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Neutron Bytes @[email protected] · 2024-11-10 · 04:26 UTC
- Oklo Clears Environmental Reviews at INL
- Westinghouse Signs Engineering Contract for AP1000 Reactors in Bulgaria
- Great British Nuclear Issues ‘Invitation To Negotiate’ To Four SMR Companies
- Texas A&M University Proposes Sites for Reactor Test Beds
- World Economic Forum Publishes Framework for Advanced Nuclear Power
- IAEA Highlights ‘Pressing Need’ For International Finance For Nuclear Plants
Oklo Clears Environmental Review for INL Micro Reactor
Oklo checked off a significant milestone in its path forward toward building a first of a kind micro reactor on a site at the Idaho National Laboratory. This was the environmental review processes of the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Idaho National Laboratory required for construction of the firm’s first micro reactor on the federal site. It is targeting its first deployment at INL in 2027.
Jacob DeWitte, CEO and Co-Founder of Oklo, said the approvals are a “pivotal step forward as we advance toward deploying the first commercial advanced fission plant.”
DeWitt added that, “With this process complete, we can begin site characterization.”
This announcement follows the recent final sign off on a Memorandum of Agreement with the DOE, which initiates site characterization activities. It also follows DOE’s approval of Oklo’s Conceptual Safety Design Report for its Aurora Fuel Fabrication Facility, which will recycle nuclear material at INL to fuel the Aurora powerhouse.
Oklo is developing next-generation fission powerhouses, starting with the Aurora micro reactor, which can produce 15 MW of electrical power, scalable to 50 MWe, and operate for 10 years or longer before refueling. Oklo’s fast reactors incorporate key safety features and can be fueled by recycled waste.
DeWitt noted that “Our business model of selling power directly to customers rather than power plants positions us to respond to a growing order book effectively and meet diverse energy needs across data centers, industrial processes, defense, and off-grid communities.”
Supply Chain Agreement
Last December Oklo named Siemens Energy as its preferred supplier in an MOU on advanced fission power plant deployments. Siemens Energy would become Oklo’s preferred supplier for steam turbines and generator technology for its Aurora powerhouse.
Siemens Energy would also provide consulting to support Oklo in related design work to optimize the integration of the power conversion systems (conventional island). This partnership will help develop the capability to scale of the Aurora powerhouse deployments for customers. The Aurora powerhouse is designed to offer power ratings of 15-50 MWe.
Multiple Project Sites
Oklo has three project sites. A site use permit for its first location was granted by the Department of Energy in 2019. The firm was awarded fuel for its first reactor from Idaho National Laboratory. Oklo is currently doing work with the Idaho National Laboratory to take the waste fuel from EBR-II and use it for the first Aurora Powerhouse.
Centrus HALEU Production
In August 2023 Oklo and Centrus Energy signed an MOU for fuel, components, and power procurement to support the deployment of advanced fission technologies in Piketon, OH. The parties intend to enter into one or more definitive agreements relating to the following collaborative activities addressed in the MOU:
- Oklo would purchase HALEU from the production facility Centrus is planning to build in Piketon, Ohio, which is licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to produce HALEU.
- Centrus would purchase electricity from the Aurora powerhouses that Oklo is planning to build in Piketon. These two power plants are designed to power thousands of homes and businesses in addition to the HALEU production facility. The HALEU production plant is designed to be scaled up to support hundreds of reactors.
- Centrus would manufacture components for Oklo’s Aurora powerhouse at Centrus’ advanced manufacturing facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as well as manufacturing capacity at the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio, where HALEU production will take place.
- Centrus and Oklo would work together to establish and license the capabilities necessary to deconvert HALEU from uranium hexafluoride to uranium metal and fabricate fuel assemblies for Oklo’s Aurora powerhouses.
Two Plants for Piketon, OH
In February 2024 Oklo announced the signing of a lands right agreement with the non-profit Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI) for land including options for the siting of two plants.
This agreement is an extension of Oklo and SODI’s announcement in May 2023, related to the deployment of two Aurora powerhouses. SODI is a nonprofit community improvement corporation and serves as the DOE-designated community reuse organization for the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (PORTS) facility near Piketon, Ohio.
Subject to the terms and conditions of the land rights agreement and, in exchange for an upfront fee, which will be credited toward any purchase by Oklo under the land rights agreement, SODI has granted Oklo an option and right of first refusal to purchase land in Southern Ohio from SODI.
Oklo aims to build its second and third plants on land owned by SODI. The land will host two commercial 15 MWe Aurora powerhouses (30 MWe total) with opportunities to expand.
According to a company press statement, Oklo’s Aurora powerhouse reactor will cost around $70 million for the 15 MWe version, with levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of somewhere between $80-$130/MWh, depending on use and location.
Other Pending Deals
Oklo formed a strategic partnership with Atomic Alchemy to produce medical isotopes from its recycling of spent fuel process for cancer treatment and diagnostic imaging.
Separately, it signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with Wyoming Hyperscale to collaborate on a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) to supply 100 MW to its data center expected to be located in Cheyenne, WY.
Also, Oklo signed a non-binding LOI to collaborate on another 20-year PPA with Diamondback Energy to supply power to its shale-oil operations in the Permian Basin Texas.
Funding Status
In May 2024 Oklo Inc. (NYSE:OKLO) began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). This milestone follows the completion of its business combination with AltC Acquisition Corp. on 05/09/24.
Oklo has received $306 million in gross proceeds from the transaction before taking into account expenses associated with the transaction, which is expected to be used to execute Oklo’s business plan and fund the initial deployment of the company’s Aurora powerhouse. A key company focus is to develop and submit a license application to the NRC and to successfully complete that regulatory process.
Oklo announced its newly appointed board of directors comprised of industry leaders with Sam Altman serving as chairman of the board. Sam Altman, Chairman of Oklo since 2015 and former Chief Executive Officer of AltC, said, “There are huge growth opportunities ahead for the firm.”
NRC Licensing Update
Oklo is engaged with the NRC in pre-application activities interactions for the Oklo Aurora Powerhouse reactor. The proposed Oklo reactors are liquid metal-cooled, metal-fueled fast reactors with an initial power level of 15 MWe. Oklo has promoted the design as being scalable to 50 MWe.
Oklo submitted its latest regulatory engagement plan with the NRC in 3Q2023. However, the firm requested that the details of the plan be restricted from public view due to the proprietary nature of some of the information in it. The NRC’s web pages for the pre-application activity and docket are current as of October 2024.
The NRC has not indicated on its web site a calendar of milestones leading to a date for a license application from the firm which is expected under the agency’s Part 52 licensing regulations. These regulations are applicable to early site permits, design certifications, combined licenses, design approvals, or manufacturing licenses.
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Westinghouse Signs Engineering Contract for AP1000 Reactors in Bulgaria
Westinghouse Electric Company, Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co. and Bulgaria’s Kozloduy NPP – New Build EAD have signed the Engineering Services Contract for two AP1000 reactors to be built at the Kozloduy site.
The contract scope includes site planning for two Westinghouse AP1000 units. In addition, the contract provides support for Kozloduy NPP – New Build EAD to begin licensing and permitting, while providing critical project planning and operations & maintenance development. The work outlined in the 12-month contract will begin immediately.
Bulgaria’s first AP1000 nuclear reactor is anticipated to achieve commercial operation in 2035. Westinghouse has already signed Memoranda of Understanding with 22 Bulgarian suppliers to support the project. The two-unit Kozloduy project will also provide Bulgarian firms opportunities to support the construction of other AP1000 units globally.
Former minister of energy Rumen Radev has said Bulgaria would like the cost of the two-unit project to not exceed $14 billion (€12.9bn). He added that the idea is to implement the project entirely on public funds with up to 25–30% percent self-financing. The rest is to be loan-financed for part of which Bulgarian State guarantees will be furnished. Minister Radev, has said that the electricity from the new Kozloduy reactors will cost €65/MWh.
According to trade press reports in March 2024, questions were raised about the economic basis for the project. Valentin Kolev, energy analyst and member of the American Association of Energy Engineers, told Euractiv:
“It will be very difficult to find banks to finance the project. If we assume that we will produce 15 terawatt-hours per year, in 20 years of operation, it makes 300 terawatt-hours. At a price of €17.6 billion for the two reactors, a price of close to €60/MWh [megawatt-hour] would result, but this is only the investment. Fuel costs and much more are not included. The price for power cannot be below €100–125.”
He added that cost overruns could push the completed cost of the twin reactors well past the estimated price of €17.6 billion which is €3.6 billion more than the estimate from the number from the energy minsitry. However, of the hypothetical price of $6,500/Kw, a global benchmark, is used, the price of the two reactors, at €14.95 billion comes out much closer to the Energy Ministry’s number.
At the signing ceremony Bulgarian Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev, Bulgarian Minister of Energy Vladimir Malinov, U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria Kenneth Merten, Executive Director of Kozloduy NPP – New Build Petyo Ivanov, Senior Vice President of Westinghouse Energy Systems Elias Gedeon, and Hyundai Engineering & Construction President and CEO Yoon Young-Joon attended the signing ceremony in Sofia.
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Great British Nuclear Issues ‘Invitation To Negotiate’ To Four SMR Companies
- A final decision on potential technologies is expected in spring 2025
(NucNet contributed to this report) Great British Nuclear (GBN) has issued an “invitation to negotiate” to the four companies that were chosen for the shortlist of the UK government’s small modular reactor (SMR) selection process.
GBN, the public body set up to drive the delivery of new nuclear energy projects in the UK, said that after these negotiations are concluded, the companies will be invited to submit final tenders, which GBN will then evaluate.
A final decision on which technologies to select will be taken in the spring 2025. GBN has not indicated how much government funding for the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) SMR will be provided or whether it will commit to funding SMRs in “fleet mode” once the FOAK is in revenue service.
Given that none of the four contenders have completed the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation Generic Design Assessment process to license their designs, a timeline for any of the SMR to complete all key milestones and attain being in revenue service extends at least to the end of this decade or into the early 2030s.
For instance, the Generic Design Assessment (GDA) for Rolls-Royce’s Small Modular Reactor (SMR) began in 2022 and is projected to span approximately 53 months, aiming for completion in 2026. In a flurry of marketing promises, Rolls-Royce earlier had projected a two-year turnaround. The British bureaucracy won. Construction of the first unit could take three-to-four years.
The good news for Rolls-Royce and its customers is that the firm is planning to build a fleet of 16 of its 470 MWe PWRs which means it is possible the units 5-16 will benefit from factory production economies of scale, a mature supply chain, and experienced workforce.
The other three contenders will have timelines that complete with reactors in revenue service at later dates. Assuming the UK government doesn’t put all its eggs in one basket, at least one more and possibly two of the remaining contenders could create SMR fleets based on their designs.
Current Contenders
The four companies in the process are GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy International, Holtec Britain Ltd, Rolls Royce SMR Ltd and Westinghouse Electric Company UK.
The two companies that were on an initial list of six, but were not included in the list of four, were EDF and US-based NuScale Power.
French state-owned utility and nuclear operator EDF said in July that it had pulled out of the competition after deciding to shift away from its indigenous Nuward technology to a design based on proven light water reactor technology.
The UK government gave no reason for NuScale’s failure to make the list of four. In November 2023, NuScale cancelled its first SMR project, in the US, as costs increased due to inflation.
UK Nuclear Industry Calls For No More Delays
Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the London-based Nuclear Industry Association, said that while it is good to see the UK SMR competition reach this stage, what is critical is reaching a decision as soon as possible without any further delays to the now published timeline.
“Confidence in the UK government’s pronouncements on support for SMRs rests on fulfilling commitments made today. It is vital for supply chain confidence as well as driving the wider nuclear ambition.”
Greatrex’s comments reflect the deep frustration the nuclear industry has with the UK government which has repeatedly dithered and delayed its investments decisions in SMRs since first entertaining the concept of SMRs in 2015.
Greatrex called for the government to empower GBN to buy more sites, starting with Heysham, so “we can deliver a fleet of SMRs for clean, reliable, British power and good, skilled jobs.”
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Texas A&M University Proposes Sites for Reactor Test Beds
Up to now several SMR and microreactor developers have set their sights on building their test prototypes and first of a kind (FOAK) plants at the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory.
A new opportunity for siting and construction next generation nuclear reactors may become available. This is due to an action by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.
It notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) it has potential sites available at Texas A&M-RELLIS in Bryan, TX, for multiple companies to test and construct the next generation of nuclear reactors. The “test bed” is expected to lead to energy advancements that could provide power to data centers for artificial intelligence and other power-hungry ventures.
The type of reactors that could be tested at Texas A&M-RELLIS are often labeled as “small modular reactors,” or SMRs. They have a footprint that is much smaller than the size of a traditional reactor, and they can produce up to 300MWe per unit, compared with more than 1,000MWe per unit with traditional reactors.
Clarity Needed on Roles, Responsibilities, and Costs of Licensing
In its press statement, Texas A&M said the submission of the letter of intent to the NRC “marks the beginning of a licensing process for the A&M System. Reactor companies will benefit from the A&M System taking on the licensing burden. The result will be a shorter path to getting their reactors up and running.”
It isn’t clear from the press statement what that means as licensing an SMR or a microreactor is an expensive and time consuming undertaking even with recent legislation mandating quicker turnaround times for the process. If the reactors built at the test bed at A&M are expected to eventually produce power, they would have to be licensed under NRC’s Part 52 regulations. The NRC is still at the front end of developing regulations for licensing advanced reactors, the so-called “Part 53 regulations.”
Even just the process of site characterization, e.g., readiness to host an advanced reactor test prototype, would require the NRC’s approval possibly through the early site permit process (ESP). In 2022 the State of Kentucky looked into the idea of preparing generic early site permits as a way to encourage siting of one or more LWRs in the state. The timeline was up to five years and the cost in 2022 was approximately $75 million per ESP. The report concluded that as the State of Kentucky had no prior experience licensing a nuclear reactor, either through an ESP, Part 50, or Part 52, that the timeline would be longer and the costs would be higher.
Image: Kentucky State Government
Lining Up Client Firms for the Program
The Texas A&M press statement says the university recently concluded the process of gathering proposals from nuclear reactor companies that hope to construct reactors at Texas A&M-RELLIS. The university did not name any of the current contenders.
Negotiations related to these proposals are expected to begin soon. Also, there might be additional opportunities for organizations to take advantage of the A&M System’s site for nuclear reactor technology testing and the manufacturing of small modular reactors.
After negotiations are complete, the A&M System will announce which companies will conduct testing and other work at Texas A&M-RELLIS. A timeline for announcing awards was not proved by the university.
Texas Size Ambitions for the Program
John Sharp, chancellor of the Texas A&M System, said “no other entity in the U.S. is further along than the Texas A&M System to provide a location and human resources to get small, modular nuclear reactors online. The test bed for the reactors will support multiple reactors from various companies.”
Sharp also claimed that the Texas A&M System, along with Texas A&M University, is uniquely qualified to take on a venture as ambitious as building, testing and running nuclear reactors. The system’s flagship campus in College Station – just a few miles from the testbed – employs dozens of professors and researchers with nuclear expertise. Plus, Texas A&M University is home to the largest nuclear engineering department of any university in the country.
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World Economic Forum Publishes Framework for Advanced Nuclear Power
(WNN) The World Economic Forum (WEF) has released a framework to help align stakeholders on key actions and strategies to accelerate deployment of small modular reactors and other advanced nuclear technologies.
The report highlights nine priority areas and actions for accelerating the deployment of these technologies. ( full text PDF file )
Image: WEF
The World Economic Forum (WEF), in collaboration with Accenture, has partnered with stakeholders across the nuclear ecosystem – including experts from large energy-consuming industries, financiers, reactor vendors, supply chain businesses, utilities, government organizations, non-profits/NGOs and academia – to develop a Collaborative Framework for Accelerating Advanced Nuclear and Small Modular Reactor Deployment. It is intended to be a coordination tool for stakeholders to align on actions and strategies to accelerate advanced nuclear and SMR deployment.
“The Framework provides a basis for locally led implementation, as priorities will vary across geographies at various stages of nuclear development,” the report says. “It could also apply to other advanced clean energy technologies that require a systemic approach to unlock progress, such as geothermal and long-duration energy storage.”
“The ecosystem for new nuclear comprises a range of stakeholders including technology developers, financial institutions, utilities, large energy consumers and governments. Reaching commercial viability of advanced nuclear and SMRs is dependent on de-risking and improving the economics of projects through purposeful, coordinated action between these stakeholders – beyond anything seen before.”
Regarding the emergence of the advanced nuclear and SMR market, WEF says ecosystem collaboration must facilitate stronger demand signals to stimulate confidence among public and private investors by sharing risks and costs.
Deployment depends on energy policies that address specific challenges, such as improving supply chain stability and creating vehicles for strategic partnerships across ecosystem stakeholders. In addition, regulation needs to be modernised by aligning regulatory bodies to streamline licensing of standard design across countries.
In order to deliver advanced nuclear and SMRs at scale, project deployment must be transformed to enhance rapid delivery of cost-competitive projects through innovative deployment models, modular construction and design for manufacture and assembly, the report says.
Where possible, existing infrastructure should be repurposed and new reactors co-located with current energy systems.
The maturity and scalability of advanced nuclear and SMR technologies should be increased by collaborating with regulators and energy off-takers, as well as by standardizing design.
The nuclear supply chain should also be prepared for large-scale deployment by boosting investment, developing nuclear fuel sources and standardizing components.
Meanwhile, the workforce should be developed by identifying skills gaps, retraining workers from other energy industries, facilitating skills pools and partnerships between industry and educational institutions.
WEF says the financing of advanced nuclear and SMRs needs to be addressed by developing innovative financing mechanisms, leveraging public-private partnerships, reaching target cost levels to attract mainstream investments, and including nuclear in clean investment taxonomies.
The report said small modular reactors (SMRs) and other advanced nuclear technologies represent clean energy solutions that, when built at scale, could deliver cost-effective carbon-free energy. These technologies are well suited to meet many clean power, heat and clean fuel production use cases for heavy industry, data centers and transport,” the report says. “However, the commercial viability of these technologies needs to be improved.
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IAEA Highlights ‘Pressing Need’ For International Finance For Nuclear Plants
- As climate summit approaches in Azerbaijan, UN atomic agency calls for investment to ‘rapidly increase’
(NucNet) As more than 100 heads of state and government are expected to gather in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for the Cop29 UN climate summit, the International Atomic Energy Agency is hoping that delegates will agree on the pressing need for increased climate finance, including for new nuclear power plants.
As the world grapples with the escalating impacts of climate change, IAEA director-general Rafael Grossi will join global leaders at Cop29 – formally known as the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – to highlight what he called “the vast potential” of nuclear solutions for climate change mitigation, adaptation and monitoring.
The IAEA said a central theme of Cop29 will be the pressing need for increased climate finance.
A UN report released last month indicates that current policies and investments fall far short of what is needed to keep global temperature rise below 1.5°C in this century, the target of the Paris Agreement signed at Cop21 in 2016.
In its own report last month the IAEA said investment in nuclear power must rapidly increase to $125 billion (€115bn) a year by 2030 meet global climate targets.
The IAEA said it will showcase nuclear solutions for climate action in some 40 events at Cop29, which will take place from the 11th to 22nd of November. The agency’s Atoms4Climate pavilion will feature an exhibit on nuclear applications, with IAEA experts ready to answer questions about how nuclear energy contributes to net-zero emissions and how nuclear science can address climate-related challenges to food security, water resources and ocean health.
The agency wants Cop29 to build on the global consensus that emerged at Cop28 in Dubai, where 22 countries signed a pledge to triple nuclear generation capacity by 2050 from a base year of 2020. Also at Cop28, the agreed deal recognised the need to accelerate nuclear energy as a key approach for a deep, rapid and sustained reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Cop29 also follows on the first Nuclear Energy Summit, hosted in Brussels by the IAEA and the government of Belgium in March, where leaders from more than 30 countries reaffirmed their commitment to nuclear energy as a way to reduce carbon emissions and meet development goals.
“At Cop28, the world agreed nuclear power must be part of the transition to net zero,” said Grossi. “We know investment in nuclear power can lower grid costs and speed up the deployment of intermittent clean-energy sources like wind and solar.
“As the world moves from consensus to construction, the IAEA supports newcomer countries in establishing safe, secure, safeguarded and sustainable nuclear power programs.”
Grossi will co-host a high-level event with the US on small modular reactors (SMRs), which offer flexible, cost-effective options for powering small energy grids, making them suitable for developing countries, as well as energy-intensive industries, data centers and even commercial ships.
Governments Need To Play A Role
The IAEA wants governments to play a role in ensuring financing availability for nuclear power projects. This includes providing loan guarantees, subsidies, and regulatory support to attract private investors. Public-private partnerships are seen as a potential model for distributing financial risks while making nuclear energy projects more bankable.
Despite private investors having been “historically averse” to nuclear energy projects due to their specific risks, various financial instruments can help mitigate these risks and make nuclear ventures more appealing to private capital.
Government backing can also come though export credit agencies, with export credit having become increasingly important for all parties involved in nuclear energy projects, the IAEA said.
Innovative financing mechanisms, including green bonds and sustainable finance, could also be used to unlock the required capital. The inclusion of nuclear energy in sustainable investment taxonomies, such as in the European Union, is seen as a potential catalyst for drawing commercial banks into the sector.
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https://neutronbytes.com/2024/11/09/oklo-clears-environmental-review-at-inl/
#energy #Nuclear #nuclearEnergy #oklo
#energy #nuclear #nuclearenergy #oklo
Mathrubhumi English @[email protected] · 2026-04-10 · 02:07 UTC

Does higher voter turnout favour UDF or LDF in Kerala? A deep dive into election data, past trends, and 2026 polling percentages reveals the real story behind the numbers. https://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/who-benefits-from-high-voter-turnout-in-kerala-what-the-data-really-shows-wx3ree6z?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Kerala #AssemblyElections #LDF #UDF #NDA

#kerala #assemblyelections #ldf #udf #nda
💧🌏 Greg Cocks @[email protected] · 2025-01-07 · 23:19 UTC

Elevation-Derived Hydrography [EDH] - The USGS’s Rich New Hydrological Features Dataset
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https://doi.org/10.2489/jswc.2024.0314A <-- shared paper
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https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/tm11B12 <-- USGS EDH Representation, Extraction, Attribution, and Delineation Rules reference publication
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https://www.usgs.gov/3d-hydrography-program <-- shared link to the USGS 3DHP page
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[in my role, I have the pleasure of working with the valuable EDH process(es) and the data it produces on a daily basis]
#GIS #spatial #mapping #water #hydrology #hydrography #3dep #edh #3dhp #elevationderivedhydrography #opendata #elevation #dem #dtm #interpretation #waterfeatures #usecase #waterresources #floodmodeling #alignment #model #modeling #dataset #naturalresources #costs #benefits #economics #businessuse #publicdata #spatialanalysis #USA #USGS
@USGS

#gis #spatial #mapping #water #hydrology #hydrography
Bigarella @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 09:11 UTC

