News

Aldi has announced plans to open 40 new stores across the UK in 2026 as part of a £370 million investment programme aimed at expanding access to low-cost groceries. The German-owned supermarket said new locations will include Southam in Warwickshire, Hastings in East Sussex and Amersham in Buckinghamshire, as it targets communities where it currently has no presence. Giles Hurley, chief executive of Aldi UK and Ireland, said the retailer had identified clear gaps in...

The National Wealth Fund has set out plans to sharply accelerate investment, committing up to £5 billion a year of public money into clean energy, industrial transformation and strategic infrastructure as part of a more focused growth strategy. Under the new approach, the fund will prioritise ten sectors, with clean energy at the core. These include energy storage, electricity networks, nuclear power, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage, alongside ports, green steel manufacturing, transport infrastructure,...

UPS has announced plans to cut up to 30,000 jobs this year as it continues to reduce deliveries for its largest customer, Amazon, which the parcel giant says have been weighing heavily on profitability. The world’s largest package delivery firm said the job reductions would be achieved primarily through voluntary buyout offers to full-time drivers and by not replacing staff who leave the business. The move forms part of a broader turnaround strategy aimed at...

YouTube has been criticised by broadcasters and advertisers after withdrawing from the UK’s main television audience measurement system, just months after agreeing to be measured alongside traditional TV channels and rival streaming platforms. The move follows legal action by YouTube’s owner, Google, which sent cease-and-desist letters to Barb and its research partner Kantar Media, blocking access to data used to attribute viewing sessions to individual content creators. The decision came after Barb began including viewing...

Royal Mail has come under renewed fire after research found it failed to deliver Christmas letters and cards on time to around 16 million people, the worst festive performance in five years outside periods of strike action. The findings, published by Citizens Advice, suggest the number of people affected by delays over Christmas 2025 was 50 per cent higher than in 2024, highlighting what campaigners describe as a persistent deterioration in postal services. Anne Pardoe,...

The struggling British fashion brand LK Bennett has been bought out of administration by US restructuring specialist Gordon Brothers, raising the prospect that its remaining nine UK shops could close with the loss of around 380 jobs. Gordon Brothers, which acquired Poundland for £1 last year, confirmed it has purchased LK Bennett’s global brand and intellectual property assets for an undisclosed sum after the retailer collapsed for the second time in six years. The Boston-based...

More than 3,400 jobs and billions of pounds of private investment are set to flow into Lanarkshire after the UK government named the region as Scotland’s first AI Growth Zone, a flagship initiative under its Modern Industrial Strategy. The Lanarkshire AI Growth Zone, announced on 29 January, will be delivered by Scottish data centre operator DataVita at its Airdrie site, in partnership with AI cloud specialist CoreWeave. The project is expected to generate more than...

Pornhub will restrict access to its website for UK users from next week, effectively blocking new visitors in protest at tougher age-verification requirements introduced under the Online Safety Act. From 2 February, only people who already hold a Pornhub account will be able to access the site. The same restrictions will apply to other adult websites owned by its parent company Aylo, including YouPorn and Redtube. Aylo said the UK’s age-check regime had failed to...