Residents in the UK town with the country’s highest identified concentration of “forever chemicals” have instructed lawyers to investigate the possibility of a first-of-its-kind legal claim against the firefighting foam manufacturer located in the centre of Bentham.

In May this year, an investigation by the Ends Report and the Guardian revealed that the rural North Yorkshire town is the most PFAS-polluted place known to exist in the UK. The town is home to the firefighting foam manufacturer Angus Fire.

PFAS, short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances and commonly known as “forever chemicals” owing to their persistence in the environment, are a family of about 10,000 chemicals that have been linked to a wide range of serious illnesses, including certain cancers. They are used in many consumer products, from frying pans to waterproof coats, but one of their most common uses is in firefighting foams.

The Law firm Leigh Day has informed Angus Fire that, acting on behalf of residents, it has been instructed to investigate a case against the firm as a result of “alleged PFAS pollution in Bentham”.

A spokesperson for Angus Fire said: “We have been advised by Leigh Day that it is under instruction to investigate a potential claim on behalf of one residency. We have not received notice of any legal action.”

In the past 25 years, nearly 10,000 court cases have been filed in the US alleging harm from PFAS exposure. Some of these cases have already resulted in multi-billion dollar settlements. The case against Angus Fire would be be the first ever PFAS-related legal case in the UK.

Charlotte Armstrong, a senior associate solicitor at Leigh Day, said: “Angus Fire state that they no longer manufacture or test any PFAS-containing foam products in Bentham, but that doesn’t help the people of Bentham. PFAS are ‘forever chemicals’, and unfortunately that means that the chemical pollution in the area is anything but a historic issue. Our clients and the wider community in Bentham are entitled to fully understand the extent of PFAS pollution in their community, so that those allegedly responsible can be held to account in terms of financial compensation and remediation.”

After the initial investigation, Bentham town council asked Angus Fire to test the environment on Duke Street – a narrow residential road next to the factory – for PFAS.

The test results, which were made available in October, revealed that soil adjacent to gardens on Duke Street was contaminated with elevated levels of PFAS. The land is owned by Angus Fire and is made available for use by residents, who use it to grow food. Residents were advised by Angus Fire to wash and peel vegetables grown on the land, to clean their homes of dust regularly, and to remove shoes before entering their homes.

Residents of Duke Street have said that since finding out about the contamination they felt “trapped”.

“At any point of buying a house, you would want the option to sell it, depending on what you want to do in your life,” said one person, who asked to remain anonymous. “At the moment, that would be a significant challenge. And with the uncertainty over how long it will take to remediate the land, we are essentially trapped in this situation.”

Angus Fire has offered residents on Duke Street a series of financial “goodwill gestures”.

A spokesperson for Angus Fire said it had “presented a number of options to residents whose properties border the legacy foam manufacturing and testing areas, which we believe could offer a constructive way forward and which also underscores our commitment to addressing the situation responsibly.

“We recognise the concerns about potential environmental impacts from historic operations at our facility and regret the inconvenience and worry that this has caused.”

Duke Street residents have expressed concern about the risk of the contamination to their health.

Dr Anna Watson, the director of policy and advocacy at the Chem Trust charity, said that while it was welcome that Angus Fire was “admitting responsibility for the irreversible PFAS pollution near their site in Bentham”, it was “heartbreaking to think of people being uprooted from their community, as well as having to deal with the anxiety of potential long-term health impacts from these toxic chemicals”.

“The UK government needs to take urgent action to ban the use and manufacture of these chemicals as a group and be at the forefront of a global PFAS-free economy,” she said.

Residents said they had had no correspondence with local or government officials over the contamination.

An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We are working with North Yorkshire council and looking into historic PFAS contamination from the Angus Fire site. Our primary focus is to assess the risk to the environment and provide support to our partners on risk to residents.”

North Yorkshire council’s assistant director for regulatory services, Callum McKeon, said: “We continue to work with partner agencies to assess historic PFAS contamination from the Angus Fire site at Bentham. Our key priority is to identify and address the risk to residents and continue to support our partner agencies with their ongoing investigations.”

The Angus Fire spokesperson said: “Angus continues to work closely with independent industry-leading environmental consultants and in cooperation with our UK regulator, the Environment Agency, to better characterise the Bentham site and surrounding areas. These further investigations will help us better understand the extent of any PFAS contamination and assist in determining the remediation required.”