L’imputata fu assunta nel negozio come interprete
Fonte: Nicoletta Moccia, Op. cit. infra
La vicenda di questa giovane donna [Sara ČuČek] proveniente dalla Slovenia, accomuna un po’ la situazione di molte ragazze straniere che, iniziata una relazione con un italiano, cercano nella casa della famiglia del loro compagno un luogo di appoggio per allontanarsi dalla propria terra, ma soprattutto per vivere liberamente senza il rispetto degli ideali della famiglia ospitante. È un male comune che nasce dalla volontà di essere liberi, senza regole e di rincorrere la ricchezza. Sara ČuČek, di soli ventitré anni, viene fermata il 28 aprile 1945 con l’accusa di aver svolto opera di delazione ai danni di appartenenti a gruppi patriottici, collaborando con le SS e provocando l’arresto e l’internamento di alcuni giovani, di cui due fucilati e altri morti nei campi tedeschi <192. Dopo solo due giorni, presso il II distaccamento della III brigata, viene sottoposta ad interrogatorio durante il quale dichiara: “Conoscendo che mio fratello prestava servizio con la SS Tedesca – ho saputo che la spia ad alcuni patrioti e precisamente quelli di casa Sormani sgominati sopra, fu fatta da mio fratello. Perché avevo questionato, non parlavo più con mio fratello: egli abitava, dopo un po’ di tempo, presso l’Albergo Regina ed io presso l’Albergo Centrale, non occupato da Tedeschi. Mi sono interessata tramite il Seppi di occupare mio fratello. Mio fratello si spacciò per patriotta [sic] e, appreso i segreti, fece arrestare alcuni giovani” <193. In realtà la III brigata Gap di Via Longhi n. 13 a Milano era a conoscenza dell’attività di collaborazionista della giovane slovena, legata, comunque, ad un uomo delle SS; dall’altro canto suo fratello, pur essendo stato alle dipendenze dell’albergo Regina, era stato ucciso dai tedeschi, in quanto aveva l’abitudine, durante le requisizioni, di rubare merce. La sua morte avvenne in Viale Padova a Milano nel novembre 1944 <194. La ČuČek era ritenuta responsabile dell’arresto del fratello del suo ex fidanzato e di altri giovanissimi ragazzi facenti parte di un piccolo gruppo antifascista <195.
Il 30 giugno 1945 l’imputata produce un’istanza alla Procura Generale presso la Corte d’Assise Straordinaria di Milano, in quanto, avendo partorito da pochi giorni un bambino, chiede che sia sollecitata la definizione del suo processo. L’ambiente è sovraffollato e non idoneo per un neonato; né ella è responsabile di alcun reato e riuscirà a dimostrare, nel corso del processo, la sua innocenza <196.
Il primo interrogatorio avviene il 13 luglio 1945. L’imputata ricostruisce brevemente la sua vicenda. Arrivata in Italia il 16 settembre 1943, aveva alloggiato presso la casa del suo fidanzato Franco Sormani, ufficiale dell’esercito, allora internato in Germania. Suo fratello Artaserse era nella organizzazione Speer (simile alla Todt), ma appena in Italia l’aveva abbandonata. Questi era entrato a lavorare quale interprete nell’albero Regina: qui si era recata per parlare con lui e non per compiere delazioni. Non era a conoscenza del ruolo svolto dal fratello nella sede delle SS, in quanto, per un dissidio, non abitavano più insieme sin dai primi di aprile 1944. Non aveva avuto alcuna relazione intima con il Sepi, un ufficiale delle SS, che aveva una camera presso l’albergo Centrale, dove ella aveva preso domicilio <197. La situazione diventa sicuramente complicata dal momento in cui Guido Carito, il 30 luglio 1945, presenta denuncia presso l’ufficio di polizia del Palazzo di Giustizia di Milano. Suo figlio, Massimo Carito, aveva avuto la sfortuna di conoscere Sara, perché frequentava casa Sormani, in qualità di amico e compagno di scuola del figlio più piccolo, Giuseppe, di 17 anni. La giovane donna, come riferisce il denunciante, venne successivamente allontanata da casa Sormani poichè era entrata in relazione con le SS tedesche. Forse per vendetta, tramite suo fratello Artaserse, fece arrestare molte persone del gruppo di antifascisti che frequentava casa Sormani, tra cui Giuseppe Sormani e Massimo Carito, che hanno pagato con la vita la delazione fatta dai ČuČek <198. Sempre in fase istruttoria, durante l’interrogatorio di Guido Carito, lo stesso fa presente che nel giugno del 1944 fu arrestato per antifascismo e portato all’albergo Regina dove ebbe modo di incrociare Artaserse, fratello dell’imputata. Qui seppe che quest’ultimo, prima dell’arresto di suo figlio Massimo, aveva telefonato a casa per avere conferma della presenza dello stesso. Trova deplorevole che la donna, sapendo che sarebbe stato arrestato Giuseppe Sormani, non abbia cercato di avvisare la famiglia <199.
A tale denuncia fa seguito quella presentata, sempre presso l’ufficio di Polizia del Palazzo di Giustizia di Milano, di Elena Sormani, la quale dichiara di aver accolto Sara nella sua abitazione il 12 settembre 1943 quale fidanzata del figlio Lanfranco che, dopo l’8 settembre, trovandosi nel territorio di Lubiana, era stato tratto prigioniero dai tedeschi. La giovane aveva avuto paura di rimanere in quei luoghi a causa di eventuali ritorsioni. Successivamente, nel marzo 1944, arrivò il fratello Artaserse, il quale cercava notizie della sorella: forse per impietosire la famiglia Sormani, aveva dichiarato di essere fuggito dal gruppo Speer di Peschiera e di essere ricercato dai tedeschi. Venne comunque accolto. Il 22 maggio 1944 Sara ebbe una violenta discussione con il marito di Elena Sormani e venne cacciata dall’abitazione. Seppe poi che la stessa aveva intrecciato una relazione con un militare delle SS, il quale si era prodigato per far assumere Artaserse presso l’albergo Regina. Purtroppo, durante la loro permanenza, il fratello aveva fatto in modo di entrare nel piccolo gruppo giovanile del Partito d’Azione costituito da Giuseppe Sormani e da altri giovani. Ella crede che per vendetta abbia denunciato tutti i componenti tra cui il suo figliolo morto di stenti in un campo di sterminio il 24 maggio 1945 <200.
Alle precedenti due denunce, si affianca quella di Luigi Pontarili presentata il 3 agosto 1945 contro la ČuČek all’ufficio di Polizia del Palazzo di Giustizia. Le sue dichiarazioni confermano pienamente le precedenti accuse, sottolineando che nel febbraio 1944 il fratello Artaserse disertò il corpo Speer per motivi di contrabbando e raggiunse la sorella a Milano, dove rimase ospite di casa Sormani. Per rassicurare tutti, diceva che era un membro legato ai partigiani di Tito e mostrava un distintivo che in realtà apparteneva al gruppo dei volontari della Speer. Allontanata da casa Sormani nel maggio 1944, l’imputata prese alloggio presso l’albergo Centrale. Nel giugno dello stesso anno iniziarono gli arresti, le uccisioni e le deportazioni <201.
Nella deposizione di Natalina Conta si apprende che Sara, aspettando un bambino, era stata condotta da un tedesco presso la sua abitazione, dove era rimasta da gennaio ad aprile 1945. L’imputata versava in condizioni non buone e aveva necessità di cure <202. Luigi Pontiroli, interrogato nel settembre 1945, è uno di coloro i quali avevano fatto parte del piccolo gruppo di antifascisti frequentatori di casa Sormani. Come gli altri, aveva conosciuto l’imputata e suo fratello Artaserse. I due erano ospitati in quella casa. Artaserse riuscì ad introdursi nella piccola organizzazione giovanile antifascista, con la volontà di conoscere le persone e le azioni programmate. Sara cercò in tutti i modi di far capire che condivideva pienamente la causa antifascista, poiché la sua famiglia era perseguitata, cosa che si dimostrò poi non vera. Fu proprio dopo maggio 1944 che 15 tra giovani e anziani dell’organizzazione, tra cui il Pontiroli, vennero arrestati e deportati. Di questi, due furono fucilati ad Aurano <203. I due fratelli si separarono alla fine di luglio 1944, quando ormai tutto il gruppo era stato arrestato. Egli suppone che sia stata l’imputata ad istigare Artaserse nel commettere la delazione, in quanto doveva molto a Sepi, membro delle SS <204. Romilde Fabris nel suo interrogatorio dichiarò che tra luglio e agosto 1944 l’imputata fu assunta nel negozio come interprete, giacché il parrucchiere era frequentato da molte signore tedesche. Si trovava in Foro Bonaparte 74. Prima Sara ČuČek lo frequentava come cliente, poi, caduta in disgrazia, aveva chiesto di lavorare. Spesso il fratello Artaserse vi entrava in divisa e armato: aveva iniziato una relazione con un’altra lavorante, tanto da giungere poi al matrimonio <205. Maria Martinelli, direttrice dell’albergo Giulio Cesare in Via Rovello 10 a Milano, ricostruisce brevemente il modo in cui l’imputata aveva conosciuto Robert Sepi nella primavera del 1944. L’imputata si era recata nel suo albergo dove aveva avuto un lungo colloquio con un uomo, che aveva promesso di trovare un lavoro per il fratello Artaserse. Successivamente la ČuČek aveva conosciuto Robert Sepi per puro caso all’interno del suo albergo. L’imputata tornò varie volte, stringendo amicizia con questi e iniziandolo a frequentare. Vestiva in modo più che decoroso. Quando il fratello fu ucciso dai tedeschi, Sara non frequentò più quell’albergo <206.
La pubblica udienza fissata per il 15 gennaio 1946 vede sfilare tutti coloro i quali avevano presentato denuncia formale o che erano stati interpellati durante l’istruttoria. Non vi sono assolutamente delle contraddizioni rispetto alla prima fase, anzi tutto viene perfettamente confermato. L’unica novità proviene dall’interrogatorio di Guido Trezzi, il quale è convinto di essere stato denunciato dall’imputata e per questo di aver trascorso 11 mesi in un campo di concentramento. Aggiunge di aver scattato delle foto con Artaserse e di averle poi ritirate presso l’albergo Regina, dove aveva incrociato l’imputata, fornendole il numero telefonico del suo ufficio. Subito dopo avvenne il sopralluogo e il successivo arresto. Elena Sormani, madre di Franco, colui che era stato il fidanzato dell’imputata, e di Giuseppe, successivamente morto a Flossembürg, dichiara che all’arrivo nella sua casa Sara aveva portato con sé molti pezzi di corredo oltre a una copiosa collezione di francobolli e di monete antiche.
La Corte d’Assise Speciale, II Sezione Penale, in data 15 gennaio 1946, in base all’art. 479 cpp assolve l’imputata per insufficienza di prove.
[NOTE]
192 ASMi, CAS Milano 1945, Fascicoli processuali, Sara ČuČek, b. 26, fasc. 439; CAS Milano 1946, Sentenze, vol. 5, sent. 27.
193 ASMi, CAS Milano 1945, Fascicoli processuali, Sara ČuČek, cit., f. 30 bis istruttoria.
194 Ivi, f. 28 istruttoria.
195 Ivi, f. 26 istruttoria.
196 Ivi, f. 25 istruttoria.
197 Ivi, f. 1 istruttoria.
198 Ivi, ff. 17-18 istruttoria.
199 Ivi, f. 7 istruttoria.
200 Ivi, ff. 19-20 istruttoria.
201 Ivi, ff. 14-15 istruttoria. I nomi dei caduti e dei catturati sono i seguenti: Giuseppe Sormani (morto a Flossenbürg); Massimo Carito (morto a Flossenbürg); Tonoli (o Tonolli) di cui non si hanno notizie; Antonio Maria Colombo (ucciso ad Aurano nel 1944); Tommaso Pessina (ucciso ad Aurano nel 1944); Carlo Trezzi (11 mesi di campo di concentramento in Germania); Bruno Rebecchi e Luigi Pontiroli (11 mesi di vita alla macchia). Sembra che per ogni persona arrestata l’imputata abbia percepito la somma di L. 2.800. Una targa in memoria di Antonio Maria Colombo si trova una in Via Tiraboschi n. 2 a Milano; l’altra dedicata a Tommaso Pessina e Giuseppe Sormani in Via Tiraboschi n. 6 sempre a Milano: si tratta delle rispettive abitazioni dei giovani antifascisti.
202 Ivi, f. 11 istruttoria.
203 Aurano è attualmente in provincia di Verbania.
204 ASMi, Fascicolo processuale, cit., ff. 9-10 istruttoria.
205 Ivi, f. 8 istruttoria.
206 Ivi, f. 6 istruttoria.
Nicoletta Moccia, Bene e male comune tra storia e filosofia. Le donne collaborazioniste processate a Milano dal 1945 al 1947, Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria – Varese, Anno Accademico 2015-2016
#1943 #1944 #1945 #1946 #assoluzione #Cas #collaborazionista #delazione #denunce #donna #epurazione #fascisti #Milano #NicolettaMoccia #partigiani #processo #Resistenza #SaraČuČek #tedeschi

#assoluzione #cas #collaborazionista #delazione #denunce #donna
Bigarella @[email protected] · 2026-05-06 · 09:11 UTC

L’imputata fu assunta nel negozio come interprete
Fonte: Nicoletta Moccia, Op. cit. infra
La vicenda di questa giovane donna [Sara ČuČek] proveniente dalla Slovenia, accomuna un po’ la situazione di molte ragazze straniere che, iniziata una relazione con un italiano, cercano nella casa della famiglia del loro compagno un luogo di appoggio per allontanarsi dalla propria terra, ma soprattutto per vivere liberamente senza il rispetto degli ideali della famiglia ospitante. È un male comune che nasce dalla volontà di essere liberi, senza regole e di rincorrere la ricchezza. Sara ČuČek, di soli ventitré anni, viene fermata il 28 aprile 1945 con l’accusa di aver svolto opera di delazione ai danni di appartenenti a gruppi patriottici, collaborando con le SS e provocando l’arresto e l’internamento di alcuni giovani, di cui due fucilati e altri morti nei campi tedeschi <192. Dopo solo due giorni, presso il II distaccamento della III brigata, viene sottoposta ad interrogatorio durante il quale dichiara: “Conoscendo che mio fratello prestava servizio con la SS Tedesca – ho saputo che la spia ad alcuni patrioti e precisamente quelli di casa Sormani sgominati sopra, fu fatta da mio fratello. Perché avevo questionato, non parlavo più con mio fratello: egli abitava, dopo un po’ di tempo, presso l’Albergo Regina ed io presso l’Albergo Centrale, non occupato da Tedeschi. Mi sono interessata tramite il Seppi di occupare mio fratello. Mio fratello si spacciò per patriotta [sic] e, appreso i segreti, fece arrestare alcuni giovani” <193. In realtà la III brigata Gap di Via Longhi n. 13 a Milano era a conoscenza dell’attività di collaborazionista della giovane slovena, legata, comunque, ad un uomo delle SS; dall’altro canto suo fratello, pur essendo stato alle dipendenze dell’albergo Regina, era stato ucciso dai tedeschi, in quanto aveva l’abitudine, durante le requisizioni, di rubare merce. La sua morte avvenne in Viale Padova a Milano nel novembre 1944 <194. La ČuČek era ritenuta responsabile dell’arresto del fratello del suo ex fidanzato e di altri giovanissimi ragazzi facenti parte di un piccolo gruppo antifascista <195.
Il 30 giugno 1945 l’imputata produce un’istanza alla Procura Generale presso la Corte d’Assise Straordinaria di Milano, in quanto, avendo partorito da pochi giorni un bambino, chiede che sia sollecitata la definizione del suo processo. L’ambiente è sovraffollato e non idoneo per un neonato; né ella è responsabile di alcun reato e riuscirà a dimostrare, nel corso del processo, la sua innocenza <196.
Il primo interrogatorio avviene il 13 luglio 1945. L’imputata ricostruisce brevemente la sua vicenda. Arrivata in Italia il 16 settembre 1943, aveva alloggiato presso la casa del suo fidanzato Franco Sormani, ufficiale dell’esercito, allora internato in Germania. Suo fratello Artaserse era nella organizzazione Speer (simile alla Todt), ma appena in Italia l’aveva abbandonata. Questi era entrato a lavorare quale interprete nell’albero Regina: qui si era recata per parlare con lui e non per compiere delazioni. Non era a conoscenza del ruolo svolto dal fratello nella sede delle SS, in quanto, per un dissidio, non abitavano più insieme sin dai primi di aprile 1944. Non aveva avuto alcuna relazione intima con il Sepi, un ufficiale delle SS, che aveva una camera presso l’albergo Centrale, dove ella aveva preso domicilio <197. La situazione diventa sicuramente complicata dal momento in cui Guido Carito, il 30 luglio 1945, presenta denuncia presso l’ufficio di polizia del Palazzo di Giustizia di Milano. Suo figlio, Massimo Carito, aveva avuto la sfortuna di conoscere Sara, perché frequentava casa Sormani, in qualità di amico e compagno di scuola del figlio più piccolo, Giuseppe, di 17 anni. La giovane donna, come riferisce il denunciante, venne successivamente allontanata da casa Sormani poichè era entrata in relazione con le SS tedesche. Forse per vendetta, tramite suo fratello Artaserse, fece arrestare molte persone del gruppo di antifascisti che frequentava casa Sormani, tra cui Giuseppe Sormani e Massimo Carito, che hanno pagato con la vita la delazione fatta dai ČuČek <198. Sempre in fase istruttoria, durante l’interrogatorio di Guido Carito, lo stesso fa presente che nel giugno del 1944 fu arrestato per antifascismo e portato all’albergo Regina dove ebbe modo di incrociare Artaserse, fratello dell’imputata. Qui seppe che quest’ultimo, prima dell’arresto di suo figlio Massimo, aveva telefonato a casa per avere conferma della presenza dello stesso. Trova deplorevole che la donna, sapendo che sarebbe stato arrestato Giuseppe Sormani, non abbia cercato di avvisare la famiglia <199.
A tale denuncia fa seguito quella presentata, sempre presso l’ufficio di Polizia del Palazzo di Giustizia di Milano, di Elena Sormani, la quale dichiara di aver accolto Sara nella sua abitazione il 12 settembre 1943 quale fidanzata del figlio Lanfranco che, dopo l’8 settembre, trovandosi nel territorio di Lubiana, era stato tratto prigioniero dai tedeschi. La giovane aveva avuto paura di rimanere in quei luoghi a causa di eventuali ritorsioni. Successivamente, nel marzo 1944, arrivò il fratello Artaserse, il quale cercava notizie della sorella: forse per impietosire la famiglia Sormani, aveva dichiarato di essere fuggito dal gruppo Speer di Peschiera e di essere ricercato dai tedeschi. Venne comunque accolto. Il 22 maggio 1944 Sara ebbe una violenta discussione con il marito di Elena Sormani e venne cacciata dall’abitazione. Seppe poi che la stessa aveva intrecciato una relazione con un militare delle SS, il quale si era prodigato per far assumere Artaserse presso l’albergo Regina. Purtroppo, durante la loro permanenza, il fratello aveva fatto in modo di entrare nel piccolo gruppo giovanile del Partito d’Azione costituito da Giuseppe Sormani e da altri giovani. Ella crede che per vendetta abbia denunciato tutti i componenti tra cui il suo figliolo morto di stenti in un campo di sterminio il 24 maggio 1945 <200.
Alle precedenti due denunce, si affianca quella di Luigi Pontarili presentata il 3 agosto 1945 contro la ČuČek all’ufficio di Polizia del Palazzo di Giustizia. Le sue dichiarazioni confermano pienamente le precedenti accuse, sottolineando che nel febbraio 1944 il fratello Artaserse disertò il corpo Speer per motivi di contrabbando e raggiunse la sorella a Milano, dove rimase ospite di casa Sormani. Per rassicurare tutti, diceva che era un membro legato ai partigiani di Tito e mostrava un distintivo che in realtà apparteneva al gruppo dei volontari della Speer. Allontanata da casa Sormani nel maggio 1944, l’imputata prese alloggio presso l’albergo Centrale. Nel giugno dello stesso anno iniziarono gli arresti, le uccisioni e le deportazioni <201.
Nella deposizione di Natalina Conta si apprende che Sara, aspettando un bambino, era stata condotta da un tedesco presso la sua abitazione, dove era rimasta da gennaio ad aprile 1945. L’imputata versava in condizioni non buone e aveva necessità di cure <202. Luigi Pontiroli, interrogato nel settembre 1945, è uno di coloro i quali avevano fatto parte del piccolo gruppo di antifascisti frequentatori di casa Sormani. Come gli altri, aveva conosciuto l’imputata e suo fratello Artaserse. I due erano ospitati in quella casa. Artaserse riuscì ad introdursi nella piccola organizzazione giovanile antifascista, con la volontà di conoscere le persone e le azioni programmate. Sara cercò in tutti i modi di far capire che condivideva pienamente la causa antifascista, poiché la sua famiglia era perseguitata, cosa che si dimostrò poi non vera. Fu proprio dopo maggio 1944 che 15 tra giovani e anziani dell’organizzazione, tra cui il Pontiroli, vennero arrestati e deportati. Di questi, due furono fucilati ad Aurano <203. I due fratelli si separarono alla fine di luglio 1944, quando ormai tutto il gruppo era stato arrestato. Egli suppone che sia stata l’imputata ad istigare Artaserse nel commettere la delazione, in quanto doveva molto a Sepi, membro delle SS <204. Romilde Fabris nel suo interrogatorio dichiarò che tra luglio e agosto 1944 l’imputata fu assunta nel negozio come interprete, giacché il parrucchiere era frequentato da molte signore tedesche. Si trovava in Foro Bonaparte 74. Prima Sara ČuČek lo frequentava come cliente, poi, caduta in disgrazia, aveva chiesto di lavorare. Spesso il fratello Artaserse vi entrava in divisa e armato: aveva iniziato una relazione con un’altra lavorante, tanto da giungere poi al matrimonio <205. Maria Martinelli, direttrice dell’albergo Giulio Cesare in Via Rovello 10 a Milano, ricostruisce brevemente il modo in cui l’imputata aveva conosciuto Robert Sepi nella primavera del 1944. L’imputata si era recata nel suo albergo dove aveva avuto un lungo colloquio con un uomo, che aveva promesso di trovare un lavoro per il fratello Artaserse. Successivamente la ČuČek aveva conosciuto Robert Sepi per puro caso all’interno del suo albergo. L’imputata tornò varie volte, stringendo amicizia con questi e iniziandolo a frequentare. Vestiva in modo più che decoroso. Quando il fratello fu ucciso dai tedeschi, Sara non frequentò più quell’albergo <206.
La pubblica udienza fissata per il 15 gennaio 1946 vede sfilare tutti coloro i quali avevano presentato denuncia formale o che erano stati interpellati durante l’istruttoria. Non vi sono assolutamente delle contraddizioni rispetto alla prima fase, anzi tutto viene perfettamente confermato. L’unica novità proviene dall’interrogatorio di Guido Trezzi, il quale è convinto di essere stato denunciato dall’imputata e per questo di aver trascorso 11 mesi in un campo di concentramento. Aggiunge di aver scattato delle foto con Artaserse e di averle poi ritirate presso l’albergo Regina, dove aveva incrociato l’imputata, fornendole il numero telefonico del suo ufficio. Subito dopo avvenne il sopralluogo e il successivo arresto. Elena Sormani, madre di Franco, colui che era stato il fidanzato dell’imputata, e di Giuseppe, successivamente morto a Flossembürg, dichiara che all’arrivo nella sua casa Sara aveva portato con sé molti pezzi di corredo oltre a una copiosa collezione di francobolli e di monete antiche.
La Corte d’Assise Speciale, II Sezione Penale, in data 15 gennaio 1946, in base all’art. 479 cpp assolve l’imputata per insufficienza di prove.
[NOTE]
192 ASMi, CAS Milano 1945, Fascicoli processuali, Sara ČuČek, b. 26, fasc. 439; CAS Milano 1946, Sentenze, vol. 5, sent. 27.
193 ASMi, CAS Milano 1945, Fascicoli processuali, Sara ČuČek, cit., f. 30 bis istruttoria.
194 Ivi, f. 28 istruttoria.
195 Ivi, f. 26 istruttoria.
196 Ivi, f. 25 istruttoria.
197 Ivi, f. 1 istruttoria.
198 Ivi, ff. 17-18 istruttoria.
199 Ivi, f. 7 istruttoria.
200 Ivi, ff. 19-20 istruttoria.
201 Ivi, ff. 14-15 istruttoria. I nomi dei caduti e dei catturati sono i seguenti: Giuseppe Sormani (morto a Flossenbürg); Massimo Carito (morto a Flossenbürg); Tonoli (o Tonolli) di cui non si hanno notizie; Antonio Maria Colombo (ucciso ad Aurano nel 1944); Tommaso Pessina (ucciso ad Aurano nel 1944); Carlo Trezzi (11 mesi di campo di concentramento in Germania); Bruno Rebecchi e Luigi Pontiroli (11 mesi di vita alla macchia). Sembra che per ogni persona arrestata l’imputata abbia percepito la somma di L. 2.800. Una targa in memoria di Antonio Maria Colombo si trova una in Via Tiraboschi n. 2 a Milano; l’altra dedicata a Tommaso Pessina e Giuseppe Sormani in Via Tiraboschi n. 6 sempre a Milano: si tratta delle rispettive abitazioni dei giovani antifascisti.
202 Ivi, f. 11 istruttoria.
203 Aurano è attualmente in provincia di Verbania.
204 ASMi, Fascicolo processuale, cit., ff. 9-10 istruttoria.
205 Ivi, f. 8 istruttoria.
206 Ivi, f. 6 istruttoria.
Nicoletta Moccia, Bene e male comune tra storia e filosofia. Le donne collaborazioniste processate a Milano dal 1945 al 1947, Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria – Varese, Anno Accademico 2015-2016
#1943 #1944 #1945 #1946 #assoluzione #Cas #collaborazionista #delazione #denunce #donna #epurazione #fascisti #Milano #NicolettaMoccia #partigiani #processo #Resistenza #SaraČuČek #tedeschi

#tedeschi #saracucek #resistenza #processo #partigiani #nicolettamoccia
gary @[email protected] · 2025-10-09 · 15:44 UTC

@da_667 you know you sell people a bunch of pc butfor medium biz they really can benefit from stuff like debian, dual nas, opnsense, pihole, - the basics but also faster networking, ids/ips system, pkt cap 24/7, even ssl proxy, rsync backups to nvme. having more visibility into the network allows organizations to leverage the data that piles up in the db as well as real time. a point needs to be made for the minimum raw basic infrastructure and then orgs can realize gestalt #p2v #fwupd #elk stack scripting #dashboards #centralized logs #netbox #zeek #snort #sigs

#p2v #fwupd #elk #dashboards #centralized #netbox
OpenWebSearch.eu @[email protected] · 2026-02-06 · 10:40 UTC

"...In an ideal scenario, the AI model is running on my machine and controlling my data. It’s a tool that helps me, conducts searches on my behalf & understands what I want to do. I’m talking about small language models rather than large language models..." – @grani in an interview w/ RESET - Digital for Good
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OpenWebSearch.eu @[email protected] · 2025-05-26 · 15:12 UTC

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Get to know 3 projects funded by our sister project NGI Search & learn how they benefit from the #OWI.
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Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 06:00 UTC

