Innovation

A new Universal resort near Bedford is due to open in 2031, creating 28,000 jobs and attracting 8.5 million visitors a year.

But more than 40 years ago, a similar vision was announced just outside Corby, Northamptonshire.

Called WonderWorld, the ambitious £346m project promised a British answer to Disney – complete with themed villages, hotels, and rides designed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam. But it never opened.

Here's what was planned, and why it was never built…

Where was WonderWorld?

In 1981, planning permission was granted for WonderWorld to be built on a 1,000-acre site at Priors Hall, about two miles (3km) north-east of Corby.

The land, part of a disused quarry once linked to the town's former steelworks, was identified as the ideal location due to strong local support.

Signs for the theme park feature in Netflix's Toxic Town, and it is mentioned in BBC podcast The Toxic Waste Scandal.

Developers Group Five described the area as the perfect home for the park, citing the "positive attitude displayed by the local and county authorities and the Commission for the New Towns".

The attraction was described as the "equivalent of America's Disneyland", and it was supposed to be an answer to unemployment in Corby following the 1980 closure of the steelworks, which led to 10,000 job losses and left nearly a third of the town out of work.

What would be in WonderWorld?

Modelled on Walt Disney World's Epcot, the attraction was to include 13 themed "villages" built around a central bowl, 700m in diameter.

Six of these were due to open in the summer of 1992, with a projected four million annual visitors and parking for 7,000 vehicles.

Plans included hi-tech rides, educational centres, themed restaurants, a conservation zone and shopping areas.

A brochure promised "a unique resort set in beautifully landscaped surroundings", with an "accent very much on participation".

In 1985, one of the architects, Derek Walker, said: "The basic ingredients [for WonderWorld] are very simple: entertainment at the very highest level. It's participatory and it's incredibly educational.

"[WonderWorld] will offer the best of British design."

Botanist David Bellamy was involved in planning a mock safari while astronomer Sir Patrick Moore was to contribute to an observatory.

The complex would house a covered 10,000-seat stadium for indoor sports, changing rooms, rugby and football pitches, and all-weather tennis courts.

There were also proposals for a family resort with hotels – 2,000 rooms in seven hotels initially, expanding to 6,000 rooms – and an 18-hole golf course with 100 holiday villas.

The park's overall goal was to launch a new leisure industry built around "British heritage, folklore, science, and innovation".

Who was building WonderWorld?

The developer behind WonderWorld was Group Five, a company that pitched the park as "a family affair" offering a broad mix of attractions to suit all ages and interests.

The first phase of construction was estimated to cost £223m, with the full development forecast to hit £346m.

A 39-month construction timeline was set, aiming for an initial opening in 1985.

Why was WonderWorld never finished?

Despite early enthusiasm, WonderWorld's momentum began to stall.

Rising costs, planning delays and difficulty securing long-term funding meant backers pulled out, and so as public investment wavered, the vision began to fade.

All that was ever erected at the site was a large WonderWorld sign and a small wooden cabin.

The land is now home to more than 1,000 houses at Priors Hall Park, and there are plans to build just more than another 5,000 houses.

"It's basically a family tradition, its something I always wanted to do…I was born and bred into the fire service."

Dave Vickress, from Leintwardine, Herefordshire, is not exaggerating – being a firefighter runs in his blood.

The tradition began with his father, Derek, who served for 32 years for Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service from 1952.

Now, Dave, 62, and his two brothers, Graham, 56, and Robert, 60, have tallied up more than 100 years of service between them as on-call firefighters at the same small station in their home village.

On-call firefighters do the role alongside full-time jobs.

Despite the trio being siblings, Dave described the dynamic with everyone at the station as being "like a family".

"I'm in charge of the station, there's 13 of us…including myself and my two brothers," he said.

"It's good, I like being in charge of them; I sometimes wonder whether they wind me up a bit."

Dave joined the service in November 1981 and worked his way up to becoming watch commander at the station, a role he has held for about 20 years.

Despite moving to Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, 11 years ago, Dave still works on-call at Leintwardine during the week, despite a distance of more than 100 miles (161km).

"I come up early on a Monday morning and I go back down either late on a Thursday evening or on a Friday…I stop with my sister, Shirley."

His youngest brother, Graham, is about to complete 25 years of service with the brigade in August.

He joined as a firefighter and is now a crew commander but his day job is as a postman.

Middle brother Robert has been a firefighter for 27 years and is also a carer.

Their father, Derek, was what was called a leading firefighter in his day and previous service rules meant he had to retire at 55.

Dave got to spend about two-and-a-half years working alongside him before then.

"It was good, he put me in my place, I learnt a lot off him," he said.

"I was always the one that got dirty if he was in charge."

Reminiscing, Dave said much had changed over the years – from health and safety to diversity and inclusion.

"Even our fire tunics. When I joined, we had a woollen tunic and plastic leggings and rubber boots…now we have full protective equipment," he added.

With decades of service between them, the brothers have attended some well-known cases in the county.

Dave was present at a huge fire at Bedstone College in 1996 which engulfed the faculty's main building, while Graham attended the 1993 Sun Valley poultry processing factory fire.