The internationally agreed goal to keep the world’s temperature rise below 1.5C is now “deader than a doornail”, with 2024 almost certain to be the first individual year above this threshold, climate scientists have gloomily concluded – even as world leaders gather for climate talks on how to remain within this boundary.

Three of the five leading research groups monitoring global temperatures consider 2024 on track to be at least 1.5C (2.7F) hotter than pre-industrial times, underlining it as the warmest year on record, beating a mark set just last year. The past 10 consecutive years have already been the hottest 10 years ever recorded.

Although a single year above 1.5C does not itself spell climate doom or break the 2015 Paris agreement, in which countries agreed to strive to keep the long-term temperature rise below this point, scientists have warned this aspiration has in effect been snuffed out despite the exhortations of leaders currently gathered at a United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan.

“The goal to avoid exceeding 1.5C is deader than a doornail. It’s almost impossible to avoid at this point because we’ve just waited too long to act,” said Zeke Hausfather, climate research lead at Stripe and a research scientist at Berkeley Earth. “We are speeding past the 1.5C line an accelerating way and that will continue until global emissions stop climbing.”

Last year was so surprisingly hot, even in the context of the climate crisis, that it caused “some soul-searching” among climate scientists, Hausfather said. In recent months there has also been persistent heat despite the fading of El Niño, a periodic climate event that exacerbated temperatures already elevated by the burning of fossil fuels.

“It’s going to be the hottest year by an unexpectedly large margin. If it continues to be this warm it’s a worrying sign,” he said. “Going past 1.5C this year is very symbolic, and it’s a sign that we are getting ever closer to going past that target.”

Climate scientists broadly expect it will become apparent the 1.5C target, agreed upon by governments after pleas from vulnerable island states that they risk being wiped out if temperatures rise further than this, has been exceeded within the coming decade.

Despite countries agreeing to shift away from fossil fuels, this year is set to hit a new record for planet-heating emissions, and even if current national pledges are met the world is on track for 2.7C (4.8F) warming, risking disastrous heatwaves, floods, famines and unrest. “We are clearly failing to bend the curve,” said Sofia Gonzales-Zuñiga, an analyst at Climate Analytics, which helped produce the Climate Action Tracker (Cat) temperature estimate.

However, the Cop29 talks in Baku have maintained calls for action to stay under 1.5C. “Only you can beat the clock on 1.5C,” António Guterres, secretary general of the UN, urged world leaders on Tuesday, while also acknowledging the planet was undergoing a “masterclass in climate destruction”.

Yet the 1.5C target now appears to be simply a rhetorical, rather than scientifically achievable, one, bar massive amounts of future carbon removal from as-yet unproven technologies. “I never thought 1.5C was a conceivable goal. I thought it was a pointless thing,” said Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at Nasa. “I’m totally unsurprised, like almost all climate scientists, that we are shooting past it at a rapid clip.

“But it was extremely galvanizing, so I was wrong about that. Maybe it is useful; maybe people do need impossible targets. You shouldn’t ask scientists how to galvanize the world because clearly we don’t have a fucking clue. People haven’t got a magic set of words to keep us to 1.5C, but we have got to keep trying.

“What matters is we have to reduce emissions. Once we stop warming the planet, the better it will be for the people and ecosystems that live here.”

The world’s decision-makers who are collectively failing to stem dangerous global heating will soon be joined by Donald Trump, who is expected to tear down climate policies and thereby, the Cat report estimates, add at least a further 0.04C to the world temperature.

Despite this bleak outlook, some do point out that the picture still looks far rosier than it did before the Paris deal, when a catastrophic temperature rise of 4C or more was foreseeable. Cheap and abundant clean energy is growing at a rapid pace, with peak oil demand expected by the end of this decade.

“Meetings like these are often perceived as talking shops,” said Alexander De Croo, the Belgian prime minister, at the Cop29 summit. “And yes, these strenuous negotiations are far from perfect. But if you compare climate policy now to a decade ago, we are in a different world.”

Still, as the world barrels past 1.5C there lie alarming uncertainties in the form of runaway climate “tipping points”, which once set off cannot be halted on human timescales, such as the Amazon turning into a savanna, the collapse of the great polar ice sheets, and huge pulses of carbon released from melting permafrost.