The thread about the Salisbury Arms and the famous literary association that never was
Here’s an eye-catching headline one one of those sites that passes itself off as local news from today. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle“.
Edinburgh Live headline, 25th June 2025. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle”.
The piece goes on, “Once a favourite watering hole of the iconic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle“. Stop the bus! Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular in the Salisbury Arms? That’s news to me! Now, I’ll readily admit that I don’t know everything about Edinburgh, but something here feels a bit off.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Arthur Conan Doyle
But let’s be fair, not everyone spends quite so much time poring over local history as I do, and not everyone will be irked enough by something that troubles them to look more into it. But I’m not everyone and I was sceptical and so in the best spirit of Sherlock Holmes I set out to do a little deduction of my own. To paraphrase the great detective, when it comes to Edinburgh history “it is my business to know what other people do not know!”
Sherlock Holmes statue in Edinburgh, erected opposite the birthplace of Conan Doyle. CC-by-SA 3.0 Kim Traynor via Wikimedia
The first indicator that something isn’t quite right is that the website of the Salisbury Arms itself doesn’t trouble to mention its famous literary association. The game is afoot! Delving a bit deeper, a quick tap of the keys in a search engine traces the Conan Doyle claim back to an advertorial piece from the Scotsman in June 2011. In this it is stated – without reference – “Apparently Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle used to frequent the hostelry now known as The Salisbury Arms in Dalkeith Road.” That word apparently is key here and from it we should suspect that the author was well aware that their claim was without evidence. Wind the clock forward to January 2017 and we find in the sister publication, Evening News, a repetition and reinforcement of the claim: “The most intriguing connection the Salisbury Arms has is with the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes” it gushes, before quickly contradicting itself; “Whether Conan Doyle was ever a visitor… is unclear” and then instantly trying to get itself out of jail with “but it is thought he dropped by on a few occasions“. Once again I think our author was very aware that there was nothing to back up the claims they were making. By this point I’m willing to stake a round of drinks on the fact that my initial cynicism is well founded.
“Historic Salisbury Arms to undergo major renovation work”, Evening News, January 14th 2017.
I could stop there, but I like to be both firm and fair in my debunking and come to an argument armed with the facts, so I shan’t.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
A Scandal in Bohemia, Arthur Conan Doyle
So let us take a proper look into the history of the Salisbury Arms, after all history is probably why you are reading this in the first place! Along the way I can attempt to keep my reputation intact by offering a well evidenced counter argument, I can demonstrate the sort of readily accessible sources that you a I can turn to for investigating a case such as this and and hopefully we can all learn something more of the history of the place in question and write it down for the benefit of others (particularly writers of local news!). Looking at the building in question itself, it doesn’t need an expert eye make a sure guess that it probably began life as a Georgian villa.
The Salisbury Arms, Edinburgh, 2015. © Paul Farmer, CC-by-SA 2.0 via Geograph.
A quick search through the online Book of The Old Edinburgh Club – one of my frequent first ports of call for local history queries – brings us to Volume 24 and pages 152-197, “The Lands of Newington and Their Owners“, by W. Forbes Gray. In this piece we find that a house and plot here was seised (officially registered) to Francis Nalder, merchant, in 1812. Referring to a map of the area around this time – Kirkwood’s Town Plan of Edinburgh of 1817 is a reliable source, freely accessible from the National Library of Scotland – we see Mr. Nalder’s name appears as landowner here too.
Kirkwood’s town plan of Edinburgh, 1817. Showing “Nalder” on the site of the house which is now the Salisbury Arms. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
From Forbes Gray’s we learn that this plot was one of just many such others which were feued from the Newington Estate in the early 19th century to create a new suburb. Newington’s lands were an irregular rectangle defined by the Gibbet Loan (now Preston Street) to the north, East and West Mayfield to the south, Dalkeith Road to the east and the turnpike road south to Selkirk and Carlisle (now Minto Street) to the west. There was a large house, Newington House, in the southeastern quarter. This estate was an old one but had been split into six lots by the city back in the 16th century. Over subsequent centuries, five of the plots were acquired and combined by the Lauder of Fountainhall family, from where they passed to John Henderson of Leistoun. Henderson’s grandson bought the sixth and final plot in 1733, reuniting the estate and taking for himself the title Henderson of Newington.
1817 Kirkwood town plan of Edinburgh, highlighting the lands of Newington. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
At this time the Newington House on the above map had not yet been built and there was instead an older mansion located in the northwest corner at the end of what is now West Newington Place. It is shown on the Ordnance Survey 1849 Town Plan as Old Newington House. After Henderson the lands were acquired in 1751 by a saddler, Patrick Crichton. The financial problems of his son Alexander in the 1780s saw loans taken out, secured against the estate, which were defaulted on. One of the major creditors came to an agreement in 1803 whereby Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, surgeon, bought Newington for £5,000 thus settling the debt.
Benjamin Bell by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1780-90). From “Raeburn to Redpath” booklet by Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, via Wikimedia.
Bell, “the first Scottish scientific surgeon” and “father of the Edinburgh school of Surgery” built the new Newington House but died in 1806, before he had a chance to settle in and enjoy it. It so happens that he was the great grandfather of Joseph Bell, the surgeon and lecturer known as the inspiration from which Arthur Conan Doyle formed Sherlock Holmes. So finally we arrive at a kernel of a grain of truth in at least one aspect of our story. Bell’s eldest son, George, sold Newington House to Sir George Steuart of Grandtully in 1807 and Steuart bought up more of the land shortly thereafter to form gardens around the house, but also with a farsighted view that he could feu this land himself, and his own charter indeed allowed him to do so after a period of time had elapsed. In due course, his estate-within-an-estate would later be developed into the planned suburb of the Blacket Estate.
1817 Kirkwood Plan of Edinburgh centred on Newington House, showing land owners as Sir George Stewart (sic) of Grandtully, Bart. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Having sold the house, George Bell and his brothers began the process of feuing the rest of their land here into plots for fashionable new suburban villas. To distinguish theirs from Steuart’s holding, they gave his district an on-trend new name which also happened to be a pun on their own: Belleville. On the 1826 feuing plan on the NLS maps site, both names are given:
“Plan of the Lands of Newington and Belleville, 1826”. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
This new name for the district stuck for a short while in the newspapers, but old habits can die hard and it soon reverted back to being just plain old Newington. But two houses kept the former name alive; Belleville Lodge on South Blacket Place (now Blacket Avenue) and Belleville at 58 Dalkeith Road – which is that house which would much later become the Salisbury Arms. The first record of that name being used in connection with the house that I can find is on the 1855 valuation roll over on Scotland’s People, with the owner and occupant being listed as William Donaldson, Grocer. By 1865 he has been replaced by Miss Mary Duncan as “William Donaldson’s Representative“. She is still the owner in 1875, but the occupant is one James M. Watters, Captain.
Belleville Lodge. A gate pier carries the name “Belleville Lodge” painted on it and also on a brass plaque, complete with a sign to the right saying “Belleville Lodge. Mansfield Care”.
Come 1885 there is once again a new owner and occupier; William Nelson of Salisbury Green. This latter house you can see on the 1817 map above of the Newington Estate is directly to the east of Belleville, it’s the baronial pile opposite which now forms part of the Pollock Halls complex. Confusingly the same valuation rolls show William also owned and occupied Salisbury Green at this time, it’s not clear why he needed both! He was a wealthy publisher of the family firm Thomas Nelson & Sons, whose vast Parkside Works lay just across the way, and who is known for restoring St. Bernard’s Well at Stockbridge and St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle.
Salisbury Green house, a 3-storey mansion in the Scottish Baronial Revival style.
Ownership of Belleville never seemed to stay with one person for long. By 1895 the valuation rolls show it was Robert Inch, a well known and prosperous seed merchant who ran his business from the Timberbush in Leith. He died there in 1912, after which it was bought by its next door neighbour, Mrs Jane Binning Burn Murdoch of Arthur Lodge . Regular listeners might be familiar with the Burn Murdoch name, she was the wife of the artist and explorer WG Burn Murdoch who was so involved in helping Edinburgh Zoo acquire its first polar bears, at the same time as indulging in his passion for trophy hunting them. The house was let out and an advert at this time gives us a description of its accommodation and features:
Newspaper advert for the lease of “Belleville” house. “Entrance hall, cloak room, 3 public rooms, billiard room, 8 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 2 bathrooms, laundry and ample servants’ accommodation” plus stables and garaging. The Scotsman – 19 March 1913
Mrs Burn Murdoch’s maiden name was Usher, she was a daughter of Andrew Usher of that distilling dynasty which financed and lends its name to the Usher Hall. Belleville by 1930 was in the hands and occupation of her sister, Elizabeth Usher Cunningham and in turn by 1935 it was Elizabeth’s son, Howard, who was there. Howard Usher Cunningham served with the Royal Irish Regiment during World War 1 at Gallipoli, in the Balkans and in Palestine, being awarded the Military Cross in the last theatre. He was in the fertiliser business with the family firm of J. & J. Cunningham of Leith, which was one of the five constituent companies of the Scottish Agricultural Industries conglomerate which formed in 1928. He was appointed director in 1929, rising to Managing Director in 1947. During World War 2 he was the Ministry of Supply Fertiliser Controller for the country, which earned him a knighthood.
In 1942 the house of Belleville was turned over to the Edinburgh Home for Babies and School of Mothercraft, a charitable maternity home and training establishment for both midwives and young (often single) mothers. This organisation had lost its base on Colinton Road to the Civil Defence for the duration of the war and at first had been evacuated to the countryside, but returned to the city in 1942 once the immediate threat was passed where it could better undertake its work. Usher Cunningham returned to the house briefly after the war but by 1948 it had been taken over by the Relief Society for Poles in London as the Polish House, a Polish community centre for exiles and a headquarters for organisations such as the Polish YMCA and Scottish-Polish Society.
Scotsman article, 29 January 1948, showing a picture of the dining room of 58 Dalkeith Road under the title “Polish Centre in Edinburgh”, with two columns below of description.
The Polish House was transient and soon moved on as Poles in Edinburgh either emigrated or integrated, it relocated to Drummond Place where it joined the Polish Press Agency. In 1950 the Edinburgh Corporation looked to acquire the building as a remand school but it was instead opened as the Davidson Clinic, to treat young adults and children with “anxiety illnesses“. The Clinic took its name from the Davidson Church in Eyre Place, where the idea for it had been formed by the minister. It practised what we would now call psychotherapy and had been established in the city in 1941 as a charitable institution. Under its lead doctor, GP Dr Winifred Rushforth, it took a pioneering approach to dealing with nervous and anxiety conditions.
Dr Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983) by Victoria Crowe. © Victoria Crowe. Credit: Museums & Galleries Edinburgh
The Davidson Clinic remained a charity and closely associated with the Church of Scotland for its existence. Never part of the NHS it relocated from Belleville in 1968 and was closed in 1973. Key members of this organisation, including Winifred Rushforth, would go on to find the similar Wellspring clinic. Belleville was now acquired again by the Usher family, this time by Thomas Usher & Sons, the brewing branch of the dynasty. Ushers successfully applied for a licence to turn it into a modern roadhouse type pub and restaurant. Despite local objections it opened as such in 1970 as the Commonwealth-games inspired Gold Medal Tavern. The Gold Medal found its way into the Alloa Brewery’s portfolio, who refurbished it in 1986 and renamed the restaurant to Waffles. With a trendy open plan dining area and kitchen, it offered “pizzas, pasta, hamburgers, steaks and chicken“. No mention was made of waffles, but traditional pub food could be had in the lounge bar.
Newspaper advert “We’ve pulled a fast one” on the refurbishment of the Gold Medal tavern. Edinburgh Evening News – 15 May 1986
Roll forward the clock to 1994 and the pub was acquired by the Firkin brand of Allied Domecq who renamed it The Physician & Firkin, despite it having no obvious connection to medicine. When that chain folded in 2001 it was passed to Bass who branded it as one of their yellow-liveried, sticky-floored It’s a Scream student discount pubs with the new name of The Crags. Come 2011, the pub was re-branded and repositioned once again, becoming the more upmarket Salisbury Arms.
This has all been a very long winded way to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930 and there was not a pub on the site of the Salisbury Arms until 1970! The original claim is demonstrable nonsense – he definitely never drank in, never mind frequented, this establishment. Furthermore, the association of the Bell family with the house ended in 1807 when it was sold to its first owner, some 30 years before the birth of Joseph Bell. So the chance that he or Conan Doyle have any further connection with it is slim to nil.
So why is any of this important? Am I just showing off about being right about something? Shouldn’t I be magnanimous and attribute this to an innocent journalistic error? Well, you’re probably reading this page because you have an interest in Edinburgh and local history, so I will try and explain why I think that it matters and why you too should be bothered.
Arthur Conan Doyle in 1914, photograph by Walter Benington. Via Wikimedia
The first problem is that despite the best efforts of their owning companies to try and destroy all trust in them over the last 20 or so years, faith is still put by many in local newspapers as they trade on past reputations and a lack of alternatives. They and their websites are still held as being reliable places to find things out and they still command a wide local reach; people will read what they write and there’s a good chance they will accept it. Why shouldn’t they? The Evening News even has a strapline at the top of every page which says “News you can trust since 1873“, it invites you to believe it. So when it publishes historical facts without substantiation, they will inevitably become accepted as facts. The irony is not lost on me that a lot of what you will read on this very website has been arrived at by trawling through previous generations of these very local newspapers. I too have to trust that what was being printed in the pages of the Evening News or the Scotsman at the time was an accurate and factual record.
But this shouldn’t be a problem I hear you say, people have the sum of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips these days and can just check a search engine to verify a fact. So let’s do just that and perform a quick experiment by doing what many people do these days to adjudicate a point: let’s ask Google “which pub did Arthur Conan Doyle drink in?”.
Oh, so it was The Salisbury Arms. Mea culpa, if it’s on Google it must be true, right? But give the result a second glance, that’s not actually a search result. That’s an answer automatically generated by Google’s AI Overview and presented above and before the actual search results. It’s what some might call machine generated slop, an approximation of what looks like a plausible answer arrived at by a statistical analysis of a very large data set. It is the year 2025 and the problem of the Evening News presenting theory as fact is no longer confined to the reach of its own readership. Local news websites are now constantly crawled and trawled as the training material for the Large Language Models that are commonly referred to as AI. Local news is the factual foodstuff, chewed, digested, reconstituted and regurgitated by the LLM. And as the old saying goes, if you put garbage in you’ll get garbage out.
Give the above result a third glance and you see a little vague link symbol at the end of the word soup of that first paragraph. Click that link and it will suggest to you the source from which it came to its conclusions. So I did this and what should we see but two “references”, the oldest of which is only a day old and is the very same article which got me started! The second is a copy-and-paste effort of the first, barely hours old on the internet at this time.
And here is the big problem I’ve been trying to get at. We’ve just got a complete worked example of Google inventing itself a new fact about an important figure in Edinburgh local history, and people will believe it, because it is Google and that is were a huge number of people turn to for information, and because it is substantiated by links to local news websites, which many people still put trust in. That fact is now out of the bag and once it’s out, it is very hard to put it back in. Check in on the above search in a few months, weeks, or even days and you will undoubtedly see the fact has replicated itself across multiple other sources like a virus. And those sources will now in turn be consumed once again by Large Language Models, which will spit out the same result in future with ever more confidence. We’re all going to have to get used to accepting a lot less of what is presented to us fact and doing a lot more of our own verification if we want to find out the actual answer…
Ouroboros, the serpent consuming its own tail, a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal
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#conandoyle #house #newington #pub #pubs #southside
Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 06:00 UTC

The famous literary association that never was: the thread about the Salisbury Arms

Here’s an eye-catching headline one one of those sites that passes itself off as local news from today. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle“.
Edinburgh Live headline, 25th June 2025. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle”.
The piece goes on, “Once a favourite watering hole of the iconic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle“. Stop the bus! Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular in the Salisbury Arms? That’s news to me! Now, I’ll readily admit that I don’t know everything about Edinburgh, but something here feels a bit off.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Arthur Conan Doyle
But let’s be fair, not everyone spends quite so much time poring over local history as I do, and not everyone will be irked enough by something that troubles them to look more into it. But I’m not everyone and I was sceptical and so in the best spirit of Sherlock Holmes I set out to do a little deduction of my own. To paraphrase the great detective, when it comes to Edinburgh history “it is my business to know what other people do not know!”
Sherlock Holmes statue in Edinburgh, erected opposite the birthplace of Conan Doyle. CC-by-SA 3.0 Kim Traynor via Wikimedia
The first indicator that something isn’t quite right is that the website of the Salisbury Arms itself doesn’t trouble to mention its famous literary association. The game is afoot! Delving a bit deeper, a quick tap of the keys in a search engine traces the Conan Doyle claim back to an advertorial piece from the Scotsman in June 2011. In this it is stated – without reference – “Apparently Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle used to frequent the hostelry now known as The Salisbury Arms in Dalkeith Road.” That word apparently is key here and from it we should suspect that the author was well aware that their claim was without evidence. Wind the clock forward to January 2017 and we find in the sister publication, Evening News, a repetition and reinforcement of the claim: “The most intriguing connection the Salisbury Arms has is with the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes” it gushes, before quickly contradicting itself; “Whether Conan Doyle was ever a visitor… is unclear” and then instantly trying to get itself out of jail with “but it is thought he dropped by on a few occasions“. Once again I think our author was very aware that there was nothing to back up the claims they were making. By this point I’m willing to stake a round of drinks on the fact that my initial cynicism is well founded.
“Historic Salisbury Arms to undergo major renovation work”, Evening News, January 14th 2017.
I could stop there, but I like to be both firm and fair in my debunking and come to an argument armed with the facts, so I shan’t.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
A Scandal in Bohemia, Arthur Conan Doyle
So let us take a proper look into the history of the Salisbury Arms, after all history is probably why you are reading this in the first place! Along the way I can attempt to keep my reputation intact by offering a well evidenced counter argument, I can demonstrate the sort of readily accessible sources that you a I can turn to for investigating a case such as this and and hopefully we can all learn something more of the history of the place in question and write it down for the benefit of others (particularly writers of local news!). Looking at the building in question itself, it doesn’t need an expert eye make a sure guess that it probably began life as a Georgian villa.
The Salisbury Arms, Edinburgh, 2015. © Paul Farmer, CC-by-SA 2.0 via Geograph.
A quick search through the online Book of The Old Edinburgh Club – one of my frequent first ports of call for local history queries – brings us to Volume 24 and pages 152-197, “The Lands of Newington and Their Owners“, by W. Forbes Gray. In this piece we find that a house and plot here was seised (officially registered) to Francis Nalder, merchant, in 1812. Referring to a map of the area around this time – Kirkwood’s Town Plan of Edinburgh of 1817 is a reliable source, freely accessible from the National Library of Scotland – we see Mr. Nalder’s name appears as landowner here too.
Kirkwood’s town plan of Edinburgh, 1817. Showing “Nalder” on the site of the house which is now the Salisbury Arms. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
From Forbes Gray’s we learn that this plot was one of just many such others which were feued from the Newington Estate in the early 19th century to create a new suburb. Newington’s lands were an irregular rectangle defined by the Gibbet Loan (now Preston Street) to the north, East and West Mayfield to the south, Dalkeith Road to the east and the turnpike road south to Selkirk and Carlisle (now Minto Street) to the west. There was a large house, Newington House, in the southeastern quarter. This estate was an old one but had been split into six lots by the city back in the 16th century. Over subsequent centuries, five of the plots were acquired and combined by the Lauder of Fountainhall family, from where they passed to John Henderson of Leistoun. Henderson’s grandson bought the sixth and final plot in 1733, reuniting the estate and taking for himself the title Henderson of Newington.
1817 Kirkwood town plan of Edinburgh, highlighting the lands of Newington. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
At this time the Newington House on the above map had not yet been built and there was instead an older mansion located in the northwest corner at the end of what is now West Newington Place. It is shown on the Ordnance Survey 1849 Town Plan as Old Newington House. After Henderson the lands were acquired in 1751 by a saddler, Patrick Crichton. The financial problems of his son Alexander in the 1780s saw loans taken out, secured against the estate, which were defaulted on. One of the major creditors came to an agreement in 1803 whereby Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, surgeon, bought Newington for £5,000 thus settling the debt.
Benjamin Bell by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1780-90). From “Raeburn to Redpath” booklet by Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, via Wikimedia.
Bell, “the first Scottish scientific surgeon” and “father of the Edinburgh school of Surgery” built the new Newington House but died in 1806, before he had a chance to settle in and enjoy it. It so happens that he was the great grandfather of Joseph Bell, the surgeon and lecturer known as the inspiration from which Arthur Conan Doyle formed Sherlock Holmes. So finally we arrive at a kernel of a grain of truth in at least one aspect of our story. Bell’s eldest son, George, sold Newington House to Sir George Steuart of Grandtully in 1807 and Steuart bought up more of the land shortly thereafter to form gardens around the house, but also with a farsighted view that he could feu this land himself, and his own charter indeed allowed him to do so after a period of time had elapsed.
Newington House in the 1880s, with the family of Lord Provost Duncan McLaren (in top hat) assembled on the lawn. SC1224483 via Trove.Scot
In due course, his estate-within-an-estate would later be developed into the planned suburb of the Blacket Estate (where, ironically, Joseph Bell was an early resident, at number 44). Thank you to Hugh Mackay of the Blacket Association for pointing this out.
1817 Kirkwood Plan of Edinburgh centred on Newington House, showing land owners as Sir George Stewart (sic) of Grandtully, Bart. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Having sold the house, George Bell and his brothers began the process of feuing the rest of their land here into plots for fashionable new suburban villas. To distinguish theirs from Steuart’s holding, they gave his district an on-trend new name which also happened to be a pun on their own: Belleville. On the 1826 feuing plan on the NLS maps site, both names are given:
“Plan of the Lands of Newington and Belleville, 1826”. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
This new name for the district stuck for a short while in the newspapers, but old habits can die hard and it soon reverted back to being just plain old Newington. But two houses kept the former name alive; Belleville Lodge on South Blacket Place (now Blacket Avenue) and Belleville at 58 Dalkeith Road – which is that house which would much later become the Salisbury Arms. The first record of that name being used in connection with the house that I can find is on the 1855 valuation roll over on Scotland’s People, with the owner and occupant being listed as William Donaldson, Grocer. By 1865 he has been replaced by Miss Mary Duncan as “William Donaldson’s Representative“. She is still the owner in 1875, but the occupant is one James M. Watters, Captain.
Belleville Lodge. A gate pier carries the name “Belleville Lodge” painted on it and also on a brass plaque, complete with a sign to the right saying “Belleville Lodge. Mansfield Care”.
Come 1885 there is once again a new owner and occupier; William Nelson of Salisbury Green. This latter house you can see on the 1817 map above of the Newington Estate is directly to the east of Belleville, it’s the baronial pile opposite which now forms part of the Pollock Halls complex. Confusingly the same valuation rolls show William also owned and occupied Salisbury Green at this time, it’s not clear why he needed both! He was a wealthy publisher of the family firm Thomas Nelson & Sons, whose vast Parkside Works lay just across the way, and who is known for restoring St. Bernard’s Well at Stockbridge and St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle.
Salisbury Green house, a 3-storey mansion in the Scottish Baronial Revival style.
Ownership of Belleville never seemed to stay with one person for long. By 1895 the valuation rolls show it was Robert Inch, a well known and prosperous seed merchant who ran his business from the Timberbush in Leith. He died there in 1912, after which it was bought by its next door neighbour, Mrs Jane Binning Burn Murdoch of Arthur Lodge . Regular listeners might be familiar with the Burn Murdoch name, she was the wife of the artist and explorer WG Burn Murdoch who was so involved in helping Edinburgh Zoo acquire its first polar bears, at the same time as indulging in his passion for trophy hunting them. The house was let out and an advert at this time gives us a description of its accommodation and features:
Newspaper advert for the lease of “Belleville” house. “Entrance hall, cloak room, 3 public rooms, billiard room, 8 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 2 bathrooms, laundry and ample servants’ accommodation” plus stables and garaging. The Scotsman – 19 March 1913
Mrs Burn Murdoch’s maiden name was Usher, she was a daughter of Andrew Usher of that distilling dynasty which financed and lends its name to the Usher Hall. Belleville by 1930 was in the hands and occupation of her sister, Elizabeth Usher Cunningham and in turn by 1935 it was Elizabeth’s son, Howard, who was there. Howard Usher Cunningham served with the Royal Irish Regiment during World War 1 at Gallipoli, in the Balkans and in Palestine, being awarded the Military Cross in the last theatre. He was in the fertiliser business with the family firm of J. & J. Cunningham of Leith, which was one of the five constituent companies of the Scottish Agricultural Industries conglomerate which formed in 1928. He was appointed director in 1929, rising to Managing Director in 1947. During World War 2 he was the Ministry of Supply Fertiliser Controller for the country, which earned him a knighthood.
In 1942 the house of Belleville was turned over to the Edinburgh Home for Babies and School of Mothercraft, a charitable maternity home and training establishment for both midwives and young (often single) mothers. This organisation had lost its base on Colinton Road to the Civil Defence for the duration of the war and at first had been evacuated to the countryside, but returned to the city in 1942 once the immediate threat was passed where it could better undertake its work. Usher Cunningham returned to the house briefly after the war but by 1948 it had been taken over by the Relief Society for Poles in London as the Polish House, a Polish community centre for exiles and a headquarters for organisations such as the Polish YMCA and Scottish-Polish Society.
Scotsman article, 29 January 1948, showing a picture of the dining room of 58 Dalkeith Road under the title “Polish Centre in Edinburgh”, with two columns below of description.
The Polish House was transient and soon moved on as Poles in Edinburgh either emigrated or integrated, it relocated to Drummond Place where it joined the Polish Press Agency. In 1950 the Edinburgh Corporation looked to acquire the building as a remand school but it was instead opened as the Davidson Clinic, to treat young adults and children with “anxiety illnesses“. The Clinic took its name from the Davidson Church in Eyre Place, where the idea for it had been formed by the minister. It practised what we would now call psychotherapy and had been established in the city in 1941 as a charitable institution. Under its lead doctor, GP Dr Winifred Rushforth, it took a pioneering approach to dealing with nervous and anxiety conditions.
Dr Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983) by Victoria Crowe. © Victoria Crowe. Credit: Museums & Galleries Edinburgh
The Davidson Clinic remained a charity and closely associated with the Church of Scotland for its existence. Never part of the NHS it relocated from Belleville in 1968 and was closed in 1973. Key members of this organisation, including Winifred Rushforth, would go on to find the similar Wellspring clinic. Belleville was now acquired again by the Usher family, this time by Thomas Usher & Sons, the brewing branch of the dynasty. Ushers successfully applied for a licence to turn it into a modern roadhouse type pub and restaurant. Despite local objections it opened as such in 1970 as the Commonwealth-games inspired Gold Medal Tavern. The Gold Medal found its way into the Alloa Brewery’s portfolio, who refurbished it in 1986 and renamed the restaurant to Waffles. With a trendy open plan dining area and kitchen, it offered “pizzas, pasta, hamburgers, steaks and chicken“. No mention was made of waffles, but traditional pub food could be had in the lounge bar.
Newspaper advert “We’ve pulled a fast one” on the refurbishment of the Gold Medal tavern. Edinburgh Evening News – 15 May 1986
Roll forward the clock to 1994 and the pub was acquired by the Firkin brand of Allied Domecq who renamed it The Physician & Firkin, despite it having no obvious connection to medicine. When that chain folded in 2001 it was passed to Bass who branded it as one of their yellow-liveried, sticky-floored It’s a Scream student discount pubs with the new name of The Crags. Come 2011, the pub was re-branded and repositioned once again, becoming the more upmarket Salisbury Arms.
This has all been a very long winded way to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930 and there was not a pub on the site of the Salisbury Arms until 1970! The original claim is demonstrable nonsense – he definitely never drank in, never mind frequented, this establishment. Furthermore, the association of the Bell family with the house ended in 1807 when it was sold to its first owner, some 30 years before the birth of Joseph Bell. So the chance that he or Conan Doyle have any further connection with it is slim to nil.
So why is any of this important? Am I just showing off about being right about something? Shouldn’t I be magnanimous and attribute this to an innocent journalistic error? Well, you’re probably reading this page because you have an interest in Edinburgh and local history, so I will try and explain why I think that it matters and why you too should be bothered.
Arthur Conan Doyle in 1914, photograph by Walter Benington. Via Wikimedia
The first problem is that despite the best efforts of their owning companies to try and destroy all trust in them over the last 20 or so years, faith is still put by many in local newspapers as they trade on past reputations and a lack of alternatives. They and their websites are still held as being reliable places to find things out and they still command a wide local reach; people will read what they write and there’s a good chance they will accept it. Why shouldn’t they? The Evening News even has a strapline at the top of every page which says “News you can trust since 1873“, it invites you to believe it. So when it publishes historical facts without substantiation, they will inevitably become accepted as facts. The irony is not lost on me that a lot of what you will read on this very website has been arrived at by trawling through previous generations of these very local newspapers. I too have to trust that what was being printed in the pages of the Evening News or the Scotsman at the time was an accurate and factual record.
But this shouldn’t be a problem I hear you say, people have the sum of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips these days and can just check a search engine to verify a fact. So let’s do just that and perform a quick experiment by doing what many people do these days to adjudicate a point: let’s ask Google “which pub did Arthur Conan Doyle drink in?”.
Oh, so it was The Salisbury Arms. Mea culpa, if it’s on Google it must be true, right? But give the result a second glance, that’s not actually a search result. That’s an answer automatically generated by Google’s AI Overview and presented above and before the actual search results. It’s what some might call machine generated slop, an approximation of what looks like a plausible answer arrived at by a statistical analysis of a very large data set. It is the year 2025 and the problem of the Evening News presenting theory as fact is no longer confined to the reach of its own readership. Local news websites are now constantly crawled and trawled as the training material for the Large Language Models that are commonly referred to as AI. Local news is the factual foodstuff, chewed, digested, reconstituted and regurgitated by the LLM. And as the old saying goes, if you put garbage in you’ll get garbage out.
Give the above result a third glance and you see a little vague link symbol at the end of the word soup of that first paragraph. Click that link and it will suggest to you the source from which it came to its conclusions. So I did this and what should we see but two “references”, the oldest of which is only a day old and is the very same article which got me started! The second is a copy-and-paste effort of the first, barely hours old on the internet at this time.
And here is the big problem I’ve been trying to get at. We’ve just got a complete worked example of Google inventing itself a new fact about an important figure in Edinburgh local history, and people will believe it, because it is Google and that is were a huge number of people turn to for information, and because it is substantiated by links to local news websites, which many people still put trust in. That fact is now out of the bag and once it’s out, it is very hard to put it back in. Check in on the above search in a few months, weeks, or even days and you will undoubtedly see the fact has replicated itself across multiple other sources like a virus. And those sources will now in turn be consumed once again by Large Language Models, which will spit out the same result in future with ever more confidence. We are all of us going to have to get used to accepting a lot less of what is presented to us as fact and doing a lot more of our own verification if we want to find a reliable answer…
Ouroboros, the serpent consuming its own tail, a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal
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Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 06:00 UTC

The famous literary association that never was: the thread about the Salisbury Arms