"All three of us attended the large fire in Hereford city centre in 2010 too," said Dave.

"Very often we go out to incidents, the three of us are on the same appliance."

Despite the many years of service, Dave is thinking about winding down.

"I'd like to see a couple more years, 65 might be it," he said.

"I owe it to my wife, I've been travelling up and down now for 11 years."

Police say their inquiries are continuing after an item was found almost a month ago near a quarry which has been at the centre of investigations into the murders of a mother and son in the 1970s.

Renee MacRae's car was found on fire in a lay-by near Dalmagarry Quarry, south of Inverness, on 12 November 1976 but there was no sign of her or three-year-old Andrew.

Her lover, William MacDowell, 81, was convicted of their murders in 2022. He died a few months later without revealing where he had disposed of their bodies.

Police Scotland said the item – which the Inverness Courier reported as being a potty and carpet – was found next to the A9 on Thursday 13 March.

A spokesperson said officers' inquiries were continuing.

A probation service in Lincolnshire has been rated inadequate by inspectors.

The East and West Lincolnshire Probation Delivery Unit (PDU) was inspected by HM Inspectorate of Probation in March.

Findings included a "worrying" lack of attention paid to keeping people safe in assessments, and geographical difficulties in covering a large rural area.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said there was currently a "strain" on the probation service, and it planned to boost funding by 45% by 2028.

'Long distances'

The PDU is responsible for managing and supervising people on probation from its main offices in Boston, Grantham, Lincoln, and Skegness.

The report stated there was "insufficient analysis of domestic abuse and safeguarding information" from practitioners.

It said some people on probation were travelling "long distances" to attend appointments, with managers "struggling to maintain sufficient visibility" across the area it covers.

Positive findings included a "supportive teamwork culture" as well as "engaged and motivated" staff.

Recommendations in the report included ensuring effective management oversight was provided and analysing information on domestic abuse and child safeguarding to inform the quality of assessments.

'System in crisis'

Martin Jones, chief inspector of probation, said: "Despite a positive and supportive teamwork culture, we found regional and local governance arrangements to be driving staff and managers to prioritise performance targets over delivering a quality service.

"Unfortunately, the quality of work delivered to manage risk of harm was insufficient, which resulted in an overall rating of inadequate."

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "The government inherited a criminal justice system in crisis, placing significant strain on the probation service.

"That is why we are boosting probation funding by 45%, investing up to £700m more a year by 2028, and are on track to recruit 2,300 more probation officers nationally by March next year."

Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds latest episode of Look North here.

A family of six have been left homeless after a house fire caused by an exploding karaoke machine.

Parents Emma and Jon Logan want to raise awareness of the dangers posed by lithium batteries.

The toy, which was under their 11-year-old daughter's bed in the loft of their Aldridge home, is suspected to have burst into flames after getting too warm during recent hot weather.

The mother and father told the BBC their home insurance policy had not automatically renewed, leaving them with no financial protection.

"It's just devastating and it's the kind of thing you never think it's going to happen to you," said Mrs Logan, 35.

"I mean how do you tell your 11-year-old that everything she has ever owned has been destroyed?

"She's obsessed with rabbits and she had a bunny of her own that she kept in her room which we lost in the fire."

The family are now living with grandparents and other relatives, and need to find £60,000 for a new roof.

The blaze, which broke out while the entire family was at work or school, destroyed the top floor of the home, and meant wedding photos and life momentos were lost.

Mr Logan, a tattoo artist, and Mrs Logan, a special needs classroom assistant, purchased the "forever home" 18 months ago after years of saving.

A fundraising page set up by Mr Logan's sister Deborah had raised just under £8,000 on Monday afternoon, for which the family expressed their appreciation.

In the fundraiser, Deborah described the scene as "utterly devastating" and said the family was "trying to do everything we can to help them recover".

"Jon and Emma have always gone above and beyond for others," she said. "Now they need a bit of kindness in return."

"Our neighbour ran around when he saw the fire and [he] managed to save the dogs who were downstairs," Mrs Logan added.

"I remember seeing on our doorbell footage that loads of people were in front of the house, so popped around to have a look and realised that the fire engine that had passed me was going to my house."

The mother said she wanted other people to be aware of the potential dangers posed by popular toys.

"You have to plug it in to charge it and it plays," she explained.

"We hadn't used it for well over 12 months the batteries were just inside as normal.

"They'd just got that hot that it exploded and caused the fire."

West Midlands Fire Service said lithium ion batteries were commonly used in a variety of household devices and posed minimal risk when handled correctly.

But they warned people to be alert to changes that could indicate a problem.

They said this could include unusual odours, changes in colour, shape or size, excessive heat, leaking or strange noises.

When wedding dress designer Catherine Deane saw her company's Instagram account get hacked, she says it was "devastating".

"It felt like the rug had been pulled from under us. Instagram is our primary social platform, and we've invested the most amount of time and business resources into it.

"To keep the account current we post content every day. Suddenly all this work… it was just pulled."

Ms Deane's UK-based business, which is named after her, sells wedding dresses online, with her biggest market being the US.

