Power Networks, Northern Power Grid, SP Energy Networks, SSE Power D...

Prior to the privatisation of the successor companies of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, the firm employed no new engineer for over 16 years, the Federal Government has said. The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, said this in Abuja at the closing ceremony of the 2014 Youth Summit organised by the Youth Initiative for Leadership and Rural Development. According to him, this flaw and a few other issues led to the abysmal performance of the power sector and contributed to the abandonment of electrical equipment at the ports for several years. Nebo, in a statement issued by his Special Assistant on Media, Kande Daniel, on Tuesday, stated that the present reforms in the sector had given rise to the employment of about 1,000 young engineers. He said the reforms were being religiously implemented with a view to achieving sufficiency in power supply, which would usher in industrialisation and greater economic growth than had already been achieved. On the Federal...

As part of its criteria for mortgage refinancing, the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company has set 20 per cent as the minimum equity contribution by applicants for loans. The Chief Executive Officer, NMRC, Mr. Sonnie Ayere, stated this at the uniform underwriting standards workshop organised by the company in Lagos last week. “Right now, we say 20 per cent for a normal salary worker, and for payment, people have to pay through deduction at source for the public sector and even possibly for the private sector. These are the kind of things we are putting in place as conditions under which we can begin to give out mortgage loans and secure the requisite long-term financing,” he said. According to Ayere, the criteria will be the guidelines that a mortgage lender will have to meet to be eligible for loan, adding that for a property to be eligible for financing, it must have tenure of 20 years. He said, “We are saying it should be around 20 years. To put it better from the da...

The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has threatened to pull down all unapproved structures erected on flight paths. According to the NCAA, the structures, which include telecommunications masts, towers and high-rise buildings, have been built without obtaining the right aviation clearances. The airport regulator, in a statement on Sunday, said it was embarking on the demolition to ensure the safety of all aircraft landing at the various airports in the country. The statement signed by the General Manager, Public Relations, NCAA, Mr. Fan Ndubuoke, said, “Some of these structures have been found to be constituting major obstacles to the approach and descent of the airports for our air carriers. “To prevent any untoward consequences, the regulatory authority has appointed Messrs Noon Mast Ventures Nigerian Limited to commence a nationwide identification of such erections and pull down all such illegal structures within the airport environment and along the flight paths.”...

Network Rail has been fined more than £50m by the regulator for causing trains to run late – with the Treasury pledging to plough some of penalty back into the railways to provide faster Wi-Fi on commuter trains. The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has slapped a £53.1m fine on the track operator, the biggest it has yet levied for missing targets. Last year, almost one in six long-distance trains ran late, nearly twice as many as permitted by the 92% punctuality target. More than one in 10 commuter trains in London and the south-east ran late, where the target was 93% The ORR review of how Network Rail spent its budget over the last five years praised the operator for much of its work, including the upgrading of much of the railway and the closure unsafe level crossings. But the regulator said NR "fell significantly short" in ensuring the punctuality of long-distance trains. Both East Coast and Virgin trains were particularly affected. The ORR said that while ...

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