Here’s an eye-catching headline one one of those sites that passes itself off as local news from today. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle“.
Edinburgh Live headline, 25th June 2025. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle”.
The piece goes on, “Once a favourite watering hole of the iconic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle“. Stop the bus! Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular in the Salisbury Arms? That’s news to me! Now, I’ll readily admit that I don’t know everything about Edinburgh, but something here feels a bit off.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Arthur Conan Doyle
But let’s be fair, not everyone spends quite so much time poring over local history as I do, and not everyone will be irked enough by something that troubles them to look more into it. But I’m not everyone and I was sceptical and so in the best spirit of Sherlock Holmes I set out to do a little deduction of my own. To paraphrase the great detective, when it comes to Edinburgh history “it is my business to know what other people do not know!”
Sherlock Holmes statue in Edinburgh, erected opposite the birthplace of Conan Doyle. CC-by-SA 3.0 Kim Traynor via Wikimedia
The first indicator that something isn’t quite right is that the website of the Salisbury Arms itself doesn’t trouble to mention its famous literary association. The game is afoot! Delving a bit deeper, a quick tap of the keys in a search engine traces the Conan Doyle claim back to an advertorial piece from the Scotsman in June 2011. In this it is stated – without reference – “Apparently Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle used to frequent the hostelry now known as The Salisbury Arms in Dalkeith Road.” That word apparently is key here and from it we should suspect that the author was well aware that their claim was without evidence. Wind the clock forward to January 2017 and we find in the sister publication, Evening News, a repetition and reinforcement of the claim: “The most intriguing connection the Salisbury Arms has is with the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes” it gushes, before quickly contradicting itself; “Whether Conan Doyle was ever a visitor… is unclear” and then instantly trying to get itself out of jail with “but it is thought he dropped by on a few occasions“. Once again I think our author was very aware that there was nothing to back up the claims they were making. By this point I’m willing to stake a round of drinks on the fact that my initial cynicism is well founded.
“Historic Salisbury Arms to undergo major renovation work”, Evening News, January 14th 2017.
I could stop there, but I like to be both firm and fair in my debunking and come to an argument armed with the facts, so I shan’t.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
A Scandal in Bohemia, Arthur Conan Doyle
So let us take a proper look into the history of the Salisbury Arms, after all history is probably why you are reading this in the first place! Along the way I can attempt to keep my reputation intact by offering a well evidenced counter argument, I can demonstrate the sort of readily accessible sources that you a I can turn to for investigating a case such as this and and hopefully we can all learn something more of the history of the place in question and write it down for the benefit of others (particularly writers of local news!). Looking at the building in question itself, it doesn’t need an expert eye make a sure guess that it probably began life as a Georgian villa.
The Salisbury Arms, Edinburgh, 2015. © Paul Farmer, CC-by-SA 2.0 via Geograph.
A quick search through the online Book of The Old Edinburgh Club – one of my frequent first ports of call for local history queries – brings us to Volume 24 and pages 152-197, “The Lands of Newington and Their Owners“, by W. Forbes Gray. In this piece we find that a house and plot here was seised (officially registered) to Francis Nalder, merchant, in 1812. Referring to a map of the area around this time – Kirkwood’s Town Plan of Edinburgh of 1817 is a reliable source, freely accessible from the National Library of Scotland – we see Mr. Nalder’s name appears as landowner here too.
Kirkwood’s town plan of Edinburgh, 1817. Showing “Nalder” on the site of the house which is now the Salisbury Arms. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
From Forbes Gray’s we learn that this plot was one of just many such others which were feued from the Newington Estate in the early 19th century to create a new suburb. Newington’s lands were an irregular rectangle defined by the Gibbet Loan (now Preston Street) to the north, East and West Mayfield to the south, Dalkeith Road to the east and the turnpike road south to Selkirk and Carlisle (now Minto Street) to the west. There was a large house, Newington House, in the southeastern quarter. This estate was an old one but had been split into six lots by the city back in the 16th century. Over subsequent centuries, five of the plots were acquired and combined by the Lauder of Fountainhall family, from where they passed to John Henderson of Leistoun. Henderson’s grandson bought the sixth and final plot in 1733, reuniting the estate and taking for himself the title Henderson of Newington.
1817 Kirkwood town plan of Edinburgh, highlighting the lands of Newington. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
At this time the Newington House on the above map had not yet been built and there was instead an older mansion located in the northwest corner at the end of what is now West Newington Place. It is shown on the Ordnance Survey 1849 Town Plan as Old Newington House. After Henderson the lands were acquired in 1751 by a saddler, Patrick Crichton. The financial problems of his son Alexander in the 1780s saw loans taken out, secured against the estate, which were defaulted on. One of the major creditors came to an agreement in 1803 whereby Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, surgeon, bought Newington for £5,000 thus settling the debt.
Benjamin Bell by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1780-90). From “Raeburn to Redpath” booklet by Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, via Wikimedia.
Bell, “the first Scottish scientific surgeon” and “father of the Edinburgh school of Surgery” built the new Newington House but died in 1806, before he had a chance to settle in and enjoy it. It so happens that he was the great grandfather of Joseph Bell, the surgeon and lecturer known as the inspiration from which Arthur Conan Doyle formed Sherlock Holmes. So finally we arrive at a kernel of a grain of truth in at least one aspect of our story. Bell’s eldest son, George, sold Newington House to Sir George Steuart of Grandtully in 1807 and Steuart bought up more of the land shortly thereafter to form gardens around the house, but also with a farsighted view that he could feu this land himself, and his own charter indeed allowed him to do so after a period of time had elapsed.
Newington House in the 1880s, with the family of Lord Provost Duncan McLaren (in top hat) assembled on the lawn. SC1224483 via Trove.Scot
In due course, his estate-within-an-estate would later be developed into the planned suburb of the Blacket Estate (where, ironically, Joseph Bell was an early resident, at number 44). Thank you to Hugh Mackay of the Blacket Association for pointing this out.
1817 Kirkwood Plan of Edinburgh centred on Newington House, showing land owners as Sir George Stewart (sic) of Grandtully, Bart. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Having sold the house, George Bell and his brothers began the process of feuing the rest of their land here into plots for fashionable new suburban villas. To distinguish theirs from Steuart’s holding, they gave his district an on-trend new name which also happened to be a pun on their own: Belleville. On the 1826 feuing plan on the NLS maps site, both names are given:
“Plan of the Lands of Newington and Belleville, 1826”. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
This new name for the district stuck for a short while in the newspapers, but old habits can die hard and it soon reverted back to being just plain old Newington. But two houses kept the former name alive; Belleville Lodge on South Blacket Place (now Blacket Avenue) and Belleville at 58 Dalkeith Road – which is that house which would much later become the Salisbury Arms. The first record of that name being used in connection with the house that I can find is on the 1855 valuation roll over on Scotland’s People, with the owner and occupant being listed as William Donaldson, Grocer. By 1865 he has been replaced by Miss Mary Duncan as “William Donaldson’s Representative“. She is still the owner in 1875, but the occupant is one James M. Watters, Captain.
Belleville Lodge. A gate pier carries the name “Belleville Lodge” painted on it and also on a brass plaque, complete with a sign to the right saying “Belleville Lodge. Mansfield Care”.
Come 1885 there is once again a new owner and occupier; William Nelson of Salisbury Green. This latter house you can see on the 1817 map above of the Newington Estate is directly to the east of Belleville, it’s the baronial pile opposite which now forms part of the Pollock Halls complex. Confusingly the same valuation rolls show William also owned and occupied Salisbury Green at this time, it’s not clear why he needed both! He was a wealthy publisher of the family firm Thomas Nelson & Sons, whose vast Parkside Works lay just across the way, and who is known for restoring St. Bernard’s Well at Stockbridge and St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle.
Salisbury Green house, a 3-storey mansion in the Scottish Baronial Revival style.
Ownership of Belleville never seemed to stay with one person for long. By 1895 the valuation rolls show it was Robert Inch, a well known and prosperous seed merchant who ran his business from the Timberbush in Leith. He died there in 1912, after which it was bought by its next door neighbour, Mrs Jane Binning Burn Murdoch of Arthur Lodge . Regular listeners might be familiar with the Burn Murdoch name, she was the wife of the artist and explorer WG Burn Murdoch who was so involved in helping Edinburgh Zoo acquire its first polar bears, at the same time as indulging in his passion for trophy hunting them. The house was let out and an advert at this time gives us a description of its accommodation and features:
Newspaper advert for the lease of “Belleville” house. “Entrance hall, cloak room, 3 public rooms, billiard room, 8 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 2 bathrooms, laundry and ample servants’ accommodation” plus stables and garaging. The Scotsman – 19 March 1913
Mrs Burn Murdoch’s maiden name was Usher, she was a daughter of Andrew Usher of that distilling dynasty which financed and lends its name to the Usher Hall. Belleville by 1930 was in the hands and occupation of her sister, Elizabeth Usher Cunningham and in turn by 1935 it was Elizabeth’s son, Howard, who was there. Howard Usher Cunningham served with the Royal Irish Regiment during World War 1 at Gallipoli, in the Balkans and in Palestine, being awarded the Military Cross in the last theatre. He was in the fertiliser business with the family firm of J. & J. Cunningham of Leith, which was one of the five constituent companies of the Scottish Agricultural Industries conglomerate which formed in 1928. He was appointed director in 1929, rising to Managing Director in 1947. During World War 2 he was the Ministry of Supply Fertiliser Controller for the country, which earned him a knighthood.
In 1942 the house of Belleville was turned over to the Edinburgh Home for Babies and School of Mothercraft, a charitable maternity home and training establishment for both midwives and young (often single) mothers. This organisation had lost its base on Colinton Road to the Civil Defence for the duration of the war and at first had been evacuated to the countryside, but returned to the city in 1942 once the immediate threat was passed where it could better undertake its work. Usher Cunningham returned to the house briefly after the war but by 1948 it had been taken over by the Relief Society for Poles in London as the Polish House, a Polish community centre for exiles and a headquarters for organisations such as the Polish YMCA and Scottish-Polish Society.
Scotsman article, 29 January 1948, showing a picture of the dining room of 58 Dalkeith Road under the title “Polish Centre in Edinburgh”, with two columns below of description.
The Polish House was transient and soon moved on as Poles in Edinburgh either emigrated or integrated, it relocated to Drummond Place where it joined the Polish Press Agency. In 1950 the Edinburgh Corporation looked to acquire the building as a remand school but it was instead opened as the Davidson Clinic, to treat young adults and children with “anxiety illnesses“. The Clinic took its name from the Davidson Church in Eyre Place, where the idea for it had been formed by the minister. It practised what we would now call psychotherapy and had been established in the city in 1941 as a charitable institution. Under its lead doctor, GP Dr Winifred Rushforth, it took a pioneering approach to dealing with nervous and anxiety conditions.
Dr Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983) by Victoria Crowe. © Victoria Crowe. Credit: Museums & Galleries Edinburgh
The Davidson Clinic remained a charity and closely associated with the Church of Scotland for its existence. Never part of the NHS it relocated from Belleville in 1968 and was closed in 1973. Key members of this organisation, including Winifred Rushforth, would go on to find the similar Wellspring clinic. Belleville was now acquired again by the Usher family, this time by Thomas Usher & Sons, the brewing branch of the dynasty. Ushers successfully applied for a licence to turn it into a modern roadhouse type pub and restaurant. Despite local objections it opened as such in 1970 as the Commonwealth-games inspired Gold Medal Tavern. The Gold Medal found its way into the Alloa Brewery’s portfolio, who refurbished it in 1986 and renamed the restaurant to Waffles. With a trendy open plan dining area and kitchen, it offered “pizzas, pasta, hamburgers, steaks and chicken“. No mention was made of waffles, but traditional pub food could be had in the lounge bar.
Newspaper advert “We’ve pulled a fast one” on the refurbishment of the Gold Medal tavern. Edinburgh Evening News – 15 May 1986
Roll forward the clock to 1994 and the pub was acquired by the Firkin brand of Allied Domecq who renamed it The Physician & Firkin, despite it having no obvious connection to medicine. When that chain folded in 2001 it was passed to Bass who branded it as one of their yellow-liveried, sticky-floored It’s a Scream student discount pubs with the new name of The Crags. Come 2011, the pub was re-branded and repositioned once again, becoming the more upmarket Salisbury Arms.
This has all been a very long winded way to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930 and there was not a pub on the site of the Salisbury Arms until 1970! The original claim is demonstrable nonsense – he definitely never drank in, never mind frequented, this establishment. Furthermore, the association of the Bell family with the house ended in 1807 when it was sold to its first owner, some 30 years before the birth of Joseph Bell. So the chance that he or Conan Doyle have any further connection with it is slim to nil.
So why is any of this important? Am I just showing off about being right about something? Shouldn’t I be magnanimous and attribute this to an innocent journalistic error? Well, you’re probably reading this page because you have an interest in Edinburgh and local history, so I will try and explain why I think that it matters and why you too should be bothered.
Arthur Conan Doyle in 1914, photograph by Walter Benington. Via Wikimedia
The first problem is that despite the best efforts of their owning companies to try and destroy all trust in them over the last 20 or so years, faith is still put by many in local newspapers as they trade on past reputations and a lack of alternatives. They and their websites are still held as being reliable places to find things out and they still command a wide local reach; people will read what they write and there’s a good chance they will accept it. Why shouldn’t they? The Evening News even has a strapline at the top of every page which says “News you can trust since 1873“, it invites you to believe it. So when it publishes historical facts without substantiation, they will inevitably become accepted as facts. The irony is not lost on me that a lot of what you will read on this very website has been arrived at by trawling through previous generations of these very local newspapers. I too have to trust that what was being printed in the pages of the Evening News or the Scotsman at the time was an accurate and factual record.
But this shouldn’t be a problem I hear you say, people have the sum of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips these days and can just check a search engine to verify a fact. So let’s do just that and perform a quick experiment by doing what many people do these days to adjudicate a point: let’s ask Google “which pub did Arthur Conan Doyle drink in?”.
Oh, so it was The Salisbury Arms. Mea culpa, if it’s on Google it must be true, right? But give the result a second glance, that’s not actually a search result. That’s an answer automatically generated by Google’s AI Overview and presented above and before the actual search results. It’s what some might call machine generated slop, an approximation of what looks like a plausible answer arrived at by a statistical analysis of a very large data set. It is the year 2025 and the problem of the Evening News presenting theory as fact is no longer confined to the reach of its own readership. Local news websites are now constantly crawled and trawled as the training material for the Large Language Models that are commonly referred to as AI. Local news is the factual foodstuff, chewed, digested, reconstituted and regurgitated by the LLM. And as the old saying goes, if you put garbage in you’ll get garbage out.
Give the above result a third glance and you see a little vague link symbol at the end of the word soup of that first paragraph. Click that link and it will suggest to you the source from which it came to its conclusions. So I did this and what should we see but two “references”, the oldest of which is only a day old and is the very same article which got me started! The second is a copy-and-paste effort of the first, barely hours old on the internet at this time.
And here is the big problem I’ve been trying to get at. We’ve just got a complete worked example of Google inventing itself a new fact about an important figure in Edinburgh local history, and people will believe it, because it is Google and that is were a huge number of people turn to for information, and because it is substantiated by links to local news websites, which many people still put trust in. That fact is now out of the bag and once it’s out, it is very hard to put it back in. Check in on the above search in a few months, weeks, or even days and you will undoubtedly see the fact has replicated itself across multiple other sources like a virus. And those sources will now in turn be consumed once again by Large Language Models, which will spit out the same result in future with ever more confidence. We are all of us going to have to get used to accepting a lot less of what is presented to us as fact and doing a lot more of our own verification if we want to find a reliable answer…
Ouroboros, the serpent consuming its own tail, a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.

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Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 06:00 UTC

The famous literary association that never was: the thread about the Salisbury Arms

Here’s an eye-catching headline one one of those sites that passes itself off as local news from today. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle“.
Edinburgh Live headline, 25th June 2025. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle”.
The piece goes on, “Once a favourite watering hole of the iconic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle“. Stop the bus! Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular in the Salisbury Arms? That’s news to me! Now, I’ll readily admit that I don’t know everything about Edinburgh, but something here feels a bit off.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Arthur Conan Doyle
But let’s be fair, not everyone spends quite so much time poring over local history as I do, and not everyone will be irked enough by something that troubles them to look more into it. But I’m not everyone and I was sceptical and so in the best spirit of Sherlock Holmes I set out to do a little deduction of my own. To paraphrase the great detective, when it comes to Edinburgh history “it is my business to know what other people do not know!”
Sherlock Holmes statue in Edinburgh, erected opposite the birthplace of Conan Doyle. CC-by-SA 3.0 Kim Traynor via Wikimedia
The first indicator that something isn’t quite right is that the website of the Salisbury Arms itself doesn’t trouble to mention its famous literary association. The game is afoot! Delving a bit deeper, a quick tap of the keys in a search engine traces the Conan Doyle claim back to an advertorial piece from the Scotsman in June 2011. In this it is stated – without reference – “Apparently Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle used to frequent the hostelry now known as The Salisbury Arms in Dalkeith Road.” That word apparently is key here and from it we should suspect that the author was well aware that their claim was without evidence. Wind the clock forward to January 2017 and we find in the sister publication, Evening News, a repetition and reinforcement of the claim: “The most intriguing connection the Salisbury Arms has is with the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes” it gushes, before quickly contradicting itself; “Whether Conan Doyle was ever a visitor… is unclear” and then instantly trying to get itself out of jail with “but it is thought he dropped by on a few occasions“. Once again I think our author was very aware that there was nothing to back up the claims they were making. By this point I’m willing to stake a round of drinks on the fact that my initial cynicism is well founded.
“Historic Salisbury Arms to undergo major renovation work”, Evening News, January 14th 2017.
I could stop there, but I like to be both firm and fair in my debunking and come to an argument armed with the facts, so I shan’t.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
A Scandal in Bohemia, Arthur Conan Doyle
So let us take a proper look into the history of the Salisbury Arms, after all history is probably why you are reading this in the first place! Along the way I can attempt to keep my reputation intact by offering a well evidenced counter argument, I can demonstrate the sort of readily accessible sources that you a I can turn to for investigating a case such as this and and hopefully we can all learn something more of the history of the place in question and write it down for the benefit of others (particularly writers of local news!). Looking at the building in question itself, it doesn’t need an expert eye make a sure guess that it probably began life as a Georgian villa.
The Salisbury Arms, Edinburgh, 2015. © Paul Farmer, CC-by-SA 2.0 via Geograph.
A quick search through the online Book of The Old Edinburgh Club – one of my frequent first ports of call for local history queries – brings us to Volume 24 and pages 152-197, “The Lands of Newington and Their Owners“, by W. Forbes Gray. In this piece we find that a house and plot here was seised (officially registered) to Francis Nalder, merchant, in 1812. Referring to a map of the area around this time – Kirkwood’s Town Plan of Edinburgh of 1817 is a reliable source, freely accessible from the National Library of Scotland – we see Mr. Nalder’s name appears as landowner here too.
Kirkwood’s town plan of Edinburgh, 1817. Showing “Nalder” on the site of the house which is now the Salisbury Arms. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
From Forbes Gray’s we learn that this plot was one of just many such others which were feued from the Newington Estate in the early 19th century to create a new suburb. Newington’s lands were an irregular rectangle defined by the Gibbet Loan (now Preston Street) to the north, East and West Mayfield to the south, Dalkeith Road to the east and the turnpike road south to Selkirk and Carlisle (now Minto Street) to the west. There was a large house, Newington House, in the southeastern quarter. This estate was an old one but had been split into six lots by the city back in the 16th century. Over subsequent centuries, five of the plots were acquired and combined by the Lauder of Fountainhall family, from where they passed to John Henderson of Leistoun. Henderson’s grandson bought the sixth and final plot in 1733, reuniting the estate and taking for himself the title Henderson of Newington.
1817 Kirkwood town plan of Edinburgh, highlighting the lands of Newington. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
At this time the Newington House on the above map had not yet been built and there was instead an older mansion located in the northwest corner at the end of what is now West Newington Place. It is shown on the Ordnance Survey 1849 Town Plan as Old Newington House. After Henderson the lands were acquired in 1751 by a saddler, Patrick Crichton. The financial problems of his son Alexander in the 1780s saw loans taken out, secured against the estate, which were defaulted on. One of the major creditors came to an agreement in 1803 whereby Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, surgeon, bought Newington for £5,000 thus settling the debt.
Benjamin Bell by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1780-90). From “Raeburn to Redpath” booklet by Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, via Wikimedia.
Bell, “the first Scottish scientific surgeon” and “father of the Edinburgh school of Surgery” built the new Newington House but died in 1806, before he had a chance to settle in and enjoy it. It so happens that he was the great grandfather of Joseph Bell, the surgeon and lecturer known as the inspiration from which Arthur Conan Doyle formed Sherlock Holmes. So finally we arrive at a kernel of a grain of truth in at least one aspect of our story. Bell’s eldest son, George, sold Newington House to Sir George Steuart of Grandtully in 1807 and Steuart bought up more of the land shortly thereafter to form gardens around the house, but also with a farsighted view that he could feu this land himself, and his own charter indeed allowed him to do so after a period of time had elapsed.
Newington House in the 1880s, with the family of Lord Provost Duncan McLaren (in top hat) assembled on the lawn. SC1224483 via Trove.Scot
In due course, his estate-within-an-estate would later be developed into the planned suburb of the Blacket Estate (where, ironically, Joseph Bell was an early resident, at number 44). Thank you to Hugh Mackay of the Blacket Association for pointing this out.
1817 Kirkwood Plan of Edinburgh centred on Newington House, showing land owners as Sir George Stewart (sic) of Grandtully, Bart. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Having sold the house, George Bell and his brothers began the process of feuing the rest of their land here into plots for fashionable new suburban villas. To distinguish theirs from Steuart’s holding, they gave his district an on-trend new name which also happened to be a pun on their own: Belleville. On the 1826 feuing plan on the NLS maps site, both names are given:
“Plan of the Lands of Newington and Belleville, 1826”. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
This new name for the district stuck for a short while in the newspapers, but old habits can die hard and it soon reverted back to being just plain old Newington. But two houses kept the former name alive; Belleville Lodge on South Blacket Place (now Blacket Avenue) and Belleville at 58 Dalkeith Road – which is that house which would much later become the Salisbury Arms. The first record of that name being used in connection with the house that I can find is on the 1855 valuation roll over on Scotland’s People, with the owner and occupant being listed as William Donaldson, Grocer. By 1865 he has been replaced by Miss Mary Duncan as “William Donaldson’s Representative“. She is still the owner in 1875, but the occupant is one James M. Watters, Captain.
Belleville Lodge. A gate pier carries the name “Belleville Lodge” painted on it and also on a brass plaque, complete with a sign to the right saying “Belleville Lodge. Mansfield Care”.
Come 1885 there is once again a new owner and occupier; William Nelson of Salisbury Green. This latter house you can see on the 1817 map above of the Newington Estate is directly to the east of Belleville, it’s the baronial pile opposite which now forms part of the Pollock Halls complex. Confusingly the same valuation rolls show William also owned and occupied Salisbury Green at this time, it’s not clear why he needed both! He was a wealthy publisher of the family firm Thomas Nelson & Sons, whose vast Parkside Works lay just across the way, and who is known for restoring St. Bernard’s Well at Stockbridge and St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle.
Salisbury Green house, a 3-storey mansion in the Scottish Baronial Revival style.
Ownership of Belleville never seemed to stay with one person for long. By 1895 the valuation rolls show it was Robert Inch, a well known and prosperous seed merchant who ran his business from the Timberbush in Leith. He died there in 1912, after which it was bought by its next door neighbour, Mrs Jane Binning Burn Murdoch of Arthur Lodge . Regular listeners might be familiar with the Burn Murdoch name, she was the wife of the artist and explorer WG Burn Murdoch who was so involved in helping Edinburgh Zoo acquire its first polar bears, at the same time as indulging in his passion for trophy hunting them. The house was let out and an advert at this time gives us a description of its accommodation and features:
Newspaper advert for the lease of “Belleville” house. “Entrance hall, cloak room, 3 public rooms, billiard room, 8 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 2 bathrooms, laundry and ample servants’ accommodation” plus stables and garaging. The Scotsman – 19 March 1913
Mrs Burn Murdoch’s maiden name was Usher, she was a daughter of Andrew Usher of that distilling dynasty which financed and lends its name to the Usher Hall. Belleville by 1930 was in the hands and occupation of her sister, Elizabeth Usher Cunningham and in turn by 1935 it was Elizabeth’s son, Howard, who was there. Howard Usher Cunningham served with the Royal Irish Regiment during World War 1 at Gallipoli, in the Balkans and in Palestine, being awarded the Military Cross in the last theatre. He was in the fertiliser business with the family firm of J. & J. Cunningham of Leith, which was one of the five constituent companies of the Scottish Agricultural Industries conglomerate which formed in 1928. He was appointed director in 1929, rising to Managing Director in 1947. During World War 2 he was the Ministry of Supply Fertiliser Controller for the country, which earned him a knighthood.
In 1942 the house of Belleville was turned over to the Edinburgh Home for Babies and School of Mothercraft, a charitable maternity home and training establishment for both midwives and young (often single) mothers. This organisation had lost its base on Colinton Road to the Civil Defence for the duration of the war and at first had been evacuated to the countryside, but returned to the city in 1942 once the immediate threat was passed where it could better undertake its work. Usher Cunningham returned to the house briefly after the war but by 1948 it had been taken over by the Relief Society for Poles in London as the Polish House, a Polish community centre for exiles and a headquarters for organisations such as the Polish YMCA and Scottish-Polish Society.
Scotsman article, 29 January 1948, showing a picture of the dining room of 58 Dalkeith Road under the title “Polish Centre in Edinburgh”, with two columns below of description.
The Polish House was transient and soon moved on as Poles in Edinburgh either emigrated or integrated, it relocated to Drummond Place where it joined the Polish Press Agency. In 1950 the Edinburgh Corporation looked to acquire the building as a remand school but it was instead opened as the Davidson Clinic, to treat young adults and children with “anxiety illnesses“. The Clinic took its name from the Davidson Church in Eyre Place, where the idea for it had been formed by the minister. It practised what we would now call psychotherapy and had been established in the city in 1941 as a charitable institution. Under its lead doctor, GP Dr Winifred Rushforth, it took a pioneering approach to dealing with nervous and anxiety conditions.
Dr Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983) by Victoria Crowe. © Victoria Crowe. Credit: Museums & Galleries Edinburgh
The Davidson Clinic remained a charity and closely associated with the Church of Scotland for its existence. Never part of the NHS it relocated from Belleville in 1968 and was closed in 1973. Key members of this organisation, including Winifred Rushforth, would go on to find the similar Wellspring clinic. Belleville was now acquired again by the Usher family, this time by Thomas Usher & Sons, the brewing branch of the dynasty. Ushers successfully applied for a licence to turn it into a modern roadhouse type pub and restaurant. Despite local objections it opened as such in 1970 as the Commonwealth-games inspired Gold Medal Tavern. The Gold Medal found its way into the Alloa Brewery’s portfolio, who refurbished it in 1986 and renamed the restaurant to Waffles. With a trendy open plan dining area and kitchen, it offered “pizzas, pasta, hamburgers, steaks and chicken“. No mention was made of waffles, but traditional pub food could be had in the lounge bar.
Newspaper advert “We’ve pulled a fast one” on the refurbishment of the Gold Medal tavern. Edinburgh Evening News – 15 May 1986
Roll forward the clock to 1994 and the pub was acquired by the Firkin brand of Allied Domecq who renamed it The Physician & Firkin, despite it having no obvious connection to medicine. When that chain folded in 2001 it was passed to Bass who branded it as one of their yellow-liveried, sticky-floored It’s a Scream student discount pubs with the new name of The Crags. Come 2011, the pub was re-branded and repositioned once again, becoming the more upmarket Salisbury Arms.
This has all been a very long winded way to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930 and there was not a pub on the site of the Salisbury Arms until 1970! The original claim is demonstrable nonsense – he definitely never drank in, never mind frequented, this establishment. Furthermore, the association of the Bell family with the house ended in 1807 when it was sold to its first owner, some 30 years before the birth of Joseph Bell. So the chance that he or Conan Doyle have any further connection with it is slim to nil.
So why is any of this important? Am I just showing off about being right about something? Shouldn’t I be magnanimous and attribute this to an innocent journalistic error? Well, you’re probably reading this page because you have an interest in Edinburgh and local history, so I will try and explain why I think that it matters and why you too should be bothered.
Arthur Conan Doyle in 1914, photograph by Walter Benington. Via Wikimedia
The first problem is that despite the best efforts of their owning companies to try and destroy all trust in them over the last 20 or so years, faith is still put by many in local newspapers as they trade on past reputations and a lack of alternatives. They and their websites are still held as being reliable places to find things out and they still command a wide local reach; people will read what they write and there’s a good chance they will accept it. Why shouldn’t they? The Evening News even has a strapline at the top of every page which says “News you can trust since 1873“, it invites you to believe it. So when it publishes historical facts without substantiation, they will inevitably become accepted as facts. The irony is not lost on me that a lot of what you will read on this very website has been arrived at by trawling through previous generations of these very local newspapers. I too have to trust that what was being printed in the pages of the Evening News or the Scotsman at the time was an accurate and factual record.
But this shouldn’t be a problem I hear you say, people have the sum of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips these days and can just check a search engine to verify a fact. So let’s do just that and perform a quick experiment by doing what many people do these days to adjudicate a point: let’s ask Google “which pub did Arthur Conan Doyle drink in?”.
Oh, so it was The Salisbury Arms. Mea culpa, if it’s on Google it must be true, right? But give the result a second glance, that’s not actually a search result. That’s an answer automatically generated by Google’s AI Overview and presented above and before the actual search results. It’s what some might call machine generated slop, an approximation of what looks like a plausible answer arrived at by a statistical analysis of a very large data set. It is the year 2025 and the problem of the Evening News presenting theory as fact is no longer confined to the reach of its own readership. Local news websites are now constantly crawled and trawled as the training material for the Large Language Models that are commonly referred to as AI. Local news is the factual foodstuff, chewed, digested, reconstituted and regurgitated by the LLM. And as the old saying goes, if you put garbage in you’ll get garbage out.
Give the above result a third glance and you see a little vague link symbol at the end of the word soup of that first paragraph. Click that link and it will suggest to you the source from which it came to its conclusions. So I did this and what should we see but two “references”, the oldest of which is only a day old and is the very same article which got me started! The second is a copy-and-paste effort of the first, barely hours old on the internet at this time.
And here is the big problem I’ve been trying to get at. We’ve just got a complete worked example of Google inventing itself a new fact about an important figure in Edinburgh local history, and people will believe it, because it is Google and that is were a huge number of people turn to for information, and because it is substantiated by links to local news websites, which many people still put trust in. That fact is now out of the bag and once it’s out, it is very hard to put it back in. Check in on the above search in a few months, weeks, or even days and you will undoubtedly see the fact has replicated itself across multiple other sources like a virus. And those sources will now in turn be consumed once again by Large Language Models, which will spit out the same result in future with ever more confidence. We are all of us going to have to get used to accepting a lot less of what is presented to us as fact and doing a lot more of our own verification if we want to find a reliable answer…
Ouroboros, the serpent consuming its own tail, a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.

