HOUSEHOLD WATER bills are to fall by an average of pounds 30 next year - a reduction of about 12 per cent - the industry regulator will announce today.

Sir: You judge perceptively in illustrating the Cambridge-based case study about hi-tech businesses with a photograph of Cambridge's beautiful urban parkland ("Time to get your share", 13 November). The quality of urban open spaces and business success go hand in hand.

ENVIRONMENT Infamous conifers grow into big issue as government starts consultation exercise. Meanwhile, an old monk may have the answer

THE ROYAL Academy of Arts revealed plans for its "millennium gift to London" yesterday - a pounds 3m piazza.

ANYBODY WHO has seen a company's annual report or attended a results presentation will understand the lengths often reached in the interests of putting the best possible gloss on financial figures. So when the Co- Operative Bank recently presented a self-proclaimed all-encompassing "warts and all" picture of itself it probably looked to many as something slightly perverse, even for an organisation that flew in the face of convention through promoting itself on who it will not lend to rather than who it will.

THOUSANDS OF people are having to endure sleepless nights because councils refuse to implement a law introduced to clamp down on noisy late-night parties.

FARMERS IN TROUBLE

"CHEERFUL NONSENSE" is how The Independent yesterday described our report concluding that Britain comes bottom of the international league for wildlife protection.

THE GOVERNMENT is set to defy environmentalists by approving the Europe-wide commercial release of a genetically modified crop currently being tested in the UK.

Outlook: New faces at DTI

Labour reshuffle

Reshuffle Ends Era When A Minister Had To Be A Middle-Aged Man In A Dark Suit

TONY BLAIR has slapped down John Prescott by using last night's Government reshuffle to break up the ministerial empire of the Deputy Prime Minister.

TONY BLAIR is to order John Prescott to improve the Government's performance on transport amid growing concern that the voters are becoming angered by the chaos on Britain's roads, railways and the London Underground.