Environment Agency drones are being deployed more aggressively against organised fly-tipping, with a 33-strong pilot squad logging 272 flight hours since July and preparing to carry light detection and ranging (LiDAR) payloads for high-resolution volumetric mapping of illegal waste sites. Moving LiDAR from manned aircraft to UAVs is intended to give prosecutors precise 3D evidence of waste locations and extents, while a new screening tool cross-checks lorry licence applications against waste permit records to flag suspect operators. Enforcement capacity has been boosted with the joint waste crime unit expanded from 13 to 20 staff, supporting 751 illegal sites shut and 221 prosecutions since March 2025 under a £15.6m enforcement budget.

An ultrasonic acoustic fish deterrent designed for EDF’s Hinkley Point C cooling water intakes has proved “highly effective” in Swansea University trials, significantly reducing fish approach rates to the intake zone. The system uses targeted sound frequencies to steer multiple species away from the intake channel, aiming to meet Environment Agency requirements on impingement and entrainment without major changes to the intake structure. Trial results may remove the need for a large compensatory saltmarsh scheme on the Severn Estuary, easing local planning and coastal engineering constraints.

Britain is being urged to treat deep and shallow geothermal as a mainstream heat source, with a new national roadmap arguing that the country’s substantial but underused subsurface resource could displace a significant share of gas‑fired heating. The plan points to proven concepts such as mine‑water geothermal in former coalfields and district heating from deep sedimentary aquifers, which can be integrated with existing heat networks and large heat pumps. For civil and geotechnical engineers, this signals growing demand for high‑temperature boreholes, well integrity design and long‑term monitoring of thermal–hydraulic behaviour in urban ground.