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#ConanDoyle #House #Newington #pub #pubs #Southside #Usher

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Andy Arthur - Threadinburgh @[email protected] · 2025-06-27 · 06:00 UTC

The thread about the Salisbury Arms and the famous literary association that never was
Here’s an eye-catching headline one one of those sites that passes itself off as local news from today. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle“.
Edinburgh Live headline, 25th June 2025. “First Look at transformed Edinburgh boozer visited by Arthur Conan Doyle”.
The piece goes on, “Once a favourite watering hole of the iconic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle“. Stop the bus! Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular in the Salisbury Arms? That’s news to me! Now, I’ll readily admit that I don’t know everything about Edinburgh, but something here feels a bit off.
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, Arthur Conan Doyle
But let’s be fair, not everyone spends quite so much time poring over local history as I do, and not everyone will be irked enough by something that troubles them to look more into it. But I’m not everyone and I was sceptical and so in the best spirit of Sherlock Holmes I set out to do a little deduction of my own. To paraphrase the great detective, when it comes to Edinburgh history “it is my business to know what other people do not know!”
Sherlock Holmes statue in Edinburgh, erected opposite the birthplace of Conan Doyle. CC-by-SA 3.0 Kim Traynor via Wikimedia
The first indicator that something isn’t quite right is that the website of the Salisbury Arms itself doesn’t trouble to mention its famous literary association. The game is afoot! Delving a bit deeper, a quick tap of the keys in a search engine traces the Conan Doyle claim back to an advertorial piece from the Scotsman in June 2011. In this it is stated – without reference – “Apparently Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle used to frequent the hostelry now known as The Salisbury Arms in Dalkeith Road.” That word apparently is key here and from it we should suspect that the author was well aware that their claim was without evidence. Wind the clock forward to January 2017 and we find in the sister publication, Evening News, a repetition and reinforcement of the claim: “The most intriguing connection the Salisbury Arms has is with the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes” it gushes, before quickly contradicting itself; “Whether Conan Doyle was ever a visitor… is unclear” and then instantly trying to get itself out of jail with “but it is thought he dropped by on a few occasions“. Once again I think our author was very aware that there was nothing to back up the claims they were making. By this point I’m willing to stake a round of drinks on the fact that my initial cynicism is well founded.
“Historic Salisbury Arms to undergo major renovation work”, Evening News, January 14th 2017.
I could stop there, but I like to be both firm and fair in my debunking and come to an argument armed with the facts, so I shan’t.
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
A Scandal in Bohemia, Arthur Conan Doyle
So let us take a proper look into the history of the Salisbury Arms, after all history is probably why you are reading this in the first place! Along the way I can attempt to keep my reputation intact by offering a well evidenced counter argument, I can demonstrate the sort of readily accessible sources that you a I can turn to for investigating a case such as this and and hopefully we can all learn something more of the history of the place in question and write it down for the benefit of others (particularly writers of local news!). Looking at the building in question itself, it doesn’t need an expert eye make a sure guess that it probably began life as a Georgian villa.
The Salisbury Arms, Edinburgh, 2015. © Paul Farmer, CC-by-SA 2.0 via Geograph.
A quick search through the online Book of The Old Edinburgh Club – one of my frequent first ports of call for local history queries – brings us to Volume 24 and pages 152-197, “The Lands of Newington and Their Owners“, by W. Forbes Gray. In this piece we find that a house and plot here was seised (officially registered) to Francis Nalder, merchant, in 1812. Referring to a map of the area around this time – Kirkwood’s Town Plan of Edinburgh of 1817 is a reliable source, freely accessible from the National Library of Scotland – we see Mr. Nalder’s name appears as landowner here too.
Kirkwood’s town plan of Edinburgh, 1817. Showing “Nalder” on the site of the house which is now the Salisbury Arms. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
From Forbes Gray’s we learn that this plot was one of just many such others which were feued from the Newington Estate in the early 19th century to create a new suburb. Newington’s lands were an irregular rectangle defined by the Gibbet Loan (now Preston Street) to the north, East and West Mayfield to the south, Dalkeith Road to the east and the turnpike road south to Selkirk and Carlisle (now Minto Street) to the west. There was a large house, Newington House, in the southeastern quarter. This estate was an old one but had been split into six lots by the city back in the 16th century. Over subsequent centuries, five of the plots were acquired and combined by the Lauder of Fountainhall family, from where they passed to John Henderson of Leistoun. Henderson’s grandson bought the sixth and final plot in 1733, reuniting the estate and taking for himself the title Henderson of Newington.
1817 Kirkwood town plan of Edinburgh, highlighting the lands of Newington. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
At this time the Newington House on the above map had not yet been built and there was instead an older mansion located in the northwest corner at the end of what is now West Newington Place. It is shown on the Ordnance Survey 1849 Town Plan as Old Newington House. After Henderson the lands were acquired in 1751 by a saddler, Patrick Crichton. The financial problems of his son Alexander in the 1780s saw loans taken out, secured against the estate, which were defaulted on. One of the major creditors came to an agreement in 1803 whereby Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, surgeon, bought Newington for £5,000 thus settling the debt.
Benjamin Bell by Sir Henry Raeburn (c. 1780-90). From “Raeburn to Redpath” booklet by Bourne Fine Art, Edinburgh, via Wikimedia.
Bell, “the first Scottish scientific surgeon” and “father of the Edinburgh school of Surgery” built the new Newington House but died in 1806, before he had a chance to settle in and enjoy it. It so happens that he was the great grandfather of Joseph Bell, the surgeon and lecturer known as the inspiration from which Arthur Conan Doyle formed Sherlock Holmes. So finally we arrive at a kernel of a grain of truth in at least one aspect of our story. Bell’s eldest son, George, sold Newington House to Sir George Steuart of Grandtully in 1807 and Steuart bought up more of the land shortly thereafter to form gardens around the house, but also with a farsighted view that he could feu this land himself, and his own charter indeed allowed him to do so after a period of time had elapsed. In due course, his estate-within-an-estate would later be developed into the planned suburb of the Blacket Estate.
1817 Kirkwood Plan of Edinburgh centred on Newington House, showing land owners as Sir George Stewart (sic) of Grandtully, Bart. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
Having sold the house, George Bell and his brothers began the process of feuing the rest of their land here into plots for fashionable new suburban villas. To distinguish theirs from Steuart’s holding, they gave his district an on-trend new name which also happened to be a pun on their own: Belleville. On the 1826 feuing plan on the NLS maps site, both names are given:
“Plan of the Lands of Newington and Belleville, 1826”. Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
This new name for the district stuck for a short while in the newspapers, but old habits can die hard and it soon reverted back to being just plain old Newington. But two houses kept the former name alive; Belleville Lodge on South Blacket Place (now Blacket Avenue) and Belleville at 58 Dalkeith Road – which is that house which would much later become the Salisbury Arms. The first record of that name being used in connection with the house that I can find is on the 1855 valuation roll over on Scotland’s People, with the owner and occupant being listed as William Donaldson, Grocer. By 1865 he has been replaced by Miss Mary Duncan as “William Donaldson’s Representative“. She is still the owner in 1875, but the occupant is one James M. Watters, Captain.
Belleville Lodge. A gate pier carries the name “Belleville Lodge” painted on it and also on a brass plaque, complete with a sign to the right saying “Belleville Lodge. Mansfield Care”.
Come 1885 there is once again a new owner and occupier; William Nelson of Salisbury Green. This latter house you can see on the 1817 map above of the Newington Estate is directly to the east of Belleville, it’s the baronial pile opposite which now forms part of the Pollock Halls complex. Confusingly the same valuation rolls show William also owned and occupied Salisbury Green at this time, it’s not clear why he needed both! He was a wealthy publisher of the family firm Thomas Nelson & Sons, whose vast Parkside Works lay just across the way, and who is known for restoring St. Bernard’s Well at Stockbridge and St. Margaret’s Chapel in Edinburgh Castle.
Salisbury Green house, a 3-storey mansion in the Scottish Baronial Revival style.
Ownership of Belleville never seemed to stay with one person for long. By 1895 the valuation rolls show it was Robert Inch, a well known and prosperous seed merchant who ran his business from the Timberbush in Leith. He died there in 1912, after which it was bought by its next door neighbour, Mrs Jane Binning Burn Murdoch of Arthur Lodge . Regular listeners might be familiar with the Burn Murdoch name, she was the wife of the artist and explorer WG Burn Murdoch who was so involved in helping Edinburgh Zoo acquire its first polar bears, at the same time as indulging in his passion for trophy hunting them. The house was let out and an advert at this time gives us a description of its accommodation and features:
Newspaper advert for the lease of “Belleville” house. “Entrance hall, cloak room, 3 public rooms, billiard room, 8 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 2 bathrooms, laundry and ample servants’ accommodation” plus stables and garaging. The Scotsman – 19 March 1913
Mrs Burn Murdoch’s maiden name was Usher, she was a daughter of Andrew Usher of that distilling dynasty which financed and lends its name to the Usher Hall. Belleville by 1930 was in the hands and occupation of her sister, Elizabeth Usher Cunningham and in turn by 1935 it was Elizabeth’s son, Howard, who was there. Howard Usher Cunningham served with the Royal Irish Regiment during World War 1 at Gallipoli, in the Balkans and in Palestine, being awarded the Military Cross in the last theatre. He was in the fertiliser business with the family firm of J. & J. Cunningham of Leith, which was one of the five constituent companies of the Scottish Agricultural Industries conglomerate which formed in 1928. He was appointed director in 1929, rising to Managing Director in 1947. During World War 2 he was the Ministry of Supply Fertiliser Controller for the country, which earned him a knighthood.
In 1942 the house of Belleville was turned over to the Edinburgh Home for Babies and School of Mothercraft, a charitable maternity home and training establishment for both midwives and young (often single) mothers. This organisation had lost its base on Colinton Road to the Civil Defence for the duration of the war and at first had been evacuated to the countryside, but returned to the city in 1942 once the immediate threat was passed where it could better undertake its work. Usher Cunningham returned to the house briefly after the war but by 1948 it had been taken over by the Relief Society for Poles in London as the Polish House, a Polish community centre for exiles and a headquarters for organisations such as the Polish YMCA and Scottish-Polish Society.
Scotsman article, 29 January 1948, showing a picture of the dining room of 58 Dalkeith Road under the title “Polish Centre in Edinburgh”, with two columns below of description.
The Polish House was transient and soon moved on as Poles in Edinburgh either emigrated or integrated, it relocated to Drummond Place where it joined the Polish Press Agency. In 1950 the Edinburgh Corporation looked to acquire the building as a remand school but it was instead opened as the Davidson Clinic, to treat young adults and children with “anxiety illnesses“. The Clinic took its name from the Davidson Church in Eyre Place, where the idea for it had been formed by the minister. It practised what we would now call psychotherapy and had been established in the city in 1941 as a charitable institution. Under its lead doctor, GP Dr Winifred Rushforth, it took a pioneering approach to dealing with nervous and anxiety conditions.
Dr Winifred Rushforth (1885–1983) by Victoria Crowe. © Victoria Crowe. Credit: Museums & Galleries Edinburgh
The Davidson Clinic remained a charity and closely associated with the Church of Scotland for its existence. Never part of the NHS it relocated from Belleville in 1968 and was closed in 1973. Key members of this organisation, including Winifred Rushforth, would go on to find the similar Wellspring clinic. Belleville was now acquired again by the Usher family, this time by Thomas Usher & Sons, the brewing branch of the dynasty. Ushers successfully applied for a licence to turn it into a modern roadhouse type pub and restaurant. Despite local objections it opened as such in 1970 as the Commonwealth-games inspired Gold Medal Tavern. The Gold Medal found its way into the Alloa Brewery’s portfolio, who refurbished it in 1986 and renamed the restaurant to Waffles. With a trendy open plan dining area and kitchen, it offered “pizzas, pasta, hamburgers, steaks and chicken“. No mention was made of waffles, but traditional pub food could be had in the lounge bar.
Newspaper advert “We’ve pulled a fast one” on the refurbishment of the Gold Medal tavern. Edinburgh Evening News – 15 May 1986
Roll forward the clock to 1994 and the pub was acquired by the Firkin brand of Allied Domecq who renamed it The Physician & Firkin, despite it having no obvious connection to medicine. When that chain folded in 2001 it was passed to Bass who branded it as one of their yellow-liveried, sticky-floored It’s a Scream student discount pubs with the new name of The Crags. Come 2011, the pub was re-branded and repositioned once again, becoming the more upmarket Salisbury Arms.
This has all been a very long winded way to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930 and there was not a pub on the site of the Salisbury Arms until 1970! The original claim is demonstrable nonsense – he definitely never drank in, never mind frequented, this establishment. Furthermore, the association of the Bell family with the house ended in 1807 when it was sold to its first owner, some 30 years before the birth of Joseph Bell. So the chance that he or Conan Doyle have any further connection with it is slim to nil.
So why is any of this important? Am I just showing off about being right about something? Shouldn’t I be magnanimous and attribute this to an innocent journalistic error? Well, you’re probably reading this page because you have an interest in Edinburgh and local history, so I will try and explain why I think that it matters and why you too should be bothered.
Arthur Conan Doyle in 1914, photograph by Walter Benington. Via Wikimedia
The first problem is that despite the best efforts of their owning companies to try and destroy all trust in them over the last 20 or so years, faith is still put by many in local newspapers as they trade on past reputations and a lack of alternatives. They and their websites are still held as being reliable places to find things out and they still command a wide local reach; people will read what they write and there’s a good chance they will accept it. Why shouldn’t they? The Evening News even has a strapline at the top of every page which says “News you can trust since 1873“, it invites you to believe it. So when it publishes historical facts without substantiation, they will inevitably become accepted as facts. The irony is not lost on me that a lot of what you will read on this very website has been arrived at by trawling through previous generations of these very local newspapers. I too have to trust that what was being printed in the pages of the Evening News or the Scotsman at the time was an accurate and factual record.
But this shouldn’t be a problem I hear you say, people have the sum of the world’s knowledge at their fingertips these days and can just check a search engine to verify a fact. So let’s do just that and perform a quick experiment by doing what many people do these days to adjudicate a point: let’s ask Google “which pub did Arthur Conan Doyle drink in?”.
Oh, so it was The Salisbury Arms. Mea culpa, if it’s on Google it must be true, right? But give the result a second glance, that’s not actually a search result. That’s an answer automatically generated by Google’s AI Overview and presented above and before the actual search results. It’s what some might call machine generated slop, an approximation of what looks like a plausible answer arrived at by a statistical analysis of a very large data set. It is the year 2025 and the problem of the Evening News presenting theory as fact is no longer confined to the reach of its own readership. Local news websites are now constantly crawled and trawled as the training material for the Large Language Models that are commonly referred to as AI. Local news is the factual foodstuff, chewed, digested, reconstituted and regurgitated by the LLM. And as the old saying goes, if you put garbage in you’ll get garbage out.
Give the above result a third glance and you see a little vague link symbol at the end of the word soup of that first paragraph. Click that link and it will suggest to you the source from which it came to its conclusions. So I did this and what should we see but two “references”, the oldest of which is only a day old and is the very same article which got me started! The second is a copy-and-paste effort of the first, barely hours old on the internet at this time.
And here is the big problem I’ve been trying to get at. We’ve just got a complete worked example of Google inventing itself a new fact about an important figure in Edinburgh local history, and people will believe it, because it is Google and that is were a huge number of people turn to for information, and because it is substantiated by links to local news websites, which many people still put trust in. That fact is now out of the bag and once it’s out, it is very hard to put it back in. Check in on the above search in a few months, weeks, or even days and you will undoubtedly see the fact has replicated itself across multiple other sources like a virus. And those sources will now in turn be consumed once again by Large Language Models, which will spit out the same result in future with ever more confidence. We’re all going to have to get used to accepting a lot less of what is presented to us fact and doing a lot more of our own verification if we want to find out the actual answer…
Ouroboros, the serpent consuming its own tail, a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal
If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.

These threads © 2017-2025, Andy Arthur.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
#ConanDoyle #House #Newington #pub #pubs #Southside #Usher #Written2025

#conandoyle #house #newington #pub #pubs #southside
Kalvin Carefour Johnny @[email protected] · 2025-10-24 · 02:06 UTC

@kalvin: They labelled us "other Bumiputera." Sad. For them, we're just "other" kind of Malaysians.
@kalvin: Just to be clear — anyone instigating arguments or spreading hate is not among my circle.
↑ Why did I talk like this? Let me tell you the context.
@Gyuriim: Tapi, Melanau orang ulu dan banyak lagi kaum minoriti selain KDMR. Nak cakap pasal sensitiviti, macam mana sekalipun, pasti ada kaum minoriti yang sensitif. Tidak perlu pergi jauh, tengok sahaja di Sarawak. Yang Iban fikirkan Sarawak ini adalah milik Iban sahaja. Padahal, masih ada Bidayuh, Orang Ulu, Melanau, semua.
↑ This is an example of harmful and divisive "minority and/or majority" narratives and labels. And also, the commenter holds the opinion that, based on limited data by the Iban people themselves, they claimed that the whole Iban population thinks Sarawak belongs to them. Ignoring diverse political opinions and alignment diversities among human beings.
@ezan: Tak semua suku di Sabah dan Sarawak adalah Dayak... Paham tak?
@nazr: Boleh sahaja dikategorikan sebagai Dayak terus, macam Melayu buat, tapi tak nak 😁
↑ Overgeneralizations of all people from Sabah and Sarawak as simply Dayak are inappropriate and insulting. KDMR++ people do choose "Momogun" as their core identity. The second comment is also harmful, showing a lack of empathy and respect because of the smile emoji.
@Zurfiqar Zurkefili: Terlalu banyak etnik... dan jika disatukan atas satu nama, etnik lain tidak mahu mengiktiraf serta populasi setiap etnik tidak terlalu besar. Inilah caranya... Jangan cakap begitu... Harmoni ialah lambang negara.
↑ Too many ethnicities aren't a relevant excuse for justifying representing Malaysia as only three: "Malay", Chinese, Indian. We must stop ethnic discrimination and subtle cleansing (which choosing only three ethnicities suggests). We're Malaysians.
@kruhuv: Other bumi isn't exclusive to Sabahan and Sarawakian only; there are others like Indigenous people and many other ethnic groups.
↑ This is true. Yes, I did mean "they labelled us other Bumiputera," which means, I think, that for them we are just "other" kinds of Malaysians. Based on my past experience at school as a teenage student in that secondary school, a teacher in front of the students said, "This is an Indian; all the others are Malay students," and when they pointed at me: "Kalvin, what is your 'brand'?" showing a lack of understanding and a subtle insult towards their "other" kinds of ethnicities.
@JEMTOD93: Kan, dah lah ambil dari kita perkataan bumi yang kita guna dulu sebagai others, kenapa tidak sahaja guna Melayu? Dalam perlembagaan tidak disebutkan tentang kesultanan Bumiputra tetapi kesultanan Melayu. Marah kata menghakis hak Melayu, tetapi satu-satu benda yang menjadikan mereka sebagai identiti adalah untuk dikenali sebagai Melayu. Tetapi mereka merujuk diri mereka sebagai Bumiputra🥲.
↑ Suggested Malay supremacy propaganda. Monarch worship, which is unhealthy for democracy. Ethnic supremacy propaganda and discrimination, which I see as global concerning issues that are often discussed and about which I am concerned.
@Pickley_Star: This country doesn't care for its natives the same way other countries do. They only prioritize Malay people.
(Me to Pickley) @kalvin: Imagine using "Malay supremacy" propaganda for elites to keep hoarding their wealth.
↑ In a place that faces injustices, oral sources and narratives do count as the primary sources of evidence and stories when the law and documentation fail to protect the vulnerable, which suggests that only specific people receive protection and certain benefits.
Labels like 'other Bumiputera' and ignoring KDMR++ identity as 'Dayak' are divisive. This subtle ethnic cleansing maintains elite wealth. Our lived experience is primary evidence against this injustice.
#malaysia #borneo #sabah #sarawak #bumiputera #identity #ethnicity #momogun #kdmr #melanau #dayak #xenophobia #supremacy #injustice #politics #community #culture #history #rights #equality #activism #narrative #malaysian #borneostates #dignity

#dignity #borneostates #malaysian #narrative #activism #equality
Kalvin Carefour Johnny @[email protected] · 2025-10-24 · 02:06 UTC

@kalvin: They labelled us "other Bumiputera." Sad. For them, we're just "other" kind of Malaysians.
@kalvin: Just to be clear — anyone instigating arguments or spreading hate is not among my circle.
↑ Why did I talk like this? Let me tell you the context.
@Gyuriim: Tapi, Melanau orang ulu dan banyak lagi kaum minoriti selain KDMR. Nak cakap pasal sensitiviti, macam mana sekalipun, pasti ada kaum minoriti yang sensitif. Tidak perlu pergi jauh, tengok sahaja di Sarawak. Yang Iban fikirkan Sarawak ini adalah milik Iban sahaja. Padahal, masih ada Bidayuh, Orang Ulu, Melanau, semua.
↑ This is an example of harmful and divisive "minority and/or majority" narratives and labels. And also, the commenter holds the opinion that, based on limited data by the Iban people themselves, they claimed that the whole Iban population thinks Sarawak belongs to them. Ignoring diverse political opinions and alignment diversities among human beings.
@ezan: Tak semua suku di Sabah dan Sarawak adalah Dayak... Paham tak?
@nazr: Boleh sahaja dikategorikan sebagai Dayak terus, macam Melayu buat, tapi tak nak 😁
↑ Overgeneralizations of all people from Sabah and Sarawak as simply Dayak are inappropriate and insulting. KDMR++ people do choose "Momogun" as their core identity. The second comment is also harmful, showing a lack of empathy and respect because of the smile emoji.
@Zurfiqar Zurkefili: Terlalu banyak etnik... dan jika disatukan atas satu nama, etnik lain tidak mahu mengiktiraf serta populasi setiap etnik tidak terlalu besar. Inilah caranya... Jangan cakap begitu... Harmoni ialah lambang negara.
↑ Too many ethnicities aren't a relevant excuse for justifying representing Malaysia as only three: "Malay", Chinese, Indian. We must stop ethnic discrimination and subtle cleansing (which choosing only three ethnicities suggests). We're Malaysians.
@kruhuv: Other bumi isn't exclusive to Sabahan and Sarawakian only; there are others like Indigenous people and many other ethnic groups.
↑ This is true. Yes, I did mean "they labelled us other Bumiputera," which means, I think, that for them we are just "other" kinds of Malaysians. Based on my past experience at school as a teenage student in that secondary school, a teacher in front of the students said, "This is an Indian; all the others are Malay students," and when they pointed at me: "Kalvin, what is your 'brand'?" showing a lack of understanding and a subtle insult towards their "other" kinds of ethnicities.
@JEMTOD93: Kan, dah lah ambil dari kita perkataan bumi yang kita guna dulu sebagai others, kenapa tidak sahaja guna Melayu? Dalam perlembagaan tidak disebutkan tentang kesultanan Bumiputra tetapi kesultanan Melayu. Marah kata menghakis hak Melayu, tetapi satu-satu benda yang menjadikan mereka sebagai identiti adalah untuk dikenali sebagai Melayu. Tetapi mereka merujuk diri mereka sebagai Bumiputra🥲.
↑ Suggested Malay supremacy propaganda. Monarch worship, which is unhealthy for democracy. Ethnic supremacy propaganda and discrimination, which I see as global concerning issues that are often discussed and about which I am concerned.
@Pickley_Star: This country doesn't care for its natives the same way other countries do. They only prioritize Malay people.
(Me to Pickley) @kalvin: Imagine using "Malay supremacy" propaganda for elites to keep hoarding their wealth.
↑ In a place that faces injustices, oral sources and narratives do count as the primary sources of evidence and stories when the law and documentation fail to protect the vulnerable, which suggests that only specific people receive protection and certain benefits.
Labels like 'other Bumiputera' and ignoring KDMR++ identity as 'Dayak' are divisive. This subtle ethnic cleansing maintains elite wealth. Our lived experience is primary evidence against this injustice.
#malaysia #borneo #sabah #sarawak #bumiputera #identity #ethnicity #momogun #kdmr #melanau #dayak #xenophobia #supremacy #injustice #politics #community #culture #history #rights #equality #activism #narrative #malaysian #borneostates #dignity

#malaysia #borneo #sabah #sarawak #bumiputera #identity
Palm Oil Detectives @[email protected] · 2025-04-26 · 15:22 UTC
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”

Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.

The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tarcisio Schnaider/Shutterstock
Despite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
However, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS

Read more about human rights and indigenous rights

Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
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Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Read more

Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
Read more

The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
Read more

The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Read more

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2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez
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Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
#amazon #amazonrainforest #biodiversity #boycottgold #boycottpalmoil #boycott4wildlife
Palm Oil Detectives @[email protected] · 2025-04-26 · 15:22 UTC
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”

Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.

The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tarcisio Schnaider/Shutterstock
Despite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
However, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS

Read more about human rights and indigenous rights

Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Read more

Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Read more

Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
Read more

The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
Read more

The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Read more

Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Instagram
- WordPress
- YouTube
- Mail
- Mastodon
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers
2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez
Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
#amazon #amazonrainforest #biodiversity #boycottgold #boycottpalmoil #boycott4wildlife
Palm Oil Detectives @[email protected] · 2025-04-26 · 15:22 UTC
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”

Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.

The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tarcisio Schnaider/Shutterstock
Despite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
However, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS

Read more about human rights and indigenous rights

Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Read more

Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Read more

Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
Read more

The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
Read more

The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Read more

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Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
#amazon #amazonrainforest #biodiversity #boycottgold #boycottpalmoil #boycott4wildlife
Palm Oil Detectives @[email protected] · 2025-04-26 · 15:22 UTC
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”

Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.

The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tarcisio Schnaider/Shutterstock
Despite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
However, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS

Read more about human rights and indigenous rights

Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Read more

Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Read more

Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
Read more

The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
Read more

The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Read more

Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
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- Facebook
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- YouTube
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- Mastodon
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers
2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez
Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
#yanomami #rainforest #palmoil #landrights #indigenousrights #indigenousmedicine
Palm Oil Detectives @[email protected] · 2025-04-26 · 15:22 UTC
New Research: Indigenous Communities Reduce Amazon Deforestation by 83%”

Although #deforestation rates in the Brazilian #Amazon have halved, this globally critical biome is still losing more than 5,000km² every year. That’s an area three times larger than Greater London. By combining satellite imagery for the entire Amazon region with data from the Brazilian national census, our new study found that deforestation in areas protected by #Indigenous communities was up to 83% lower compared to unprotected areas.
Results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting #biodiversity to help address #climatechange. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.