On Instagram it now has 59,000 followers, but a few years ago the firm lost control of the account after a member of its social media team received a message suggesting that the business had been selected to get blue-badge verification from Instagram, which is owned by Facebook's Meta.

This was the stamp of authenticity that Ms Deane had long sought. "We were obviously very excited about that," she says.

So her employee opened a link to what turned out to be a fake Instagram verification form that requested log-in credentials. She filled it in, divulging the username and password, and shortly afterwards the account was taken over by hackers.

What added to Ms Deane's anguish was that she says she had to fight with Meta to get her account back, which took four months.

Initially she filled out the admin dispute form and sent it off, but heard nothing. Multiple emails followed but no action was taken.

"It's so incredibly frustrating when you're dealing with your account being hacked and there is no-one to talk to," she says. "It's almost traumatising because there is no-one who understands and can help escalate it."

Eventually an email came from Meta, telling her that the case was closed, even though she was still unable to access her page.

In the end the matter was finally resolved for Ms Deane because someone in the firm had a contact at Facebook, and the team emailed that person daily for the four months.

"Finally, I think they just needed to get us off their backs and they reinstated the account," says Ms Deane.

According to Jonas Borchgrevink, boss of US-based cyber security firm Hacked.com, Ms Deane is far from a unique case among people with business accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

"I would say that it is a massive problem," says Mr Borchgrevink. "There are probably thousands every day that are losing their business pages."

His company helps firms recover their Instagram and Facebook accounts, and he gets "10 to 15 clients per week". "But those are just the ones that know about us and are able to pay the price, because these cases can take up to six months to sort."

The BBC asked Meta to provide some numbers that would reveal the extent of the problem, and how it was tackling it, but it declined.

However, it said in a statement, that "we take the safety and security of our community seriously and encourage everyone to create a strong password, enable two factor authentication and to be suspicious of emails or messages asking for personal details.

"We also have a feature called Security Check-up to help people keep their Instagram and Facebook accounts secure."

Hackers want to take over business social media accounts for a number of reasons. These including using the pages to sell fake products or place scam adverts, harvesting personal information, spreading malware, tricking people into sending money, or blackmailing the company in question to unblock the account.

The final thing in that list happened last year to David Davila, who is part of the marketing team at Quantum Windows & Doors, a small, family-run business based in Washington state in the US.

He got locked out of the firm's social Facebook account when he responded to what turned out to be a fake message purporting to be from Meta.

Because his phone number was linked to the account, that also fell into the hands of the scammers and, soon after the lock-out, he got a WhatsApp message demanding $1,200 (£900) to unlock the account.

Unable to find a helpline, he searched on Google, but the number he rang put him through to more scammers. That link has since been removed by Google.

Thankfully, Mr Davila was able to get the Facebook account unlocked a few days later.

Mr Borchgrevink believes that Meta is overwhelmed by the scale of the problem.

"It has implemented different security measures over the years and yet we still receive the same amount of clients, so I don't think there's been a lot of change there," he says.

In fact, with scammers now utilising AI to make their messages seem even more believable, Mr Borchgrevink thinks the situation could get a lot worse.

He tells the BBC that scammers are behind many of these lock-outs and one of their preferred methods of fooling people is to masquerade as customer support agents.

"They pretend to be Meta Support and send the business an email saying that they have infringed some kind of copyright or broken terms and conditions in some way, and that they need to verify themselves.

"The messages have the Facebook logo and are very believable. But when you start to verify your business page, they ask for the password and redirect you to a fake Meta site to steal log-ins."

He said that the fraudsters often target a personal Facebook page first, because all business accounts need to be linked to one.

"Your personal account will also have admin rights to your business account. The scammers go into your business account and transfer the admin rights to their own or to fake profiles.

"Then they go back to your personal account and disable it by posting inappropriate content like terror-related or pornography-related. That disables your account and makes it really hard to recover either that or your business account."

The BBC has also learned of businesses losing access to their Facebook and Instagram accounts despite them not being hacked.

One small business which is part of franchise, told the BBC that they lost access to their account when another franchisee gained a blue-tick verification. As a result of that their account was flagged as a clone.

Meanwhile, others, such as digital marketer Chetha Senadeera, say that Meta has wrongly closed business accounts.

Last autumn he realised that a Facebook page he managed for a mobile bank had gone missing. "It had just disappeared," he says.

"There was no notification to me or any of the team members. It was just gone. It was like it had been kidnapped, almost."

The page was a crucial gateway to customers across Europe for Lithuania bank MyTU.

Mr Senadeera says that the customer support agents he spoke to at Meta, Facebook's owner, were baffled. He says they told him that they could see the page, but that it had been restricted, and that they couldn't unblock it.

Six months later, and the page remains locked.

Meta tells the BBC that the page had been removed for violating its scams policies, via a link on the page that was flagged by its systems as potentially harmful.

Mr Senadeera disputes that the firm has ever posted any harmful or misleading content. He says that Meta needs to do more, and move more quickly, to help firms get their Facebook and Instagram pages back, whether they have been a victim of fraud or not.