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In cities across the country, councils are grappling with unprecedented numbers of people presenting as homeless. In London, mounting pressure on temporary accommodation has led some boroughs to place families far beyond the capital — in some cases more than 250 miles away, in County Durham.
Charlotte McDonald travels to the North East to uncover why these long‑distance relocations are happening, and what impact they are having on the communities receiving them.
She speaks to people about lives uprooted, often with little notice, and explores the realities they face as they try to rebuild their lives in unfamiliar towns and villages.
The picture on the ground is complex. Local services, charities, churches and schools have rallied to support the newcomers, despite already operating in areas marked by deprivation and limited opportunities.
Yet many relocated families encounter fresh challenges: anti‑social behaviour, culture shock, and the struggle to settle into communities facing their own hardships.
County Durham had a Labour council for nearly a century, but it is now controlled by Reform. Many residents feel the area has been overlooked for years: traditional industries have faded, and little new investment has taken their place. Unemployment is high in parts of the county, as well as rates of long-term sick.
With low‑cost housing and pockets of empty properties, the region has become increasingly attractive to councils which are struggling to find accommodation. But is it the right thing for old and new residents?
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Producers: Charlotte McDonald and Tom Burgess
Studio manager: James Beard
Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Editor: Richard Vadon

Why does President Trump really want to takeover Greenland?
The Arctic territory is rich in vital minerals and oil, and it hosts an important American military base as the race for dominance in the wider Arctic heats up between China, Russia and the USA.
While the issue has become suddenly urgent, it's a proposal that has been years in the making - and drill down beneath Trump's recent stated reason of 'security' and the reasons why he wants it as the 51st state are less clear.
A financier-turned-MAGA operative, the small print of the right-wing wish list Project 2025, and a penchant for big places on maps might better explain the recent diplomatic crisis, as the Make America Great Again project evolves into an idea to Make America Bigger.
The Coming Storm's Lucy Proctor delves into the backstory to Trump's insistence on acquiring Greenland.

Produced and presented by Lucy Proctor
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Sound engineer: Andy Fell

Between the 1950s and 1990s the material known as RAAC, Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete, was used mostly in flat roofing, but also in floors and walls. It offered a cheaper alternative to standard concrete, but the discovery of its short lifespan has meant serious problems. It made the headlines when it was found in schools and hospitals, but it has been used in housing as well.
A political storm is brewing in Scotland after thousands of homeowners have been told their properties are no longer safe because of RAAC. Some are living on ghost estates under threat of demolition. Others have even been forcibly removed. Local authorities are offering a percentage of the market value before the faults were identified, but homeowners say this will leave them homeless and in debt, paying mortgages on rubble.
Karin Goodwin investigates the human cost of a flawed building material.
Presenter: Karin Goodwin
Producers: Liza Greig and Halina Rifai
Executive Producer: Mark Rickards
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 4

Buy a pack of beef in the supermarket and you’ll find it’s increased in price by 52% in five years. Try and trade down to some chicken and you’ll find it’s nearly doubled in just two years. Make a product unaffordable- whether that’s cigarettes, brandy or steak- and you inevitably open up the door to smugglers. Evidence isn’t hard to find with Dover Port Authority offering up just one snapshot. In September 2025 they seized 20 tonnes of illegal meat, compared with just 1.3 tonnes in September 2022. Extrapolate the numbers with unchecked cargoes and the UK’s other ports and it’s clear that hundreds of tonnes of illegal meat are reaching our shores every month.
This isn’t just a tax issue with cheeky smugglers making a few quid as they sell a roasting joint in a local pub. It’s a major risk to the UK economy. Some of the meat is coming from areas suffering from African Swine Fever or Foot and Mouth disease. There’s no way that this meat could enter Britain legally because of the fear of these diseases reaching the UK. The last major Foot and Mouth disease outbreak in the UK in 2001 led to the slaughter of 6 million cattle and sheep and nauseating pyres of animals burning beside the M6.
Charlotte Smith travels to Romania to trace some of the many routes that meat can take to enter the UK and talks to customs and food standards officials in search of a solution to this significant risk to public health and to the UK's food and farming economy.
Producer: Beatrice Fenton

ARIA is the UK government’s bold new bet on science and technology. Its mission? To chase breakthroughs so radical they could spawn trillion-pound industries and reshape everyday life.
The Advanced Research and Invention Agency was created to be fast-moving - exempt from the usual public sector bureaucracy. No slow funding rounds. No rigid procurement rules. Just speed, agility, and a mandate to take risks. It's backed by MPs across the political spectrum - but is it a smart use of public money?
The idea came from Dominic Cummings, inspired by America’s 'DARPA' - the agency behind the internet, GPS, and personal computing. ARIA launched in 2022 and has already sunk millions into 12 audacious programmes: from designing crops with massively synthetic genomes to building robots on entirely new principles, and developing cutting edge neurotechnologies for psychiatric illness.
Evan Davis goes inside ARIA to meet the people steering this high-stakes experiment and explore the frontier science they’ve chosen to back. Can ARIA deliver world-changing innovation - or will it prove an expensive gamble?
Presented by Evan Davis
Produced by Ilan Goodman and Sophie Ormiston
Research by Tabitha Taylor Buck