“1.5C is not a cliff edge, but the further we warm up the closer we get to unwittingly setting off tipping points that will bring dramatic climate consequences,” said Grahame Madge, a climate spokesman at the UK Met Office, who added that it would now be “unexpected” for 2024 to not be above 1.5C.

“We are edging ever closer to tipping points in the climate system that we won’t be able to come back from; it’s uncertain when they will arrive, they are almost like monsters in the darkness,” Madge said.

“We don’t want to encounter them so every fraction of a degree is worth fighting for. If we can’t achieve 1.5C, it will be better to get 1.6C than 1.7C, which will be better than getting 2C or more.”

Hausfather added: “We aren’t in for a good outcome either way. It’s challenging. But every tenth of a degree matters. All we know is that the more we push the climate system away from where it has been for the last few million years, there be dragons.”

Chinese online marketplace Temu has enjoyed explosive international growth off the back of an eye-catching and often absurdly cheap range of products, but those cut-price tactics have met increasing roadblocks as it seeks to conquer new markets in south-east Asia.

Indonesia ordered Temu to be taken down from app stores in October, a move it said would protect the country’s smaller merchants. Last week, Vietnam threatened to ban Temu and fellow Chinese-owned fast-fashion outlet Shein by the end of the month, saying they had not been approved to do business in the country.

The flood of cheaper Chinese-made products – often with minimal import taxes – has damaged local vendors and manufacturers, who cannot beat the speed, quality or prices offered online, according to Simon Torring, co-founder of market insights firm Cube.

“Temu has become the lightning rod for every regulator, everywhere now getting worried about whether cross-border import rules should be changed,” he said.

Poom Chotikavan, director of operations at Taksa Toys in Thailand, has struggled to find a local manufacturer to make children’s toys because so many suppliers have gone out of business. Nearly 2,000 Thai factories across all industries closed and more than 50,000 workers lost their jobs in the last financial year, Reuters reported, in part due to greater Chinese competition and higher costs.

“It’s never been easier to source products from China [so] their sales have just been obliterated,” Chotikavan said. “How will they survive in this landscape where their clients can just reach out to [Chinese] factories?”

Temu’s Chinese equivalent, Pinduoduo, has operated since 2015, with the global platform launching in the US in 2022 and sweeping European markets the following year. Temu has been expanding its presence in south-east Asia, starting with the Philippines and Malaysia in 2023 then Thailand, Brunei and Vietnam this year.

Rising consumerism from south-east Asia’s burgeoning middle class has made the region an ideal market, with online shopping sales nearing $160bn in 2024, according to Bain & Co analysis published in November.

That boom came at the right time for Temu to chase international growth, as a slowing Chinese economy saw domestic customers cut back on Pinduoduo purchases, according to Jianggan Li, chief executive at venture firm Momentum Works.

“In China, the growth is stagnant compared to 2010s and yet it’s very competitive, so players need to find other avenues to grow [such as] overseas markets,” he said.

But the slowdown has also left Chinese factories with spare capacity, pushing Temu’s main suppliers to sell at high volumes and low costs and giving the marketplace a boost as it pushed its way in.

‘Mind-blowing how cheap it is’

Just as it has in western markets, Temu paired those cheaply produced goods with massive discounts and an increasingly aggressive advertising campaign, while keeping shoppers hooked through a gamified experience of prize wheels and countdown timers.

It has reached hundreds of thousands of customers, including Chotikavan, who bought a MagSafe iPhone holder for his car on Temu for $3, less than a seventh of the price it would have cost otherwise.

“The products are getting way cheaper, but the quality is quite decent,” he said. “It’s mind-blowing how cheap it is.”

It’s the same story across south-east Asia. Woven straw satchels available for $3 on Temu are sold by local vendors in Indonesia for six times the price. Jackets sold in Vietnamese markets for $15 are available on Temu at the same price and with free shipping.

While consumers enjoy the increased access to cheap goods, local businesses want their governments to act.

Indonesia has taken the firmest stance, boosting taxes and banning e-commerce on social media platforms in 2023, which forced TikTok Shop to buy into a struggling local competitor to continue operating. While a ban would protect local manufacturers and higher taxes would add to government coffers, Temu would seek to push its way in regardless, Torring said, pointing to the platform’s repeat applications to enter Indonesia despite constant refusal.