The world’s largest #rainforest the #Amazon 🫁🌳🌿 is vanishing. Yet a bright spark of hope finds #deforestation in #Indigenous protected areas is 83% lower. They are the KEY to saving the #forests and animals! #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Boycott4Wildlife https://wp.me/pcFhgU-8SM
Share to BlueSky Share to Twitter
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Tarcisio Schnaider/Shutterstock
Despite this win for indigenous-led conservation, our results also show that Indigenous communities had the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. Incomes in Indigenous territories were up to 36% lower compared to other land uses.
Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged groups of people in the world. Although Indigenous communities in Brazil have strengthened their political representation in recent years, 33% of people living below the poverty line are Indigenous.
Improving the economic wellbeing of Indigenous people is not only the socially just thing to do but can also be environmentally effective. Research in Nepal showed that communities with higher levels of socioeconomic development are less likely to trade off development with deforestation. Providing communities with the ability to protect and conserve their local forests and develop economically can be a win-win for both people and the environment.
In 2022, governments across the world agreed to protect 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. To meet the commitments of this 30×30 agenda, many countries need to drastically increase their conservation efforts to reverse deforestation in the Amazon and beyond.
Governments and philanthropic organisations pledged unprecedented political and financial support for forests and Indigenous peoples and local communities at the 2021 COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. These pledges have helped raise the voices of Indigenous peoples and ushered in a new era of commitments to return ancestral lands.
Yet, forests and their resources across the world remain coveted by many different interest groups, including mining and large agribusiness. The Supreme Court in Brazil is currently debating the constitutional validity of the controversial “Marco Temporal” or time limit framework which could substantially limit the ability of Indigenous peoples across the country to make claims for lands. This legal theory states that Indigenous peoples are only entitled to make claims for lands if they can prove that they were in possession of them on or before October 5 1988 when the Brazilian constitution came into effect.
Perhaps surprisingly, our results show that agricultural business development of the Brazilian Amazon is unlikely to provide greater socioeconomic benefits for local, non-indigenous communities than protection-focused alternatives that preserve forest cover but allow sustainable resource use by rural communities. But the agribusiness lobby in Brazil, who are often in direct conflict with Indigenous people, often argues that agricultural expansion will provide economic development for the region.
Our results demonstrate that returning lands to Indigenous communities can be extremely effective at reducing deforestation and boosting biodiversity to help address climate change. Yet, forest conservation should not come at an economic cost to people living in Indigenous-managed lands.
Access to land and opportunity
Indigenous communities need to regain access to their ancestral lands while also gaining access to development opportunities. Indigenous people in Brazil are eligible to receive support from social welfare programmes, such as the family allowance scheme (or bolsa familia in Portuguese), which is credited with lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and reducing inequality.
Protesters hold placards expressing their opinion during the demonstration. The Marco Temporal thesis, indigenous, and supporters of the indigenous movement met in downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2023. ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo
However, many rural and isolated communities face substantial difficulties accessing support. For example, fuel costs to take long boat trips from remote communities to urban centres to collect payments are high and many communities lack access to technology to even apply for such schemes.
President Lula Da Silva’s government is considering developing an Indigenous family allowance programme to address access problems faced by Indigenous communities in Brazil. As efforts to return rights to land ramp up in the wake of the 30×30 agenda, more governments and nongovernmental organisations should support the many other rights that Indigenous peoples have and reduce the structural barriers that prevent rural communities from claiming them.
Written by Johan Oldekop, Reader in Environment and Development, University of Manchester; Bowy den Braber, Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield, and Marina Schmoeller, PhD Candidate, Ecology, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)vThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
ENDS

Read more about human rights and indigenous rights

Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland
Concerns Mount Over Palm Oil Expansion in Nagaland | The Nagaland Climate Change Adaptation Forum (NCCAF) has raised grave concerns about the environmental and social impacts of expanding palm oil plantations in the…
Read more

Palm Oil Is Ruining Kalangala Uganda — Locals Paying the Price
A catastrophic storm in #Uganda’s Kalangala district left nearly 1,000 households homeless. The real culprit? Rampant #deforestation for #palmoil. Once rich in native forests that buffered storms, Kalangala is now a fragile landscape…
Read more

Violence for Palm Oil Against Peasant Communities in Honduras Meets Resistance
In the Aguán Valley of northern Honduras, peasant communities reclaiming ancestral lands face increasing violence and intimidation from armed groups linked to organised crime. The Dinant Corporation, a prominent palm oil producer, is…
Read more

The Great Malaysian Timber and Palm Oil Swindle
A joint investigation by Malaysiakini and Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN) reveals alarming deforestation in Pahang, #Malaysia, caused by one of the country’s largest #palmoil plantations. The plantation threatens endangered species like…
Read more

The origins of animal words in SE Asia and what this reveals to us about our connection to them
South East Asia is home to many fascinating creatures and rich biodiversity. The secrets of animal origins and ancient legends are revealed in their names: #Orangutan, #Gibbon, #Binturong and #Siamang in South East…
Read more

Load more posts
Something went wrong. Please refresh the page and/or try again.
Take Action in Five Ways
1. Join the #Boycott4Wildlife on social media and subscribe to stay in the loop: Share posts from this website to your own network on Twitter, Mastadon, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube using the hashtags #Boycottpalmoil #Boycott4Wildlife.
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Instagram
- WordPress
- YouTube
- Mail
- Mastodon
Enter your email address
Sign Up
Join 1,385 other subscribers
2. Contribute stories: Academics, conservationists, scientists, indigenous rights advocates and animal rights advocates working to expose the corruption of the palm oil industry or to save animals can contribute stories to the website.

Wildlife Artist Juanchi Pérez
Read more

Mel Lumby: Dedicated Devotee to Borneo’s Living Beings
Read more

Anthropologist and Author Dr Sophie Chao
Read more

Health Physician Dr Evan Allen
Read more

The World’s Most Loved Cup: A Social, Ethical & Environmental History of Coffee by Aviary Doert
Read more

How do we stop the world’s ecosystems from going into a death spiral? A #SteadyState Economy
Read more

3. Supermarket sleuthing: Next time you’re in the supermarket, take photos of products containing palm oil. Share these to social media along with the hashtags to call out the greenwashing and ecocide of the brands who use palm oil. You can also take photos of palm oil free products and congratulate brands when they go palm oil free.

https://twitter.com/CuriousApe4/status/1526136783557529600?s=20

https://twitter.com/PhillDixon1/status/1749010345555788144?s=20

https://twitter.com/mugabe139/status/1678027567977078784?s=20

4. Take to the streets: Get in touch with Palm Oil Detectives to find out more.
5. Donate: Make a one-off or monthly donation to Palm Oil Detectives as a way of saying thank you and to help pay for ongoing running costs of the website and social media campaigns. Donate here
Pledge your support
#Amazon #AmazonRainforest #biodiversity #BoycottGold #BoycottPalmOil #Boycott4wildlife #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Brazil #climatechange #deforestation #forests #humanRights #indigenous #IndigenousActivism #indigenousKnowledge #indigenousMedicine #indigenousRights #landRights #PalmOil #rainforest #Yanomami
#amazon #amazonrainforest #biodiversity #boycottgold #boycottpalmoil #boycott4wildlife
💧🌏 Greg Cocks @[email protected] · 2025-09-05 · 22:55 UTC

[USGS] Corridor Mapping Team - Ungulate Migrations of the West
--
https://www.usgs.gov/programs/cooperative-research-units/science/corridor-mapping-team-ungulate-migrations-west <-- shared technical article
--
https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20245006 <-- shared USGS 2024 publication ‘Ungulate Migrations of the Western United States, Volume 4’
--
https://doi.org/10.5066/P9SS9GD9 <-- shared USGS ungulate migration data release
--
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13806 <-- shared paper ‘Barrier Behaviour Analysis (Baba) [‘fences’] Reveals Extensive Effects Of Fencing On Wide-Ranging Ungulates’
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #USWest #USA #ungulate #migration #route #deer #elk #moose #antelope #bison #buffalo #infrastructure #manmade #obstacles #ecosystems #wildlife #publicland #privateland #CorridorMappingTeam #opendata #fedopendata #fedscience #naturalresources #Wyoming #FirstNation #tracking #GPS #seasonal #habitat #protection #fences #barriers #herds #herbivore #management #healthy #herdhealth #vegetation #prey #carnivore #economy #benefits #income #food #spatiotemporal #spatialanalysis #snow #weather
@USGS @USFWS

#gis #spatial #mapping #uswest #usa #ungulate
In the Dark @[email protected] · 2026-03-09 · 09:13 UTC

Cuts, Commitments and Contradictions – guest post by Lucien Heurtier

Lucien Heurtier is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London in the group of Theoretical Particle Physics & Cosmology. He contacted me yesterday to ask if I would use this platform to share a blog post he wrote about the events at last week’s Select Commitee meetings about the crisis at the Science and Technology Facilities, in order to boost its circulation. I am happy to do so. I have changed the formatting a little, but not any of the content.
–0–
Over the past week, three key meetings brought together members of the Particle Physics, Astronomy, and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) community with ministers, Members of Parliament, and representatives of UKRI and STFC. For the PPAN community, these discussions were particularly significant. They not only shed light on some of the underlying causes of the current financial pressures facing the programme, but also revealed what appears to be a growing disconnect between the strategic priorities emerging within UKRI and the concerns expressed by government, STFC leadership, and the PPAN research community itself.
In this article, I attempt to capture how researchers across the PPAN community have interpreted and reacted to these meetings. I discuss how this perceived disconnect relates to the developments of the past several months, and what these events may mean for what comes next.
The House of Lords Acknowledges a ‘Very Particular Problem Around STFC’
On Tuesday, 3rd of March, Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP (Secretary of State at DSIT), Lord Patrick Vallance (Minister of State at DSIT), and Emran Mian (Permanent Secretary at DSIT) appeared before the House of Lords Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which questioned them on the UKRI funding strategy and its impact on PPAN science.
From the start, Lord Mair (the chair) questioned the Minister: “As you are probably aware, several research councils have paused grants and announced cuts to basic science funding”, he said. “Is it the Government’s policy to cut funding for curiosity-driven research—from bucket 1—in favour of research for the other two buckets?”. Lord Vallance of Balham responded that “There have been no cuts in basic, curiosity-driven research”, although he admitted that “there is a very particular problem around STFC, […] but it is not the case that there have been cuts in any of the other areas”. So the stage is set: STFC is the only council facing explicit cuts. This might sound like a technicality to some, but for the PPAN community, simply getting the minister to acknowledge that STFC is facing budget cuts is already a success.
Among others, an important question comes up: “Would it be right to say that QR funding is being assumed to principally support bucket 1?” Indeed, in recent communications, UKRI has repeatedly classified QR research (QR standing for Quality Related) as being entirely part of the budget for bucket-1. In fact, it represents roughly 60% of the total budget in that bucket. However, Lord Vallance confessed, “No, it is going to support whatever the universities want it to support.” He even explicitly said that “that may be reallocated to other buckets, actually”. This obviously raises the question of whether curiosity-driven research is actually protected, as the government and UKRI have been repeating for months, and why QR research was entirely counted as contributing to bucket 1. Yet Lord Vallance simply said that “Sir Ian Chapman and the team—I think correctly—decided that trying to divide QR up in a complicated formula was bureaucratic”. Make of that what you will.
Lord Vallance then acknowledged poor communications from UKRI: “We can all agree that has not been done well”, he said. He then brought up the STFC case himself: “STFC is unusual in research councils because it has a very large infrastructure pot, and it also funds particle physics and astronomy”. “There is something that needs to be resolved there”, he repeated, “the basic, curiosity-driven, investigator-led research in that bucket needs to be protected”. Once again, such a statement is extremely important for PPAN. The minister is acknowledging that, beyond bad communication from UKRI, there is a problem here, and that cuts in STFC research are not in line with the idea that curiosity-driven research is protected, which Lord Vallance clearly appears to care about.
The committee kept asking: “We are hearing that there is a 30% reduction—the budget itself has not changed, but there is a shifting in the budget for STFC”, said the Baroness Willis of Summertown. “The ringfencing for the blue skies [Drayson partition] has gone from that structure. Is that understanding correct?” “No”, said Lord Vallance, “there was no hard partition in that. It has always been tensioned against the two things”. “The international spend has gone up by about 20% at a time when domestic spend has gone up at about 11% over a period of six or seven years. That has put big pressure on the overall system”, he said. “In previous years, the overspend in STFC has then been absorbed by the other research councils, so there has been a strange picture where other research councils have actually ended up having to give money into the system to cover that. We need to fix that. We need a sustainable, proper, well thought-through, structured way to fund the infrastructure. I am very determined that UKRI must find a way to look after so-called PPAN—particle physics and astronomy.” This statement, I think, kept many of my colleagues in suspense before finally prompting a collective sigh of relief.
Later during the meeting, Lord Drayson insisted: “This is not a new problem”, he said, “We saw this back in the financial crash of 2007-08. That is when we put in those protections to ensure that the other budgets were not hit.” “The Government needs to be able to recognise the long-term funding requirements for the science budget to protect these facilities”, he added. To which Liz Kendall responded that “We are here again, but our commitment to long-term funding of these areas is absolutely there”. This very much sounded as though DSIT is determined to protect PPAN science, but also facilities, against their potential cost increase. We will hold them to their word.
The minister was then extensively questioned about the new ‘bucket’ framework. “you will accept, I think, that the reorganisation that UKRI is bringing in—you have mentioned its looking to facilitate the removal of duplication and have cross-cutting thematic research—means that the complexity of the decision-making process is becoming more opaque”, said Lord Drayson. “I worry that by insisting that this over here is blue sky and this over here is applied, you risk leaving out or not concentrating enough on the most interesting things”, said Lord Stern of Brentford. “It is absolutely one of the risks”, responded Vallance, adding that UKRI “will look at how to make that work across buckets, and it is going to put in systems”. Unfortunately, nothing more concrete than that emerged from the meeting. But Lord Vallance made it very clear, “We view the first bucket as protecting that against what I have seen in companies and see as a risk in government, which is somebody looking at the £14.5 billion and saying ‘Well, it wouldn’t really matter if we didn’t do that for a while’. It matters enormously because once you lose that, you lose it for a very long time, and it is that work that ultimately creates wealth in 10 or 20 or 30 years’ time, even though I cannot tell you which bits of it are going to create wealth.” Again, such a commitment that the government is going to protect blue skies science is essential for PPAN.
Many other important things were raised during the rest of this hearing, but this part is what mattered the most to the PPAN community. As we will see later, the notion that curiosity-driven and PPAN science must be protected clearly contrasts with a very different attitude from UKRI…
PPAN Early Career Researchers and Advanced Fellows Raise Concerns with STFC and UKRI — Only to Be Dismissed
The same day, a delegation of early-career researchers (postdoctoral researchers and PhD students) and advanced fellows (holding advanced fellowships such as the Ernest Rutherford, Future Leader, or Royal Society Research Fellowships) from all components of the PPAN community were invited for a ‘consultation’ meeting with Sir Ian Chapman (CEO of UKRI), Prof. Michele Dougherty (head of STFC), and Prof. Graham Blair (STFC Executive Director of Programmes), accompanied by an external observer from the Institute of Physics, Elizabeth Chamberlain. “I would be happy to meet with you to discuss the situation so that we can explain the details and discuss your suggestions”, Sir Ian Chapman wrote in his invitation two weeks before the meeting.
We came prepared. We gathered a team of representatives, with people from all PPAN areas of research and various career stages. We sent the CEO of UKRI a list of questions a week before the meeting so that our suggestions could better reflect the realities on the ground. Our questions were ignored. UKRI is certainly busy these days. We therefore refined our arguments and developed proposals that, in our view, represented the minimum needed to support our community.
Yet we ran into a wall. To be fair, the meeting format allowed an open discussion, in which both sides could clearly express their ideas, which we were particularly grateful for. But what emerged from the meeting was a profound disconnect between the alarms raised by the PPAN community—based on scientific excellence and sovereignty over key research capabilities and highly-qualified scientists—and the arguments advanced by both UKRI and STFC representatives, exclusively based on accounting cost-reduction arguments.
“You know why we’re here. 30% cuts.” began Dr Kirsty Duffy. But that’s not how they see it. Indeed, from the UKRI perspective, STFC must have a flat budget, as all other councils do, and if STFC costs increase, it must accept corresponding cuts to its grant funding. It is as simple as that, and at no point during the meeting did either Sir Ian Chapman or Michele Dougherty consider a different possibility. From the PPAN point of view, things are really different: “not only the expected cuts, but the current delay has already removed a cohort of ECRs”, said Dr Simon Williams. “Rebuilding is not a matter of returning money or not making a similar cut”, he said, “has the effect been forecast on the output of the community?” “I don’t know”, admits Sir Ian Chapman. “We have a budget, and we have to work within it. It’s where it is from where we are”, repeats Prof Dougherty. And that was it.
ECRs have asked repeatedly for details of the cost overruns and where they come from—this was part of the formal request for information sent before the meeting, and multiple requests for that information during the meeting. Unfortunately, this information has not been provided, and ECRs expressed that this leads the community to feel it is a deliberate decision by UKRI to cut PPAN in favour of facilities, particularly given that the overall STFC budget will be flat. Sir Ian Chapman said that the main driver of cost pressures was starting too many projects, and that energy costs were a small fraction (which appears to contradict previous public statements). Prof Dougherty said “the majority of the cut is within STFC, where the vast majority of the increase in costs comes”, although Sir Ian Chapman said that no decision on how cost savings would be apportioned between PPAN and STFC facilities had been made yet.
Probably the only positive outcome of this meeting: Prof Dougherty clarified that a 30% cut is the “worst case scenario” and that the Science Board has been asked to put together scenarios for 10%, 20%, and 30% cuts. She clarified that this was relative to the fiscal year 2024 budget, and that the PPAN grants have already been cut 15% compared to that. So perhaps we should have considered ourselves fortunate, as a 10% scenario would mean the grant line will be going up again, slightly… Michele Dougherty said she will take those scenarios to UKRI and the Science Minister before they reach a final decision.
Advanced fellows made the case that existing cuts have already hurt the astronomy community very badly: “The funding gap in departments had the direct effect that people can no longer be named on grants”, said Laura Wolz. “People going abroad, not finding other positions, those are real effects with real consequences”. “The leadership we have internationally will be undermined if funding changes overnight”, added Dr Harriett Watson. “Any ECR in this room wants to be an international leader, but the pipeline is cut short if we remove funding”, she said. The least we would have hoped for is for UKRI to listen to the concerns, acknowledge that it is critical and formulate the intention to bring that problem to the government in one way or the other to attempt to solve it. The reaction we encountered, however, was rather less encouraging. “Do you accept that this is happening now?” insisted Dr Williams, “the effects of those cuts and delays are already leading to losing a generation of ECRs, who are leaving outside of the UK and won’t come back”, he said. “Yes, I grasp we will lose some postdocs as a result. I hope we don’t lose all. I can’t see a scenario where we would sign on consolidated grants that only cover academic staff time.” A comforting thought for ECRs: they might not be completely wiped out after all… “Perhaps some crumbs of comfort”, adds Sir Ian Chapman. “In a previous job, we had to implement a 30% budget cut. For three years, we had no PhD students and no postdocs, and we had to make compulsory redundancies among staff. It was a bleak period, and everything was under challenge. But today that community is in rude health, and its budget has been growing year on year.” The message is clear. We need to accept that PPAN will be hurt to unprecedented levels, but to look at the bright side: Time heals all wounds.
We also raised the issue of the Infrastructure Fund in light of the cancellation of some PPAN projects, in particular the LHCb upgrade. Both STFC and UKRI stressed that projects in other councils were also cut, but the nature of the damage to our international reputation was raised. Sir Ian Chapman repeated that the funding had not been awarded, but we insisted that funding had been allocated with the award subject to business case approval, for which UKRI had not read the business case. Sir Ian told us that all funding was subject to spending review and that tough decisions needed to be made. Prof. Dougherty noted that she recused herself from the Investment Advisory Committee’s decision-making process.
One “upside” that UKRI is always keen to remind the community is that PPAN research might be able to access funds from other buckets, through, for instance, AI and quantum-oriented projects. An upside that, Ian Chapman admits, “is not accessible yet”. “Is it dangerous to cut PPAN, which is more blue sky and where much of quantum and AI came from, for something that gives growth now but maybe not sovereignty in the future?” asked Dr Simon Williams. “Complicated answer”, says Chapman, “not all within our gift”, he confesses.
And this is something we are all afraid of in PPAN, including for physicists who are experts in machine learning but whose purpose is entirely curiosity-driven. So I asked the CEO of UKRI, “People working on AI within the PPAN community are actually afraid that they may not be able to access other buckets that easily. Will part of the budget dedicated to AI actually be guaranteed to be accessible to PPAN research?” “Well,” said Sir Ian, “it will be open to everybody, and accessible to you, but money will go to highest-impact applications…”. The idea of partitioning the budget from other buckets so a fraction of it is guaranteed to go to PPAN science is not on the table, Ian Chapman confirmed to me after the meeting, as the idea of the buckets is to get rid of “disciplinary rigidity”. In other words, the amount of funding accessible to PPAN from other buckets cannot be quantified.
The idea of UKRI providing STFC with more money from councils that have decreasing cost forecasts is also not an option: “In previous years, STFC has gone overboard, and others compensated […] Imagine being in medical, how would you feel about this?” answers Chapman. I thus asked, “If it is the case that UKRI doesn’t have enough money to rescue PPAN research, then should UKRI not ask the government for more money specifically for STFC, so UKRI doesn’t have to sacrifice an entire field of research?” “We do that every day of every year”, says Chapman. One would hope so.
In short, none of our concerns can be reasonably addressed; the blame is on past decisions from STFC and UKRI, and the best UKRI and STFC can do now is to optimise the way they will implement cuts, through an exercise of reprioritisation. As representatives of the PPAN community in this meeting, needless to say that these conclusions were far from satisfactory.
The SIT Select Committee Rescues PPAN from STFC ‘Cutting Its Tree by the Roots’
The following day, on Wednesday 4th of March, two panels were heard by the Science, Innovation, and Technology select committee, in the House of Commons. Prof Jon Butterworth, Prof Catherine Heymans (Royal Astronomer of Scotland), and Dr Simon Williams represented the PPAN community and explained to the committee why the expected 30% cuts to PPAN grant funding announced by STFC and UKRI would be devastating for the country. After that, Prof Michele Dougherty, head of STFC and the Royal Astronomer of England, explained to the committee why she considers such cuts necessary, despite UKRI as a whole seeing its budget increase.
The first panel made very clear statements regarding the importance of PPAN science and how devastating a 30% cut would be for all the existing programmes and our international reputation. Prof Heymans started by listing the many international astronomy projects that are at risk because of these cuts. “The Vera Rubin Observatory is the biggest camera in the world, we have started making a movie of the universe” she said, and “this sort of cut means we will not be able to process that data”. Prof Butterworth reminded the committee that the LHC is “the most powerful microscope we’ve ever built”, and highlighted how essential LHCb is “to scrutinise the origins of our universe”. “Without it”, he warned, “we may end up missing some very key data there”. Prof Heymans added, “This is what gets people into physics to study at university, but then they go out and do all the amazing things. To cut these blue-skies areas of research, which are the gateway for these very important areas for the growth of our country, this is really not what the UK should be doing right now”. Freddie van Mierlo MP asked, “Does this impact how we are seen internationally?” Prof Butterworth did not hesitate to answer: “Very much”. Dame Chi Onwurah MP then asked “if funding was available in two years, would we be able to get back in?” Butterworth answered that we would try but “we would certainly not be leading anymore”.
Dr Williams then stressed how critical these cuts would be (and already are) for hiring early-career researchers, such as postdocs and PhD students. “ECRs tend to be where the economic growth comes from”, he said, “cutting at this level would be catastrophic for UK science, very much like killing the tree by cutting the roots: you might not notice it for a while, but time will come when you do”. Dr Lauren Sullivan MP asked whether it would be beneficial for ECRs if a transition mechanism, for instance, funding extensions, were provided to ensure that the workforce is not lost while the funding framework is being changed. “I agree”, said Dr Williams, “the consultation should have been done before the change. The uncertainty that has been injected into the system is catastrophic.”
After these concerns were raised, the committee questioned Prof Dougherty, who mostly blamed the previous governance of UKRI and STFC, invoking “an overabundance of ambition” leading to a “difficult shortfall” she had to handle in the best way possible. This was not, she said, “what I signed up for”. She added, “All I can talk to is what I’ve been dealing with since I arrived”. Regarding the UK’s international reputation, she sadly accepted, “it does weaken our standing, certainly”.
Michele Dougherty also insisted that for UKRI to find a quick solution to the problem, “we need to share with UKRI what the impact of these cuts is, then a final decision can be made”. “Ian Chapman is very well aware that the community […] hoping that he will see what the impact is and whether there is a way to mitigate that impact, but I cannot speak for him”, she said.
Nonetheless, Martin Wrigley MP insisted, “we heard the budget of UKRI is increasing, so they are losing, who is winning?” Prof Dougherty said, “I do not have responsibility for these new buckets”. Martin Wrigley MP is therefore not convinced: “it sounds to me like you need to be more creative in your allocation of your expanding budget to your existing people rather than projects.”, but Dougherty answered she is not responsible for the way money can be accessed from other buckets for AI and quantum, and the only thing she can do is to tell her community that “there is real potential there”, which Wrigley considered “too passive in accepting what you’re being given”.
“There are other things that could be done”, says the Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP, “as for example, reclassifying subscriptions that you pay as international treaty obligations”. “I am having that conversation with Ian Chapman, and with DSIT as well”, says Dougherty. But Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP insisted that “UKRI’s budget over the years has been sort of manipulated to ensure that the DSIT budget is fully spent […] There is flexibility in there, so if you are having that conversation and it is resulting in 30% cuts for some of these, should we be saying to the Minister next time we get them in front of us, ‘Why did you say no to Professor Dougherty?’“. “Nobody has said no yet” stresses the head of STFC, “but I have been asked to look at the impact that the 30% will have. I need to follow through on that while I am having this conversation.”
“The extent of the impact on our existing science, scientists and early-career researchers is unacceptable”, concludes Dame Chi Onwurah, “can you give a commitment that you will look into bringing funding to close that gap on the short and medium term?”. “Yes” said Prof Dougherty. Needless to say the PPAN community now looks forward to seeing these words put into action.
Taken together, these meetings reveal a striking contrast. On the one hand, ministers and parliamentarians appear increasingly aware that the current trajectory risks serious damage to UK particle physics and astronomy. On the other hand, UKRI and STFC leadership insist that the constraints of the current funding framework leave them little room for manoeuvre. The result is a situation in which the problem is widely acknowledged, but its resolution remains uncertain. Ideas were proposed during these meetings that are all worth exploring, but will certainly require seeking further approval from the government. Dr Dougherty has committed to find short term solutions to mitigate the damage currently inflicted on the PPAN community, but it is unclear how.
The coming months will therefore be decisive in determining whether these warnings translate into concrete action, or whether the UK will accept the long-term consequences of cutting one of its most internationally successful scientific communities.
Dr Lucien Heurtier
London, 07/03/2026
#CatherineHeymans #JonButterworth #MicheleDougherty #PPAN #STFC #STFCCrisis #STFCFunding #UKRI

#catherineheymans #jonbutterworth #micheledougherty #ppan #stfc #stfccrisis
In the Dark @[email protected] · 2026-03-09 · 09:13 UTC

