News :burton-upon-stather

UK government writes to husband and wife team amid concerns finding buyer for insolvent plant will be difficult

The UK government has written to the husband-and-wife team behind the insolvent Prax Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire urging them to “do the decent thing” and support affected workers financially, amid mounting concern that finding a buyer for the plant will be difficult.

In a letter to the Prax Group owners, Arani and Sanjeev Kumar Soosaipillai, seen by the Guardian, the junior energy minister Michael Shanks said the government was “urgently exploring what support can be offered to the workforce at this difficult time”.

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The Bank of England is redesigning money with new themes. So how about Lincoln Cathedral, the London Marathon … or wheelie bins?

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Details of payouts to Winston Soosaipillai and wife Arani emerge as calls grow for couple to financially support 625-strong workforce

The married couple behind the Prax Lindsey oil refinery awarded themselves at least $15.9m (£11.5m) in pay and dividends in the years leading up to its collapse, it has emerged, as the government urged the company’s boss to “put his hand in his pockets” to help workers.

Winston Soosaipillai, who goes by his middle names Sanjeev Kumar, jointly owned the refinery with his wife, Arani, until it plunged into insolvency on Monday.

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Concerns over conduct of bosses at Lincolnshire site, with ministers saying workers had been ‘badly let down’

• ‘It breaks my heart’: how a refinery closure is hitting jobs and politics

• Business live – latest updates

The government has called for an investigation into the conduct of bosses at one of the UK’s largest oil refineries after it collapsed into administration on Monday, prompting concern about job losses and disruption to fuel supplies.

Sources familiar with the situation said that government officials had been growing increasingly fearful about the finances of State Oil, which owns the Prax Lindsey refinery in north Lincolnshire, since April.

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British potter and ceramic sculptor fascinated by the ‘vessel’, which he used as a metaphor for imaginary terrains and travel

Gordon Baldwin was probably happiest with the term “sculptural potter” to describe himself. He disliked most definitions because they did not adequately encompass his art, one that explored broadly and complexly the potential of the “vessel”. He investigated this in lyrical big bowls and striking articulated and enclosed pieces, using the premise of containment to gauge ideas about painting and drawing on new types of form.

Baldwin, who has died aged 92, was a modernist in ceramics, but he never eschewed his traditional roots because they enabled him to evolve a highly original language. It led to some of the most convincing and liberated clay sculpture since the second world war.

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Exclusive: emissions from power-hungry warehouses at Lincolnshire facility expected to be 850,000 tonnes a year

A vast new datacentre to feed Britain’s rising demand for artificial intelligence could cause more greenhouse gas emissions than five international airports.

Elsham datacentre in Lincolnshire is on course to cost £10bn and its 15 power-hungry computer warehouses are projected to release five times the carbon dioxide of Birmingham airport, including from take-offs and landings.

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