“It’s signalling to other markets: ‘if it’s easy, we will come. If it’s hard, we will still come. You show us the rules, you show us what we need to do, but we will come,’” he said.

“Their mandate is ‘take the world’.”

A California-based farm is recalling its carrots, including whole and baby organic carrots, following an E coli outbreak that has infected multiple people across the country.

In a statement on Saturday, Grimmway Farms in Bakersfield said that it has issued its recall of the carrots “that should no longer be in grocery stores but may be in consumers’ refrigerators or freezers”. The recall comes amid 39 reported E coli infections across 18 states, including 15 hospitalizations and one death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The majority of the infections are in New York, Minnesota, Washington, California and Oregon, the Associated Press reports.

Grimmway Farms said that its carrot products may have been contaminated with Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, or E coli, a bacterium that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, elderly people and those with compromised immune systems.

Grimmway Farms’ recalled products include its organic whole carrots which were available for purchase at retail stores from 14 August through 23 October 2024, as well as organic baby carrots with best-if-used-by dates between 11 September and 12 November 2024.

The carrots, which were shipped directly to retail distribution centers across the US, Puerto Rico and Canada, have been sold under various labels including 365, Bunny Luv, Cal-Organic, Nature’s Promise, Trader Joe’s, Wegmans, as well as O Organics.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, E coli infections can cause severe bloody diarrhea conditions or the development of high blood pressure, chronic kidney disease, and neurologic problems. Symptoms include severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, fever, nausea and vomiting.

The incubation period for E coli in humans can range from 24 hours to up to 10 days, with an average incubation period of three to four days.

Grimmway Farms’ recall comes amid McDonald’s E coli outbreak that has infected at least 104 people – and hospitalized at least 34. The outbreak, which has been tied to onions served on its Quarter Pounders, has been detected in 14 states.

McDonalds has said that it is investing $100m to “accelerate recovery and support the most heavily impacted franchisees” following the outbreak, CBS reported on Saturday.

“A total of $65m will be invested into supporting franchisees who have lost business, targeting those in the states that were most affected,” McDonalds added.

Keir Starmer has vehemently defended the imposition of inheritance tax on farms, as a new analysis suggested farmers are being increasingly squeezed out of the market for agricultural land by wealthy investors.

Amid an battle between the government and the National Farmer’s Union (NFU) over what proportion of farms could be affected by the change, announced in last month’s budget, Starmer said he was “absolutely confident” that the overwhelming majority of farmers would be exempt.

But the prime minister, speaking to reporters on his way to the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, suggested this message may not be getting through, adding it was “important for us to keep communicating how that works”.

Ministers have argued that the change will prevent some investors from avoiding inheritance tax by investing in farmland, much of which is often then barely used to produce anything.

A new Labour analysis has shown a big recent growth in wealthy individuals and institutions buying up farmland across England, with a parallel drop in the amount of agricultural land actively used for farming.

While in 2010, such non-farmers were responsible for less than a third of farmland purchases, by last year this had risen to 56%, according to data collected by the property consultants Strutt & Parker.

According to official statistics for agricultural land use, in the last year alone, 400,000 hectares (988,422 acres) was taken out of use for farming. The analysis is linking this to financial advice that recommends the potential tax breaks of investing in farmland.

A Labour source said the party was “asking rich estates and farms with the highest values to pay their fair share”, with the money used to pay for public services that rural communities relied on.

Starmer will be at the G20 summit when farmers protest in central London against the plans, with Tom Bradshaw, the NFU’s president, saying on Sunday that his members felt “betrayed”.

Asked about the anger, Starmer noted what he said was significant government investment in farming, adding: “Obviously, there’s an issue around inheritance tax and I do understand the concern.

“But for a typical case, which is parents with a farm they want to pass on to one of their children, by the time you’ve taken into account not only the exemption for the farm property itself, but also the exemption for spouse to spouse, then parent to child, it’s £3m before any inheritance tax will be payable.

“That’s why I am absolutely confident the vast majority of farms and farmers will not be affected by this. It’s important for us to keep communicating how that works. Over the £3m, it’s then 20% rather than the usual rate and it’s payable over 10 years.”

Bradshaw told Sky News that he had “never seen the united sense of anger that there is in this industry today” and that he expected thousands of farmers to protest on Tuesday.

He said: “The industry is feeling betrayed, feeling angry. The government said that this wouldn’t happen.”