Cuts, Commitments and Contradictions – guest post by Lucien Heurtier

Lucien Heurtier is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London in the group of Theoretical Particle Physics & Cosmology. He contacted me yesterday to ask if I would use this platform to share the a blog post he wrote about the events at last week’s Select Commitee meetings about the crisis at the Science and Technology Facilities, in order to boost its circulation. I am happy to do so. I have changed the formatting a little, but not any of the content.
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Over the past week, three key meetings brought together members of the Particle Physics, Astronomy, and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) community with ministers, Members of Parliament, and representatives of UKRI and STFC. For the PPAN community, these discussions were particularly significant. They not only shed light on some of the underlying causes of the current financial pressures facing the programme, but also revealed what appears to be a growing disconnect between the strategic priorities emerging within UKRI and the concerns expressed by government, STFC leadership, and the PPAN research community itself.
In this article, I attempt to capture how researchers across the PPAN community have interpreted and reacted to these meetings. I discuss how this perceived disconnect relates to the developments of the past several months, and what these events may mean for what comes next.
The House of Lords Acknowledges a ‘Very Particular Problem Around STFC’
On Tuesday, 3rd of March, Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP (Secretary of State at DSIT), Lord Patrick Vallance (Minister of State at DSIT), and Emran Mian (Permanent Secretary at DSIT) appeared before the House of Lords Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which questioned them on the UKRI funding strategy and its impact on PPAN science.
From the start, Lord Mair (the chair) questioned the Minister: “As you are probably aware, several research councils have paused grants and announced cuts to basic science funding”, he said. “Is it the Government’s policy to cut funding for curiosity-driven research—from bucket 1—in favour of research for the other two buckets?”. Lord Vallance of Balham responded that “There have been no cuts in basic, curiosity-driven research”, although he admitted that “there is a very particular problem around STFC, […] but it is not the case that there have been cuts in any of the other areas”. So the stage is set: STFC is the only council facing explicit cuts. This might sound like a technicality to some, but for the PPAN community, simply getting the minister to acknowledge that STFC is facing budget cuts is already a success.
Among others, an important question comes up: “Would it be right to say that QR funding is being assumed to principally support bucket 1?” Indeed, in recent communications, UKRI has repeatedly classified QR research (QR standing for Quality Related) as being entirely part of the budget for bucket-1. In fact, it represents roughly 60% of the total budget in that bucket. However, Lord Vallance confessed, “No, it is going to support whatever the universities want it to support.” He even explicitly said that “that may be reallocated to other buckets, actually”. This obviously raises the question of whether curiosity-driven research is actually protected, as the government and UKRI have been repeating for months, and why QR research was entirely counted as contributing to bucket 1. Yet Lord Vallance simply said that “Sir Ian Chapman and the team—I think correctly—decided that trying to divide QR up in a complicated formula was bureaucratic”. Make of that what you will.
Lord Vallance then acknowledged poor communications from UKRI: “We can all agree that has not been done well”, he said. He then brought up the STFC case himself: “STFC is unusual in research councils because it has a very large infrastructure pot, and it also funds particle physics and astronomy”. “There is something that needs to be resolved there”, he repeated, “the basic, curiosity-driven, investigator-led research in that bucket needs to be protected”. Once again, such a statement is extremely important for PPAN. The minister is acknowledging that, beyond bad communication from UKRI, there is a problem here, and that cuts in STFC research are not in line with the idea that curiosity-driven research is protected, which Lord Vallance clearly appears to care about.
The committee kept asking: “We are hearing that there is a 30% reduction—the budget itself has not changed, but there is a shifting in the budget for STFC”, said the Baroness Willis of Summertown. “The ringfencing for the blue skies [Drayson partition] has gone from that structure. Is that understanding correct?” “No”, said Lord Vallance, “there was no hard partition in that. It has always been tensioned against the two things”. “The international spend has gone up by about 20% at a time when domestic spend has gone up at about 11% over a period of six or seven years. That has put big pressure on the overall system”, he said. “In previous years, the overspend in STFC has then been absorbed by the other research councils, so there has been a strange picture where other research councils have actually ended up having to give money into the system to cover that. We need to fix that. We need a sustainable, proper, well thought-through, structured way to fund the infrastructure. I am very determined that UKRI must find a way to look after so-called PPAN—particle physics and astronomy.” This statement, I think, kept many of my colleagues in suspense before finally prompting a collective sigh of relief.
Later during the meeting, Lord Drayson insisted: “This is not a new problem”, he said, “We saw this back in the financial crash of 2007-08. That is when we put in those protections to ensure that the other budgets were not hit.” “The Government needs to be able to recognise the long-term funding requirements for the science budget to protect these facilities”, he added. To which Liz Kendall responded that “We are here again, but our commitment to long-term funding of these areas is absolutely there”. This very much sounded as though DSIT is determined to protect PPAN science, but also facilities, against their potential cost increase. We will hold them to their word.
The minister was then extensively questioned about the new ‘bucket’ framework. “you will accept, I think, that the reorganisation that UKRI is bringing in—you have mentioned its looking to facilitate the removal of duplication and have cross-cutting thematic research—means that the complexity of the decision-making process is becoming more opaque”, said Lord Drayson. “I worry that by insisting that this over here is blue sky and this over here is applied, you risk leaving out or not concentrating enough on the most interesting things”, said Lord Stern of Brentford. “It is absolutely one of the risks”, responded Vallance, adding that UKRI “will look at how to make that work across buckets, and it is going to put in systems”. Unfortunately, nothing more concrete than that emerged from the meeting. But Lord Vallance made it very clear, “We view the first bucket as protecting that against what I have seen in companies and see as a risk in government, which is somebody looking at the £14.5 billion and saying ‘Well, it wouldn’t really matter if we didn’t do that for a while’. It matters enormously because once you lose that, you lose it for a very long time, and it is that work that ultimately creates wealth in 10 or 20 or 30 years’ time, even though I cannot tell you which bits of it are going to create wealth.” Again, such a commitment that the government is going to protect blue skies science is essential for PPAN.
Many other important things were raised during the rest of this hearing, but this part is what mattered the most to the PPAN community. As we will see later, the notion that curiosity-driven and PPAN science must be protected clearly contrasts with a very different attitude from UKRI…
PPAN Early Career Researchers and Advanced Fellows Raise Concerns with STFC and UKRI — Only to Be Dismissed
The same day, a delegation of early-career researchers (postdoctoral researchers and PhD students) and advanced fellows (holding advanced fellowships such as the Ernest Rutherford, Future Leader, or Royal Society Research Fellowships) from all components of the PPAN community were invited for a ‘consultation’ meeting with Sir Ian Chapman (CEO of UKRI), Prof. Michele Dougherty (head of STFC), and Prof. Graham Blair (STFC Executive Director of Programmes), accompanied by an external observer from the Institute of Physics, Elizabeth Chamberlain. “I would be happy to meet with you to discuss the situation so that we can explain the details and discuss your suggestions”, Sir Ian Chapman wrote in his invitation two weeks before the meeting.
We came prepared. We gathered a team of representatives, with people from all PPAN areas of research and various career stages. We sent the CEO of UKRI a list of questions a week before the meeting so that our suggestions could better reflect the realities on the ground. Our questions were ignored. UKRI is certainly busy these days. We therefore refined our arguments and developed proposals that, in our view, represented the minimum needed to support our community.
Yet we ran into a wall. To be fair, the meeting format allowed an open discussion, in which both sides could clearly express their ideas, which we were particularly grateful for. But what emerged from the meeting was a profound disconnect between the alarms raised by the PPAN community—based on scientific excellence and sovereignty over key research capabilities and highly-qualified scientists—and the arguments advanced by both UKRI and STFC representatives, exclusively based on accounting cost-reduction arguments.
“You know why we’re here. 30% cuts.” began Dr Kirsty Duffy. But that’s not how they see it. Indeed, from the UKRI perspective, STFC must have a flat budget, as all other councils do, and if STFC costs increase, it must accept corresponding cuts to its grant funding. It is as simple as that, and at no point during the meeting did either Sir Ian Chapman or Michele Dougherty consider a different possibility. From the PPAN point of view, things are really different: “not only the expected cuts, but the current delay has already removed a cohort of ECRs”, said Dr Simon Williams. “Rebuilding is not a matter of returning money or not making a similar cut”, he said, “has the effect been forecast on the output of the community?” “I don’t know”, admits Sir Ian Chapman. “We have a budget, and we have to work within it. It’s where it is from where we are”, repeats Prof Dougherty. And that was it.
ECRs have asked repeatedly for details of the cost overruns and where they come from—this was part of the formal request for information sent before the meeting, and multiple requests for that information during the meeting. Unfortunately, this information has not been provided, and ECRs expressed that this leads the community to feel it is a deliberate decision by UKRI to cut PPAN in favour of facilities, particularly given that the overall STFC budget will be flat. Sir Ian Chapman said that the main driver of cost pressures was starting too many projects, and that energy costs were a small fraction (which appears to contradict previous public statements). Prof Dougherty said “the majority of the cut is within STFC, where the vast majority of the increase in costs comes”, although Sir Ian Chapman said that no decision on how cost savings would be apportioned between PPAN and STFC facilities had been made yet.
Probably the only positive outcome of this meeting: Prof Dougherty clarified that a 30% cut is the “worst case scenario” and that the Science Board has been asked to put together scenarios for 10%, 20%, and 30% cuts. She clarified that this was relative to the fiscal year 2024 budget, and that the PPAN grants have already been cut 15% compared to that. So perhaps we should have considered ourselves fortunate, as a 10% scenario would mean the grant line will be going up again, slightly… Michele Dougherty said she will take those scenarios to UKRI and the Science Minister before they reach a final decision.
Advanced fellows made the case that existing cuts have already hurt the astronomy community very badly: “The funding gap in departments had the direct effect that people can no longer be named on grants”, said Laura Wolz. “People going abroad, not finding other positions, those are real effects with real consequences”. “The leadership we have internationally will be undermined if funding changes overnight”, added Dr Harriett Watson. “Any ECR in this room wants to be an international leader, but the pipeline is cut short if we remove funding”, she said. The least we would have hoped for is for UKRI to listen to the concerns, acknowledge that it is critical and formulate the intention to bring that problem to the government in one way or the other to attempt to solve it. The reaction we encountered, however, was rather less encouraging. “Do you accept that this is happening now?” insisted Dr Williams, “the effects of those cuts and delays are already leading to losing a generation of ECRs, who are leaving outside of the UK and won’t come back”, he said. “Yes, I grasp we will lose some postdocs as a result. I hope we don’t lose all. I can’t see a scenario where we would sign on consolidated grants that only cover academic staff time.” A comforting thought for ECRs: they might not be completely wiped out after all… “Perhaps some crumbs of comfort”, adds Sir Ian Chapman. “In a previous job, we had to implement a 30% budget cut. For three years, we had no PhD students and no postdocs, and we had to make compulsory redundancies among staff. It was a bleak period, and everything was under challenge. But today that community is in rude health, and its budget has been growing year on year.” The message is clear. We need to accept that PPAN will be hurt to unprecedented levels, but to look at the bright side: Time heals all wounds.
We also raised the issue of the Infrastructure Fund in light of the cancellation of some PPAN projects, in particular the LHCb upgrade. Both STFC and UKRI stressed that projects in other councils were also cut, but the nature of the damage to our international reputation was raised. Sir Ian Chapman repeated that the funding had not been awarded, but we insisted that funding had been allocated with the award subject to business case approval, for which UKRI had not read the business case. Sir Ian told us that all funding was subject to spending review and that tough decisions needed to be made. Prof. Dougherty noted that she recused herself from the Investment Advisory Committee’s decision-making process.
One “upside” that UKRI is always keen to remind the community is that PPAN research might be able to access funds from other buckets, through, for instance, AI and quantum-oriented projects. An upside that, Ian Chapman admits, “is not accessible yet”. “Is it dangerous to cut PPAN, which is more blue sky and where much of quantum and AI came from, for something that gives growth now but maybe not sovereignty in the future?” asked Dr Simon Williams. “Complicated answer”, says Chapman, “not all within our gift”, he confesses.
And this is something we are all afraid of in PPAN, including for physicists who are experts in machine learning but whose purpose is entirely curiosity-driven. So I asked the CEO of UKRI, “People working on AI within the PPAN community are actually afraid that they may not be able to access other buckets that easily. Will part of the budget dedicated to AI actually be guaranteed to be accessible to PPAN research?” “Well,” said Sir Ian, “it will be open to everybody, and accessible to you, but money will go to highest-impact applications…”. The idea of partitioning the budget from other buckets so a fraction of it is guaranteed to go to PPAN science is not on the table, Ian Chapman confirmed to me after the meeting, as the idea of the buckets is to get rid of “disciplinary rigidity”. In other words, the amount of funding accessible to PPAN from other buckets cannot be quantified.
The idea of UKRI providing STFC with more money from councils that have decreasing cost forecasts is also not an option: “In previous years, STFC has gone overboard, and others compensated […] Imagine being in medical, how would you feel about this?” answers Chapman. I thus asked, “If it is the case that UKRI doesn’t have enough money to rescue PPAN research, then should UKRI not ask the government for more money specifically for STFC, so UKRI doesn’t have to sacrifice an entire field of research?” “We do that every day of every year”, says Chapman. One would hope so.
In short, none of our concerns can be reasonably addressed; the blame is on past decisions from STFC and UKRI, and the best UKRI and STFC can do now is to optimise the way they will implement cuts, through an exercise of reprioritisation. As representatives of the PPAN community in this meeting, needless to say that these conclusions were far from satisfactory.
The SIT Select Committee Rescues PPAN from STFC ‘Cutting Its Tree by the Roots’
The following day, on Wednesday 4th of March, two panels were heard by the Science, Innovation, and Technology select committee, in the House of Commons. Prof Jon Butterworth, Prof Catherine Heymans (Royal Astronomer of Scotland), and Dr Simon Williams represented the PPAN community and explained to the committee why the expected 30% cuts to PPAN grant funding announced by STFC and UKRI would be devastating for the country. After that, Prof Michele Dougherty, head of STFC and the Royal Astronomer of England, explained to the committee why she considers such cuts necessary, despite UKRI as a whole seeing its budget increase.
The first panel made very clear statements regarding the importance of PPAN science and how devastating a 30% cut would be for all the existing programmes and our international reputation. Prof Heymans started by listing the many international astronomy projects that are at risk because of these cuts. “The Vera Rubin Observatory is the biggest camera in the world, we have started making a movie of the universe” she said, and “this sort of cut means we will not be able to process that data”. Prof Butterworth reminded the committee that the LHC is “the most powerful microscope we’ve ever built”, and highlighted how essential LHCb is “to scrutinise the origins of our universe”. “Without it”, he warned, “we may end up missing some very key data there”. Prof Heymans added, “This is what gets people into physics to study at university, but then they go out and do all the amazing things. To cut these blue-skies areas of research, which are the gateway for these very important areas for the growth of our country, this is really not what the UK should be doing right now”. Freddie van Mierlo MP asked, “Does this impact how we are seen internationally?” Prof Butterworth did not hesitate to answer: “Very much”. Dame Chi Onwurah MP then asked “if funding was available in two years, would we be able to get back in?” Butterworth answered that we would try but “we would certainly not be leading anymore”.
Dr Williams then stressed how critical these cuts would be (and already are) for hiring early-career researchers, such as postdocs and PhD students. “ECRs tend to be where the economic growth comes from”, he said, “cutting at this level would be catastrophic for UK science, very much like killing the tree by cutting the roots: you might not notice it for a while, but time will come when you do”. Dr Lauren Sullivan MP asked whether it would be beneficial for ECRs if a transition mechanism, for instance, funding extensions, were provided to ensure that the workforce is not lost while the funding framework is being changed. “I agree”, said Dr Williams, “the consultation should have been done before the change. The uncertainty that has been injected into the system is catastrophic.”
After these concerns were raised, the committee questioned Prof Dougherty, who mostly blamed the previous governance of UKRI and STFC, invoking “an overabundance of ambition” leading to a “difficult shortfall” she had to handle in the best way possible. This was not, she said, “what I signed up for”. She added, “All I can talk to is what I’ve been dealing with since I arrived”. Regarding the UK’s international reputation, she sadly accepted, “it does weaken our standing, certainly”.
Michele Dougherty also insisted that for UKRI to find a quick solution to the problem, “we need to share with UKRI what the impact of these cuts is, then a final decision can be made”. “Ian Chapman is very well aware that the community […] hoping that he will see what the impact is and whether there is a way to mitigate that impact, but I cannot speak for him”, she said.
Nonetheless, Martin Wrigley MP insisted, “we heard the budget of UKRI is increasing, so they are losing, who is winning?” Prof Dougherty said, “I do not have responsibility for these new buckets”. Martin Wrigley MP is therefore not convinced: “it sounds to me like you need to be more creative in your allocation of your expanding budget to your existing people rather than projects.”, but Dougherty answered she is not responsible for the way money can be accessed from other buckets for AI and quantum, and the only thing she can do is to tell her community that “there is real potential there”, which Wrigley considered “too passive in accepting what you’re being given”.
“There are other things that could be done”, says the Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP, “as for example, reclassifying subscriptions that you pay as international treaty obligations”. “I am having that conversation with Ian Chapman, and with DSIT as well”, says Dougherty. But Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP insisted that “UKRI’s budget over the years has been sort of manipulated to ensure that the DSIT budget is fully spent […] There is flexibility in there, so if you are having that conversation and it is resulting in 30% cuts for some of these, should we be saying to the Minister next time we get them in front of us, ‘Why did you say no to Professor Dougherty?’“. “Nobody has said no yet” stresses the head of STFC, “but I have been asked to look at the impact that the 30% will have. I need to follow through on that while I am having this conversation.”
“The extent of the impact on our existing science, scientists and early-career researchers is unacceptable”, concludes Dame Chi Onwurah, “can you give a commitment that you will look into bringing funding to close that gap on the short and medium term?”. “Yes” said Prof Dougherty. Needless to say the PPAN community now looks forward to seeing these words put into action.
Taken together, these meetings reveal a striking contrast. On the one hand, ministers and parliamentarians appear increasingly aware that the current trajectory risks serious damage to UK particle physics and astronomy. On the other hand, UKRI and STFC leadership insist that the constraints of the current funding framework leave them little room for manoeuvre. The result is a situation in which the problem is widely acknowledged, but its resolution remains uncertain. Ideas were proposed during these meetings that are all worth exploring, but will certainly require seeking further approval from the government. Dr Dougherty has committed to find short term solutions to mitigate the damage currently inflicted on the PPAN community, but it is unclear how.
The coming months will therefore be decisive in determining whether these warnings translate into concrete action, or whether the UK will accept the long-term consequences of cutting one of its most internationally successful scientific communities.
Dr Lucien Heurtier
London, 07/03/2026
#CatherineHeymans #JonButterworth #MicheleDougherty #PPAN #STFC #STFCCrisis #STFCFunding #UKRI

#catherineheymans #jonbutterworth #micheledougherty #ppan #stfc #stfccrisis
In the Dark @[email protected] · 2026-03-09 · 09:13 UTC

Cuts, Commitments and Contradictions – guest post by Lucien Heurtier

Lucien Heurtier is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London in the group of Theoretical Particle Physics & Cosmology. He contacted me yesterday to ask if I would use this platform to share a blog post he wrote about the events at last week’s Select Commitee meetings about the crisis at the Science and Technology Facilities, in order to boost its circulation. I am happy to do so. I have changed the formatting a little, but not any of the content.
–0–
Over the past week, three key meetings brought together members of the Particle Physics, Astronomy, and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) community with ministers, Members of Parliament, and representatives of UKRI and STFC. For the PPAN community, these discussions were particularly significant. They not only shed light on some of the underlying causes of the current financial pressures facing the programme, but also revealed what appears to be a growing disconnect between the strategic priorities emerging within UKRI and the concerns expressed by government, STFC leadership, and the PPAN research community itself.
In this article, I attempt to capture how researchers across the PPAN community have interpreted and reacted to these meetings. I discuss how this perceived disconnect relates to the developments of the past several months, and what these events may mean for what comes next.
The House of Lords Acknowledges a ‘Very Particular Problem Around STFC’
On Tuesday, 3rd of March, Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP (Secretary of State at DSIT), Lord Patrick Vallance (Minister of State at DSIT), and Emran Mian (Permanent Secretary at DSIT) appeared before the House of Lords Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which questioned them on the UKRI funding strategy and its impact on PPAN science.
From the start, Lord Mair (the chair) questioned the Minister: “As you are probably aware, several research councils have paused grants and announced cuts to basic science funding”, he said. “Is it the Government’s policy to cut funding for curiosity-driven research—from bucket 1—in favour of research for the other two buckets?”. Lord Vallance of Balham responded that “There have been no cuts in basic, curiosity-driven research”, although he admitted that “there is a very particular problem around STFC, […] but it is not the case that there have been cuts in any of the other areas”. So the stage is set: STFC is the only council facing explicit cuts. This might sound like a technicality to some, but for the PPAN community, simply getting the minister to acknowledge that STFC is facing budget cuts is already a success.
Among others, an important question comes up: “Would it be right to say that QR funding is being assumed to principally support bucket 1?” Indeed, in recent communications, UKRI has repeatedly classified QR research (QR standing for Quality Related) as being entirely part of the budget for bucket-1. In fact, it represents roughly 60% of the total budget in that bucket. However, Lord Vallance confessed, “No, it is going to support whatever the universities want it to support.” He even explicitly said that “that may be reallocated to other buckets, actually”. This obviously raises the question of whether curiosity-driven research is actually protected, as the government and UKRI have been repeating for months, and why QR research was entirely counted as contributing to bucket 1. Yet Lord Vallance simply said that “Sir Ian Chapman and the team—I think correctly—decided that trying to divide QR up in a complicated formula was bureaucratic”. Make of that what you will.
Lord Vallance then acknowledged poor communications from UKRI: “We can all agree that has not been done well”, he said. He then brought up the STFC case himself: “STFC is unusual in research councils because it has a very large infrastructure pot, and it also funds particle physics and astronomy”. “There is something that needs to be resolved there”, he repeated, “the basic, curiosity-driven, investigator-led research in that bucket needs to be protected”. Once again, such a statement is extremely important for PPAN. The minister is acknowledging that, beyond bad communication from UKRI, there is a problem here, and that cuts in STFC research are not in line with the idea that curiosity-driven research is protected, which Lord Vallance clearly appears to care about.
The committee kept asking: “We are hearing that there is a 30% reduction—the budget itself has not changed, but there is a shifting in the budget for STFC”, said the Baroness Willis of Summertown. “The ringfencing for the blue skies [Drayson partition] has gone from that structure. Is that understanding correct?” “No”, said Lord Vallance, “there was no hard partition in that. It has always been tensioned against the two things”. “The international spend has gone up by about 20% at a time when domestic spend has gone up at about 11% over a period of six or seven years. That has put big pressure on the overall system”, he said. “In previous years, the overspend in STFC has then been absorbed by the other research councils, so there has been a strange picture where other research councils have actually ended up having to give money into the system to cover that. We need to fix that. We need a sustainable, proper, well thought-through, structured way to fund the infrastructure. I am very determined that UKRI must find a way to look after so-called PPAN—particle physics and astronomy.” This statement, I think, kept many of my colleagues in suspense before finally prompting a collective sigh of relief.
Later during the meeting, Lord Drayson insisted: “This is not a new problem”, he said, “We saw this back in the financial crash of 2007-08. That is when we put in those protections to ensure that the other budgets were not hit.” “The Government needs to be able to recognise the long-term funding requirements for the science budget to protect these facilities”, he added. To which Liz Kendall responded that “We are here again, but our commitment to long-term funding of these areas is absolutely there”. This very much sounded as though DSIT is determined to protect PPAN science, but also facilities, against their potential cost increase. We will hold them to their word.
The minister was then extensively questioned about the new ‘bucket’ framework. “you will accept, I think, that the reorganisation that UKRI is bringing in—you have mentioned its looking to facilitate the removal of duplication and have cross-cutting thematic research—means that the complexity of the decision-making process is becoming more opaque”, said Lord Drayson. “I worry that by insisting that this over here is blue sky and this over here is applied, you risk leaving out or not concentrating enough on the most interesting things”, said Lord Stern of Brentford. “It is absolutely one of the risks”, responded Vallance, adding that UKRI “will look at how to make that work across buckets, and it is going to put in systems”. Unfortunately, nothing more concrete than that emerged from the meeting. But Lord Vallance made it very clear, “We view the first bucket as protecting that against what I have seen in companies and see as a risk in government, which is somebody looking at the £14.5 billion and saying ‘Well, it wouldn’t really matter if we didn’t do that for a while’. It matters enormously because once you lose that, you lose it for a very long time, and it is that work that ultimately creates wealth in 10 or 20 or 30 years’ time, even though I cannot tell you which bits of it are going to create wealth.” Again, such a commitment that the government is going to protect blue skies science is essential for PPAN.
Many other important things were raised during the rest of this hearing, but this part is what mattered the most to the PPAN community. As we will see later, the notion that curiosity-driven and PPAN science must be protected clearly contrasts with a very different attitude from UKRI…
PPAN Early Career Researchers and Advanced Fellows Raise Concerns with STFC and UKRI — Only to Be Dismissed
The same day, a delegation of early-career researchers (postdoctoral researchers and PhD students) and advanced fellows (holding advanced fellowships such as the Ernest Rutherford, Future Leader, or Royal Society Research Fellowships) from all components of the PPAN community were invited for a ‘consultation’ meeting with Sir Ian Chapman (CEO of UKRI), Prof. Michele Dougherty (head of STFC), and Prof. Graham Blair (STFC Executive Director of Programmes), accompanied by an external observer from the Institute of Physics, Elizabeth Chamberlain. “I would be happy to meet with you to discuss the situation so that we can explain the details and discuss your suggestions”, Sir Ian Chapman wrote in his invitation two weeks before the meeting.
We came prepared. We gathered a team of representatives, with people from all PPAN areas of research and various career stages. We sent the CEO of UKRI a list of questions a week before the meeting so that our suggestions could better reflect the realities on the ground. Our questions were ignored. UKRI is certainly busy these days. We therefore refined our arguments and developed proposals that, in our view, represented the minimum needed to support our community.
Yet we ran into a wall. To be fair, the meeting format allowed an open discussion, in which both sides could clearly express their ideas, which we were particularly grateful for. But what emerged from the meeting was a profound disconnect between the alarms raised by the PPAN community—based on scientific excellence and sovereignty over key research capabilities and highly-qualified scientists—and the arguments advanced by both UKRI and STFC representatives, exclusively based on accounting cost-reduction arguments.
“You know why we’re here. 30% cuts.” began Dr Kirsty Duffy. But that’s not how they see it. Indeed, from the UKRI perspective, STFC must have a flat budget, as all other councils do, and if STFC costs increase, it must accept corresponding cuts to its grant funding. It is as simple as that, and at no point during the meeting did either Sir Ian Chapman or Michele Dougherty consider a different possibility. From the PPAN point of view, things are really different: “not only the expected cuts, but the current delay has already removed a cohort of ECRs”, said Dr Simon Williams. “Rebuilding is not a matter of returning money or not making a similar cut”, he said, “has the effect been forecast on the output of the community?” “I don’t know”, admits Sir Ian Chapman. “We have a budget, and we have to work within it. It’s where it is from where we are”, repeats Prof Dougherty. And that was it.
ECRs have asked repeatedly for details of the cost overruns and where they come from—this was part of the formal request for information sent before the meeting, and multiple requests for that information during the meeting. Unfortunately, this information has not been provided, and ECRs expressed that this leads the community to feel it is a deliberate decision by UKRI to cut PPAN in favour of facilities, particularly given that the overall STFC budget will be flat. Sir Ian Chapman said that the main driver of cost pressures was starting too many projects, and that energy costs were a small fraction (which appears to contradict previous public statements). Prof Dougherty said “the majority of the cut is within STFC, where the vast majority of the increase in costs comes”, although Sir Ian Chapman said that no decision on how cost savings would be apportioned between PPAN and STFC facilities had been made yet.
Probably the only positive outcome of this meeting: Prof Dougherty clarified that a 30% cut is the “worst case scenario” and that the Science Board has been asked to put together scenarios for 10%, 20%, and 30% cuts. She clarified that this was relative to the fiscal year 2024 budget, and that the PPAN grants have already been cut 15% compared to that. So perhaps we should have considered ourselves fortunate, as a 10% scenario would mean the grant line will be going up again, slightly… Michele Dougherty said she will take those scenarios to UKRI and the Science Minister before they reach a final decision.
Advanced fellows made the case that existing cuts have already hurt the astronomy community very badly: “The funding gap in departments had the direct effect that people can no longer be named on grants”, said Laura Wolz. “People going abroad, not finding other positions, those are real effects with real consequences”. “The leadership we have internationally will be undermined if funding changes overnight”, added Dr Harriett Watson. “Any ECR in this room wants to be an international leader, but the pipeline is cut short if we remove funding”, she said. The least we would have hoped for is for UKRI to listen to the concerns, acknowledge that it is critical and formulate the intention to bring that problem to the government in one way or the other to attempt to solve it. The reaction we encountered, however, was rather less encouraging. “Do you accept that this is happening now?” insisted Dr Williams, “the effects of those cuts and delays are already leading to losing a generation of ECRs, who are leaving outside of the UK and won’t come back”, he said. “Yes, I grasp we will lose some postdocs as a result. I hope we don’t lose all. I can’t see a scenario where we would sign on consolidated grants that only cover academic staff time.” A comforting thought for ECRs: they might not be completely wiped out after all… “Perhaps some crumbs of comfort”, adds Sir Ian Chapman. “In a previous job, we had to implement a 30% budget cut. For three years, we had no PhD students and no postdocs, and we had to make compulsory redundancies among staff. It was a bleak period, and everything was under challenge. But today that community is in rude health, and its budget has been growing year on year.” The message is clear. We need to accept that PPAN will be hurt to unprecedented levels, but to look at the bright side: Time heals all wounds.
We also raised the issue of the Infrastructure Fund in light of the cancellation of some PPAN projects, in particular the LHCb upgrade. Both STFC and UKRI stressed that projects in other councils were also cut, but the nature of the damage to our international reputation was raised. Sir Ian Chapman repeated that the funding had not been awarded, but we insisted that funding had been allocated with the award subject to business case approval, for which UKRI had not read the business case. Sir Ian told us that all funding was subject to spending review and that tough decisions needed to be made. Prof. Dougherty noted that she recused herself from the Investment Advisory Committee’s decision-making process.
One “upside” that UKRI is always keen to remind the community is that PPAN research might be able to access funds from other buckets, through, for instance, AI and quantum-oriented projects. An upside that, Ian Chapman admits, “is not accessible yet”. “Is it dangerous to cut PPAN, which is more blue sky and where much of quantum and AI came from, for something that gives growth now but maybe not sovereignty in the future?” asked Dr Simon Williams. “Complicated answer”, says Chapman, “not all within our gift”, he confesses.
And this is something we are all afraid of in PPAN, including for physicists who are experts in machine learning but whose purpose is entirely curiosity-driven. So I asked the CEO of UKRI, “People working on AI within the PPAN community are actually afraid that they may not be able to access other buckets that easily. Will part of the budget dedicated to AI actually be guaranteed to be accessible to PPAN research?” “Well,” said Sir Ian, “it will be open to everybody, and accessible to you, but money will go to highest-impact applications…”. The idea of partitioning the budget from other buckets so a fraction of it is guaranteed to go to PPAN science is not on the table, Ian Chapman confirmed to me after the meeting, as the idea of the buckets is to get rid of “disciplinary rigidity”. In other words, the amount of funding accessible to PPAN from other buckets cannot be quantified.
The idea of UKRI providing STFC with more money from councils that have decreasing cost forecasts is also not an option: “In previous years, STFC has gone overboard, and others compensated […] Imagine being in medical, how would you feel about this?” answers Chapman. I thus asked, “If it is the case that UKRI doesn’t have enough money to rescue PPAN research, then should UKRI not ask the government for more money specifically for STFC, so UKRI doesn’t have to sacrifice an entire field of research?” “We do that every day of every year”, says Chapman. One would hope so.
In short, none of our concerns can be reasonably addressed; the blame is on past decisions from STFC and UKRI, and the best UKRI and STFC can do now is to optimise the way they will implement cuts, through an exercise of reprioritisation. As representatives of the PPAN community in this meeting, needless to say that these conclusions were far from satisfactory.
The SIT Select Committee Rescues PPAN from STFC ‘Cutting Its Tree by the Roots’
The following day, on Wednesday 4th of March, two panels were heard by the Science, Innovation, and Technology select committee, in the House of Commons. Prof Jon Butterworth, Prof Catherine Heymans (Royal Astronomer of Scotland), and Dr Simon Williams represented the PPAN community and explained to the committee why the expected 30% cuts to PPAN grant funding announced by STFC and UKRI would be devastating for the country. After that, Prof Michele Dougherty, head of STFC and the Royal Astronomer of England, explained to the committee why she considers such cuts necessary, despite UKRI as a whole seeing its budget increase.
The first panel made very clear statements regarding the importance of PPAN science and how devastating a 30% cut would be for all the existing programmes and our international reputation. Prof Heymans started by listing the many international astronomy projects that are at risk because of these cuts. “The Vera Rubin Observatory is the biggest camera in the world, we have started making a movie of the universe” she said, and “this sort of cut means we will not be able to process that data”. Prof Butterworth reminded the committee that the LHC is “the most powerful microscope we’ve ever built”, and highlighted how essential LHCb is “to scrutinise the origins of our universe”. “Without it”, he warned, “we may end up missing some very key data there”. Prof Heymans added, “This is what gets people into physics to study at university, but then they go out and do all the amazing things. To cut these blue-skies areas of research, which are the gateway for these very important areas for the growth of our country, this is really not what the UK should be doing right now”. Freddie van Mierlo MP asked, “Does this impact how we are seen internationally?” Prof Butterworth did not hesitate to answer: “Very much”. Dame Chi Onwurah MP then asked “if funding was available in two years, would we be able to get back in?” Butterworth answered that we would try but “we would certainly not be leading anymore”.
Dr Williams then stressed how critical these cuts would be (and already are) for hiring early-career researchers, such as postdocs and PhD students. “ECRs tend to be where the economic growth comes from”, he said, “cutting at this level would be catastrophic for UK science, very much like killing the tree by cutting the roots: you might not notice it for a while, but time will come when you do”. Dr Lauren Sullivan MP asked whether it would be beneficial for ECRs if a transition mechanism, for instance, funding extensions, were provided to ensure that the workforce is not lost while the funding framework is being changed. “I agree”, said Dr Williams, “the consultation should have been done before the change. The uncertainty that has been injected into the system is catastrophic.”
After these concerns were raised, the committee questioned Prof Dougherty, who mostly blamed the previous governance of UKRI and STFC, invoking “an overabundance of ambition” leading to a “difficult shortfall” she had to handle in the best way possible. This was not, she said, “what I signed up for”. She added, “All I can talk to is what I’ve been dealing with since I arrived”. Regarding the UK’s international reputation, she sadly accepted, “it does weaken our standing, certainly”.
Michele Dougherty also insisted that for UKRI to find a quick solution to the problem, “we need to share with UKRI what the impact of these cuts is, then a final decision can be made”. “Ian Chapman is very well aware that the community […] hoping that he will see what the impact is and whether there is a way to mitigate that impact, but I cannot speak for him”, she said.
Nonetheless, Martin Wrigley MP insisted, “we heard the budget of UKRI is increasing, so they are losing, who is winning?” Prof Dougherty said, “I do not have responsibility for these new buckets”. Martin Wrigley MP is therefore not convinced: “it sounds to me like you need to be more creative in your allocation of your expanding budget to your existing people rather than projects.”, but Dougherty answered she is not responsible for the way money can be accessed from other buckets for AI and quantum, and the only thing she can do is to tell her community that “there is real potential there”, which Wrigley considered “too passive in accepting what you’re being given”.
“There are other things that could be done”, says the Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP, “as for example, reclassifying subscriptions that you pay as international treaty obligations”. “I am having that conversation with Ian Chapman, and with DSIT as well”, says Dougherty. But Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP insisted that “UKRI’s budget over the years has been sort of manipulated to ensure that the DSIT budget is fully spent […] There is flexibility in there, so if you are having that conversation and it is resulting in 30% cuts for some of these, should we be saying to the Minister next time we get them in front of us, ‘Why did you say no to Professor Dougherty?’“. “Nobody has said no yet” stresses the head of STFC, “but I have been asked to look at the impact that the 30% will have. I need to follow through on that while I am having this conversation.”
“The extent of the impact on our existing science, scientists and early-career researchers is unacceptable”, concludes Dame Chi Onwurah, “can you give a commitment that you will look into bringing funding to close that gap on the short and medium term?”. “Yes” said Prof Dougherty. Needless to say the PPAN community now looks forward to seeing these words put into action.
Taken together, these meetings reveal a striking contrast. On the one hand, ministers and parliamentarians appear increasingly aware that the current trajectory risks serious damage to UK particle physics and astronomy. On the other hand, UKRI and STFC leadership insist that the constraints of the current funding framework leave them little room for manoeuvre. The result is a situation in which the problem is widely acknowledged, but its resolution remains uncertain. Ideas were proposed during these meetings that are all worth exploring, but will certainly require seeking further approval from the government. Dr Dougherty has committed to find short term solutions to mitigate the damage currently inflicted on the PPAN community, but it is unclear how.
The coming months will therefore be decisive in determining whether these warnings translate into concrete action, or whether the UK will accept the long-term consequences of cutting one of its most internationally successful scientific communities.
Dr Lucien Heurtier
London, 07/03/2026
#CatherineHeymans #JonButterworth #MicheleDougherty #PPAN #STFC #STFCCrisis #STFCFunding #UKRI