Bradshaw said farming families who were liable would often be unable to raise the money because of the need to reinvest any profits in production, which would be undermined, harming long-term food security.

There was also, he said, the effect on farmers, particularly older farmers who would struggle to adapt to the new regime: “Unfortunately, there are many who already have lost a spouse, that are in the twilight of their careers, that have given everything to producing this country’s food, and they have absolutely no way to plan through that. That is the betrayal that I’m talking about. The human impact of this is simply not acceptable.”

Some farmers have raised the prospect of refusing to supply supermarkets in protest, which Bradshaw said his union did not agree with.

“That is not an NFU tactic,” he said. “We do not support emptying supermarket shelves. But I do completely understand the strength of feeling that there is amongst farmers.”

The NFU has warned farmers attending the protests not to bring heavy machinery to the protest, emulating farmers in other countries who have blocked roads with tractors. Starmer said those protesting were entitled to express themselves – but said the police would respond appropriately.

“They are entitled to express their views. I do understand their concerns. It’s important I reiterate the support that is going in, it is quite considerable,” he said. “As to how the protest takes shape and what the response is, that will be a matter for them and the police for how they respond to it.”

It was an England salvo of devastating power, three goals in five minutes early in the second half and it did more than reframe an occasion that had been flat and forgettable up until then. It gave Lee Carsley the win that he wanted on his sixth and final game as the interim manager; one to seal England’s promotion back into the Nations League’s A section. With five wins and just that one off-night against Greece at Wembley, it added up to job well done.

Carsley will hand over to Thomas Tuchel with the team in good health, a new generation also pushed. Carsley had previously given first caps to Angel Gomes, Morgan Gibbs-White, Noni Madueke, Curtis Jones, Lewis Hall and Morgan Rogers. Here, there were two more debuts – for Tino Livramento from the outset and Taylor Harwood-Bellis as a substitute.

What a night it would be for both, especially Harwood-Bellis, who scored with a thumping header with one of his first touches from a Jude Bellingham cross. That made it 5-0. Ireland were long since broken, Harry Kane – who else? – precipitating an alarming crash.

Kane was back in the starting XI after his high-profile omission from Thursday’s 3-0 win over Greece in Athens and, after he laboured dreadfully in the first half, it was his sumptuous pass that got Bellingham in to win a penalty off Liam Scales, the Republic of Ireland defender’s woe compounded when the foul was deemed to be a second yellow card offence.

Kane scored from the spot, his 69th England goal in 103 caps. But this was a night for the next wave because it was not just Harwood-Bellis who found the net for the first time at this level. Anthony Gordon, Conor Gallagher and Jarrod Bowen did likewise, Ireland’s 10 men swept aside.

Newcastle’s Livramento provided the cross for his clubmate Gordon to hook home a volley while Gallagher touched home after Marc Guéhi had flicked on a Madueke corner. That completed the flurry for England but they were in no mood to stop, the remorseless Bellingham teeing up Bowen after a well-worked free-kick routine. Bowen had only just come on as a substitute.

The game had been framed in part by the first meeting between the nations in this group in September, when Ireland were disappointing in the 2-0 loss in Dublin. Few England fans expected anything other than victory here and not only because Ireland were depleted by injuries, missing a handful of likely starters. England would have to wait, the first half a virtual write-off from their point of view.

Heimir Hallgrímsson set Ireland up in a 4-5-1 formation, the captain Nathan Collins – a centre-half by trade – sitting in front of the defence. The idea was to be compact, committed, hard to break down.

Madueke, fresh from his barnstorming performance in the win over Greece, had one early run past two green shirts. His pull-back found its way to Curtis Jones, whose shot was deflected over. Kyle Walker headed off target from the corner and the first half descended into stodgy fare. England were slow to move it in possession, the patterns predictable. With 11 men banked behind the ball, Ireland kept Carsley’s team in front of them with ease.

Kane’s toils in the first half were pronounced. It was unfortunate that Bellingham chose to put him in a foot-race with Collins midway through the period, which he was never going to win. Still, it was a bad look. Moments earlier, Kane had failed to control a clipped ball into the area from Hall; it was all so tight. There was a heavy touch from Kane that led to Scales slamming into him to win a showy tackle and the frustrations seemed to bubble over in first-half stoppage time, Kane throwing Jayson Molumby to the ground to incur a yellow card.