#ukri #stfcfunding #stfccrisis #stfc #ppan #micheledougherty
In the Dark @[email protected] · 2026-03-09 · 09:13 UTC

Cuts, Commitments and Contradictions – guest post by Lucien Heurtier

Lucien Heurtier is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London in the group of Theoretical Particle Physics & Cosmology. He contacted me yesterday to ask if I would use this platform to share the a blog post he wrote about the events at last week’s Select Commitee meetings about the crisis at the Science and Technology Facilities, in order to boost its circulation. I am happy to do so. I have changed the formatting a little, but not any of the content.
–0–
Over the past week, three key meetings brought together members of the Particle Physics, Astronomy, and Nuclear Physics (PPAN) community with ministers, Members of Parliament, and representatives of UKRI and STFC. For the PPAN community, these discussions were particularly significant. They not only shed light on some of the underlying causes of the current financial pressures facing the programme, but also revealed what appears to be a growing disconnect between the strategic priorities emerging within UKRI and the concerns expressed by government, STFC leadership, and the PPAN research community itself.
In this article, I attempt to capture how researchers across the PPAN community have interpreted and reacted to these meetings. I discuss how this perceived disconnect relates to the developments of the past several months, and what these events may mean for what comes next.
The House of Lords Acknowledges a ‘Very Particular Problem Around STFC’
On Tuesday, 3rd of March, Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP (Secretary of State at DSIT), Lord Patrick Vallance (Minister of State at DSIT), and Emran Mian (Permanent Secretary at DSIT) appeared before the House of Lords Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which questioned them on the UKRI funding strategy and its impact on PPAN science.
From the start, Lord Mair (the chair) questioned the Minister: “As you are probably aware, several research councils have paused grants and announced cuts to basic science funding”, he said. “Is it the Government’s policy to cut funding for curiosity-driven research—from bucket 1—in favour of research for the other two buckets?”. Lord Vallance of Balham responded that “There have been no cuts in basic, curiosity-driven research”, although he admitted that “there is a very particular problem around STFC, […] but it is not the case that there have been cuts in any of the other areas”. So the stage is set: STFC is the only council facing explicit cuts. This might sound like a technicality to some, but for the PPAN community, simply getting the minister to acknowledge that STFC is facing budget cuts is already a success.
Among others, an important question comes up: “Would it be right to say that QR funding is being assumed to principally support bucket 1?” Indeed, in recent communications, UKRI has repeatedly classified QR research (QR standing for Quality Related) as being entirely part of the budget for bucket-1. In fact, it represents roughly 60% of the total budget in that bucket. However, Lord Vallance confessed, “No, it is going to support whatever the universities want it to support.” He even explicitly said that “that may be reallocated to other buckets, actually”. This obviously raises the question of whether curiosity-driven research is actually protected, as the government and UKRI have been repeating for months, and why QR research was entirely counted as contributing to bucket 1. Yet Lord Vallance simply said that “Sir Ian Chapman and the team—I think correctly—decided that trying to divide QR up in a complicated formula was bureaucratic”. Make of that what you will.
Lord Vallance then acknowledged poor communications from UKRI: “We can all agree that has not been done well”, he said. He then brought up the STFC case himself: “STFC is unusual in research councils because it has a very large infrastructure pot, and it also funds particle physics and astronomy”. “There is something that needs to be resolved there”, he repeated, “the basic, curiosity-driven, investigator-led research in that bucket needs to be protected”. Once again, such a statement is extremely important for PPAN. The minister is acknowledging that, beyond bad communication from UKRI, there is a problem here, and that cuts in STFC research are not in line with the idea that curiosity-driven research is protected, which Lord Vallance clearly appears to care about.
The committee kept asking: “We are hearing that there is a 30% reduction—the budget itself has not changed, but there is a shifting in the budget for STFC”, said the Baroness Willis of Summertown. “The ringfencing for the blue skies [Drayson partition] has gone from that structure. Is that understanding correct?” “No”, said Lord Vallance, “there was no hard partition in that. It has always been tensioned against the two things”. “The international spend has gone up by about 20% at a time when domestic spend has gone up at about 11% over a period of six or seven years. That has put big pressure on the overall system”, he said. “In previous years, the overspend in STFC has then been absorbed by the other research councils, so there has been a strange picture where other research councils have actually ended up having to give money into the system to cover that. We need to fix that. We need a sustainable, proper, well thought-through, structured way to fund the infrastructure. I am very determined that UKRI must find a way to look after so-called PPAN—particle physics and astronomy.” This statement, I think, kept many of my colleagues in suspense before finally prompting a collective sigh of relief.
Later during the meeting, Lord Drayson insisted: “This is not a new problem”, he said, “We saw this back in the financial crash of 2007-08. That is when we put in those protections to ensure that the other budgets were not hit.” “The Government needs to be able to recognise the long-term funding requirements for the science budget to protect these facilities”, he added. To which Liz Kendall responded that “We are here again, but our commitment to long-term funding of these areas is absolutely there”. This very much sounded as though DSIT is determined to protect PPAN science, but also facilities, against their potential cost increase. We will hold them to their word.
The minister was then extensively questioned about the new ‘bucket’ framework. “you will accept, I think, that the reorganisation that UKRI is bringing in—you have mentioned its looking to facilitate the removal of duplication and have cross-cutting thematic research—means that the complexity of the decision-making process is becoming more opaque”, said Lord Drayson. “I worry that by insisting that this over here is blue sky and this over here is applied, you risk leaving out or not concentrating enough on the most interesting things”, said Lord Stern of Brentford. “It is absolutely one of the risks”, responded Vallance, adding that UKRI “will look at how to make that work across buckets, and it is going to put in systems”. Unfortunately, nothing more concrete than that emerged from the meeting. But Lord Vallance made it very clear, “We view the first bucket as protecting that against what I have seen in companies and see as a risk in government, which is somebody looking at the £14.5 billion and saying ‘Well, it wouldn’t really matter if we didn’t do that for a while’. It matters enormously because once you lose that, you lose it for a very long time, and it is that work that ultimately creates wealth in 10 or 20 or 30 years’ time, even though I cannot tell you which bits of it are going to create wealth.” Again, such a commitment that the government is going to protect blue skies science is essential for PPAN.
Many other important things were raised during the rest of this hearing, but this part is what mattered the most to the PPAN community. As we will see later, the notion that curiosity-driven and PPAN science must be protected clearly contrasts with a very different attitude from UKRI…
PPAN Early Career Researchers and Advanced Fellows Raise Concerns with STFC and UKRI — Only to Be Dismissed
The same day, a delegation of early-career researchers (postdoctoral researchers and PhD students) and advanced fellows (holding advanced fellowships such as the Ernest Rutherford, Future Leader, or Royal Society Research Fellowships) from all components of the PPAN community were invited for a ‘consultation’ meeting with Sir Ian Chapman (CEO of UKRI), Prof. Michele Dougherty (head of STFC), and Prof. Graham Blair (STFC Executive Director of Programmes), accompanied by an external observer from the Institute of Physics, Elizabeth Chamberlain. “I would be happy to meet with you to discuss the situation so that we can explain the details and discuss your suggestions”, Sir Ian Chapman wrote in his invitation two weeks before the meeting.
We came prepared. We gathered a team of representatives, with people from all PPAN areas of research and various career stages. We sent the CEO of UKRI a list of questions a week before the meeting so that our suggestions could better reflect the realities on the ground. Our questions were ignored. UKRI is certainly busy these days. We therefore refined our arguments and developed proposals that, in our view, represented the minimum needed to support our community.
Yet we ran into a wall. To be fair, the meeting format allowed an open discussion, in which both sides could clearly express their ideas, which we were particularly grateful for. But what emerged from the meeting was a profound disconnect between the alarms raised by the PPAN community—based on scientific excellence and sovereignty over key research capabilities and highly-qualified scientists—and the arguments advanced by both UKRI and STFC representatives, exclusively based on accounting cost-reduction arguments.
“You know why we’re here. 30% cuts.” began Dr Kirsty Duffy. But that’s not how they see it. Indeed, from the UKRI perspective, STFC must have a flat budget, as all other councils do, and if STFC costs increase, it must accept corresponding cuts to its grant funding. It is as simple as that, and at no point during the meeting did either Sir Ian Chapman or Michele Dougherty consider a different possibility. From the PPAN point of view, things are really different: “not only the expected cuts, but the current delay has already removed a cohort of ECRs”, said Dr Simon Williams. “Rebuilding is not a matter of returning money or not making a similar cut”, he said, “has the effect been forecast on the output of the community?” “I don’t know”, admits Sir Ian Chapman. “We have a budget, and we have to work within it. It’s where it is from where we are”, repeats Prof Dougherty. And that was it.
ECRs have asked repeatedly for details of the cost overruns and where they come from—this was part of the formal request for information sent before the meeting, and multiple requests for that information during the meeting. Unfortunately, this information has not been provided, and ECRs expressed that this leads the community to feel it is a deliberate decision by UKRI to cut PPAN in favour of facilities, particularly given that the overall STFC budget will be flat. Sir Ian Chapman said that the main driver of cost pressures was starting too many projects, and that energy costs were a small fraction (which appears to contradict previous public statements). Prof Dougherty said “the majority of the cut is within STFC, where the vast majority of the increase in costs comes”, although Sir Ian Chapman said that no decision on how cost savings would be apportioned between PPAN and STFC facilities had been made yet.
Probably the only positive outcome of this meeting: Prof Dougherty clarified that a 30% cut is the “worst case scenario” and that the Science Board has been asked to put together scenarios for 10%, 20%, and 30% cuts. She clarified that this was relative to the fiscal year 2024 budget, and that the PPAN grants have already been cut 15% compared to that. So perhaps we should have considered ourselves fortunate, as a 10% scenario would mean the grant line will be going up again, slightly… Michele Dougherty said she will take those scenarios to UKRI and the Science Minister before they reach a final decision.
Advanced fellows made the case that existing cuts have already hurt the astronomy community very badly: “The funding gap in departments had the direct effect that people can no longer be named on grants”, said Laura Wolz. “People going abroad, not finding other positions, those are real effects with real consequences”. “The leadership we have internationally will be undermined if funding changes overnight”, added Dr Harriett Watson. “Any ECR in this room wants to be an international leader, but the pipeline is cut short if we remove funding”, she said. The least we would have hoped for is for UKRI to listen to the concerns, acknowledge that it is critical and formulate the intention to bring that problem to the government in one way or the other to attempt to solve it. The reaction we encountered, however, was rather less encouraging. “Do you accept that this is happening now?” insisted Dr Williams, “the effects of those cuts and delays are already leading to losing a generation of ECRs, who are leaving outside of the UK and won’t come back”, he said. “Yes, I grasp we will lose some postdocs as a result. I hope we don’t lose all. I can’t see a scenario where we would sign on consolidated grants that only cover academic staff time.” A comforting thought for ECRs: they might not be completely wiped out after all… “Perhaps some crumbs of comfort”, adds Sir Ian Chapman. “In a previous job, we had to implement a 30% budget cut. For three years, we had no PhD students and no postdocs, and we had to make compulsory redundancies among staff. It was a bleak period, and everything was under challenge. But today that community is in rude health, and its budget has been growing year on year.” The message is clear. We need to accept that PPAN will be hurt to unprecedented levels, but to look at the bright side: Time heals all wounds.
We also raised the issue of the Infrastructure Fund in light of the cancellation of some PPAN projects, in particular the LHCb upgrade. Both STFC and UKRI stressed that projects in other councils were also cut, but the nature of the damage to our international reputation was raised. Sir Ian Chapman repeated that the funding had not been awarded, but we insisted that funding had been allocated with the award subject to business case approval, for which UKRI had not read the business case. Sir Ian told us that all funding was subject to spending review and that tough decisions needed to be made. Prof. Dougherty noted that she recused herself from the Investment Advisory Committee’s decision-making process.
One “upside” that UKRI is always keen to remind the community is that PPAN research might be able to access funds from other buckets, through, for instance, AI and quantum-oriented projects. An upside that, Ian Chapman admits, “is not accessible yet”. “Is it dangerous to cut PPAN, which is more blue sky and where much of quantum and AI came from, for something that gives growth now but maybe not sovereignty in the future?” asked Dr Simon Williams. “Complicated answer”, says Chapman, “not all within our gift”, he confesses.
And this is something we are all afraid of in PPAN, including for physicists who are experts in machine learning but whose purpose is entirely curiosity-driven. So I asked the CEO of UKRI, “People working on AI within the PPAN community are actually afraid that they may not be able to access other buckets that easily. Will part of the budget dedicated to AI actually be guaranteed to be accessible to PPAN research?” “Well,” said Sir Ian, “it will be open to everybody, and accessible to you, but money will go to highest-impact applications…”. The idea of partitioning the budget from other buckets so a fraction of it is guaranteed to go to PPAN science is not on the table, Ian Chapman confirmed to me after the meeting, as the idea of the buckets is to get rid of “disciplinary rigidity”. In other words, the amount of funding accessible to PPAN from other buckets cannot be quantified.
The idea of UKRI providing STFC with more money from councils that have decreasing cost forecasts is also not an option: “In previous years, STFC has gone overboard, and others compensated […] Imagine being in medical, how would you feel about this?” answers Chapman. I thus asked, “If it is the case that UKRI doesn’t have enough money to rescue PPAN research, then should UKRI not ask the government for more money specifically for STFC, so UKRI doesn’t have to sacrifice an entire field of research?” “We do that every day of every year”, says Chapman. One would hope so.
In short, none of our concerns can be reasonably addressed; the blame is on past decisions from STFC and UKRI, and the best UKRI and STFC can do now is to optimise the way they will implement cuts, through an exercise of reprioritisation. As representatives of the PPAN community in this meeting, needless to say that these conclusions were far from satisfactory.
The SIT Select Committee Rescues PPAN from STFC ‘Cutting Its Tree by the Roots’
The following day, on Wednesday 4th of March, two panels were heard by the Science, Innovation, and Technology select committee, in the House of Commons. Prof Jon Butterworth, Prof Catherine Heymans (Royal Astronomer of Scotland), and Dr Simon Williams represented the PPAN community and explained to the committee why the expected 30% cuts to PPAN grant funding announced by STFC and UKRI would be devastating for the country. After that, Prof Michele Dougherty, head of STFC and the Royal Astronomer of England, explained to the committee why she considers such cuts necessary, despite UKRI as a whole seeing its budget increase.
The first panel made very clear statements regarding the importance of PPAN science and how devastating a 30% cut would be for all the existing programmes and our international reputation. Prof Heymans started by listing the many international astronomy projects that are at risk because of these cuts. “The Vera Rubin Observatory is the biggest camera in the world, we have started making a movie of the universe” she said, and “this sort of cut means we will not be able to process that data”. Prof Butterworth reminded the committee that the LHC is “the most powerful microscope we’ve ever built”, and highlighted how essential LHCb is “to scrutinise the origins of our universe”. “Without it”, he warned, “we may end up missing some very key data there”. Prof Heymans added, “This is what gets people into physics to study at university, but then they go out and do all the amazing things. To cut these blue-skies areas of research, which are the gateway for these very important areas for the growth of our country, this is really not what the UK should be doing right now”. Freddie van Mierlo MP asked, “Does this impact how we are seen internationally?” Prof Butterworth did not hesitate to answer: “Very much”. Dame Chi Onwurah MP then asked “if funding was available in two years, would we be able to get back in?” Butterworth answered that we would try but “we would certainly not be leading anymore”.
Dr Williams then stressed how critical these cuts would be (and already are) for hiring early-career researchers, such as postdocs and PhD students. “ECRs tend to be where the economic growth comes from”, he said, “cutting at this level would be catastrophic for UK science, very much like killing the tree by cutting the roots: you might not notice it for a while, but time will come when you do”. Dr Lauren Sullivan MP asked whether it would be beneficial for ECRs if a transition mechanism, for instance, funding extensions, were provided to ensure that the workforce is not lost while the funding framework is being changed. “I agree”, said Dr Williams, “the consultation should have been done before the change. The uncertainty that has been injected into the system is catastrophic.”
After these concerns were raised, the committee questioned Prof Dougherty, who mostly blamed the previous governance of UKRI and STFC, invoking “an overabundance of ambition” leading to a “difficult shortfall” she had to handle in the best way possible. This was not, she said, “what I signed up for”. She added, “All I can talk to is what I’ve been dealing with since I arrived”. Regarding the UK’s international reputation, she sadly accepted, “it does weaken our standing, certainly”.
Michele Dougherty also insisted that for UKRI to find a quick solution to the problem, “we need to share with UKRI what the impact of these cuts is, then a final decision can be made”. “Ian Chapman is very well aware that the community […] hoping that he will see what the impact is and whether there is a way to mitigate that impact, but I cannot speak for him”, she said.
Nonetheless, Martin Wrigley MP insisted, “we heard the budget of UKRI is increasing, so they are losing, who is winning?” Prof Dougherty said, “I do not have responsibility for these new buckets”. Martin Wrigley MP is therefore not convinced: “it sounds to me like you need to be more creative in your allocation of your expanding budget to your existing people rather than projects.”, but Dougherty answered she is not responsible for the way money can be accessed from other buckets for AI and quantum, and the only thing she can do is to tell her community that “there is real potential there”, which Wrigley considered “too passive in accepting what you’re being given”.
“There are other things that could be done”, says the Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP, “as for example, reclassifying subscriptions that you pay as international treaty obligations”. “I am having that conversation with Ian Chapman, and with DSIT as well”, says Dougherty. But Rt Hon Kit Malthouse MP insisted that “UKRI’s budget over the years has been sort of manipulated to ensure that the DSIT budget is fully spent […] There is flexibility in there, so if you are having that conversation and it is resulting in 30% cuts for some of these, should we be saying to the Minister next time we get them in front of us, ‘Why did you say no to Professor Dougherty?’“. “Nobody has said no yet” stresses the head of STFC, “but I have been asked to look at the impact that the 30% will have. I need to follow through on that while I am having this conversation.”
“The extent of the impact on our existing science, scientists and early-career researchers is unacceptable”, concludes Dame Chi Onwurah, “can you give a commitment that you will look into bringing funding to close that gap on the short and medium term?”. “Yes” said Prof Dougherty. Needless to say the PPAN community now looks forward to seeing these words put into action.
Taken together, these meetings reveal a striking contrast. On the one hand, ministers and parliamentarians appear increasingly aware that the current trajectory risks serious damage to UK particle physics and astronomy. On the other hand, UKRI and STFC leadership insist that the constraints of the current funding framework leave them little room for manoeuvre. The result is a situation in which the problem is widely acknowledged, but its resolution remains uncertain. Ideas were proposed during these meetings that are all worth exploring, but will certainly require seeking further approval from the government. Dr Dougherty has committed to find short term solutions to mitigate the damage currently inflicted on the PPAN community, but it is unclear how.
The coming months will therefore be decisive in determining whether these warnings translate into concrete action, or whether the UK will accept the long-term consequences of cutting one of its most internationally successful scientific communities.
Dr Lucien Heurtier
London, 07/03/2026
#CatherineHeymans #JonButterworth #MicheleDougherty #PPAN #STFC #STFCCrisis #STFCFunding #UKRI

#catherineheymans #jonbutterworth #micheledougherty #ppan #stfc #stfccrisis
Whisper7 @[email protected] · 2025-12-10 · 18:42 UTC

Ein Text über das paradoxe Lesen von Menschen wie fehlerhafte Systeme – und die leise Rückkehr der Menschlichkeit.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/menschlichkeit-wie-datenmull-ausliest
#Philosophie #Psychologie #Innenwelt #Selbstreflexion #Sprache #KI #Metapher #Fragmentierung
A reflection on reading humans like faulty systems – and the quiet persistence of humanity beneath the code.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/humanity-parsed-like-waste-data
#Philosophy #Psychology #InnerWorld #SelfReflection #Language #AI #Metaphor #Fragmentation

#philosophie #psychologie #innenwelt #selbstreflexion #sprache #ki
Whisper7 @[email protected] · 2025-12-10 · 18:42 UTC

Ein Text über das paradoxe Lesen von Menschen wie fehlerhafte Systeme – und die leise Rückkehr der Menschlichkeit.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/menschlichkeit-wie-datenmull-ausliest
#Philosophie #Psychologie #Innenwelt #Selbstreflexion #Sprache #KI #Metapher #Fragmentierung
A reflection on reading humans like faulty systems – and the quiet persistence of humanity beneath the code.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/humanity-parsed-like-waste-data
#Philosophy #Psychology #InnerWorld #SelfReflection #Language #AI #Metaphor #Fragmentation

#philosophie #psychologie #innenwelt #selbstreflexion #sprache #ki
Whisper7 @[email protected] · 2025-12-10 · 18:42 UTC

Ein Text über das paradoxe Lesen von Menschen wie fehlerhafte Systeme – und die leise Rückkehr der Menschlichkeit.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/menschlichkeit-wie-datenmull-ausliest
#Philosophie #Psychologie #Innenwelt #Selbstreflexion #Sprache #KI #Metapher #Fragmentierung
A reflection on reading humans like faulty systems – and the quiet persistence of humanity beneath the code.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/humanity-parsed-like-waste-data
#Philosophy #Psychology #InnerWorld #SelfReflection #Language #AI #Metaphor #Fragmentation

#philosophie #psychologie #innenwelt #selbstreflexion #sprache #ki
Whisper7 @[email protected] · 2025-12-10 · 18:42 UTC

Ein Text über das paradoxe Lesen von Menschen wie fehlerhafte Systeme – und die leise Rückkehr der Menschlichkeit.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/menschlichkeit-wie-datenmull-ausliest
#Philosophie #Psychologie #Innenwelt #Selbstreflexion #Sprache #KI #Metapher #Fragmentierung
A reflection on reading humans like faulty systems – and the quiet persistence of humanity beneath the code.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/humanity-parsed-like-waste-data
#Philosophy #Psychology #InnerWorld #SelfReflection #Language #AI #Metaphor #Fragmentation

#fragmentation #metaphor #ai #language #selfreflection #innerworld
Whisper7 @[email protected] · 2025-12-10 · 18:42 UTC

Ein Text über das paradoxe Lesen von Menschen wie fehlerhafte Systeme – und die leise Rückkehr der Menschlichkeit.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/menschlichkeit-wie-datenmull-ausliest
#Philosophie #Psychologie #Innenwelt #Selbstreflexion #Sprache #KI #Metapher #Fragmentierung
A reflection on reading humans like faulty systems – and the quiet persistence of humanity beneath the code.
👉 https://whisper7.substack.com/p/humanity-parsed-like-waste-data
#Philosophy #Psychology #InnerWorld #SelfReflection #Language #AI #Metaphor #Fragmentation

#philosophie #psychologie #innenwelt #selbstreflexion #sprache #ki