Madueke had been booked earlier for a foul on Callum O’Dowda, with Bellingham’s complaints about the decision earning him a yellow card. He was also booked for dissent in Athens and he will be suspended for England’s next game.

Ireland had shouted loudly for two penalties before the interval, the first when Guéhi had a handful of Evan Ferguson’s shirt as they tussled. The second came when Walker stooped to guide a header back to Jordan Pickford, blocking Sammie Szmodics in the process, who tumbled over. It was risky from Walker. The referee, Erik Lambrechts, did not see enough in either appeal. He could easily have given the first.

That only deepened Ireland’s frustration after the break when England got the penalty to completely turn the game around. Never write off Kane. It has become a truism. It was the captain whose masterpiece of a pass provided the spark, a flat and perfectly calibrated diagonal from the left putting Bellingham up against Scales in the area. He jinked inside; Scales lunged and caught him. When the penalty was awarded, Gordon turned and simply applauded Kane.

Kane did what he does, a little stutter in his run-up before he banged past Caoimhín Kelleher. The red card for Scales was a body blow for Ireland. They would continue to rain down.

Big UK businesses including Ovo, SSE and BT Openreach are urging the government to stick to current electric car targets as struggling carmakers pile pressure on ministers to relax the rules before industry talks this week.

The businesses said the zero-emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate, which forces carmakers to sell greater numbers of electric cars each year, is an essential part of the plan to reduce the carbon and air pollution emissions caused by vehicles on Britain’s roads.

Clive Selley, chief executive of Openreach, the BT subsidiary that builds broadband infrastructure, said the government needed to “cut through the noise and listen to businesses who are already investing large sums in the switch” when considering the future of the mandate.

“Don’t waver on the ZEV mandate,” Selley said.

Carmakers, however, are increasingly vocal that the mandate needs to be watered down as their global profits come under pressure and sales of electric cars slow.

Carmakers with factories in the UK, as well as those involved in the new charging infrastructure, are due to discuss the mandate as well as weak consumer demand for electric cars with the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, and the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, this week.

After weekend reports that the Japanese manufacturer Nissan intended to use the meeting to warn ministers that the UK car industry is reaching a “crisis point”, Haigh said she would look at “flexibilities” but insisted that the mandate “will not be weakened”.

She told LBC Radio on Sunday: “There has been a downturn in demand on a global level so we are absolutely in listening mode – we want to discuss how the current situation is affecting them, but we are not diluting our ambition.

“I’m meeting with Nissan tomorrow, and the business secretary, the energy minister and I are meeting with a number of automotive manufacturers later in the week in order to discuss the challenges that they face on a global scale.”

Carmakers are hoping to achieve an easing of the rules for the next few years to allow them to sell more hybrids, which combine a polluting petrol engine with a smaller battery. Another option – although expensive – would be to reintroduce some purchase subsidies for consumers.

One of the big concerns is that without a change of heart there could be UK job losses. Stellantis is due to give a decision on a review of the future of its Vauxhall van factories at Luton and Ellesmere Port, after threatening to close them unless market demand for electric vehicles picks up and the UK loosens regulations.

The mandate means 22% of manufacturers’ electric car sales this year must be electric, rising to 80% in 2030 – although in practice various loopholes mean most carmakers appear on track to avoid fines if they overshoot.

The industry meeting will also include several companies that are likely to express support for the mandate.

Alex Thwaites, director of electric vehicles at Ovo, which has 4 million customers across Britain, said it provided “certainty for both UK drivers and the automotive industry”, and added that industry and government should be making “the switch to electric vehicles an easier choice”.

Some energy companies stand to lose out if the ZEV mandate is relaxed because it will hit demand for electric charging at home and at their dedicated charge points. SSE, for example, is investing heavily in a joint venture with the French oil company TotalEnergies to install 3,000 ultra-rapid charge points.

Nathan Sanders, managing director for distributed energy at SSE, said it was “vital the government continues to maintain a supportive policy environment with a strong zero-emission vehicle mandate at its core” for it to continue to invest.

While delaying the EV transition would ease the short-term pressure on manufacturers, many activists as well as industry analysts argue that doing so could hurt the UK car industry in the longer term, as a host of Chinese electric car manufacturers would probably race to fill the gap.

Dominic Phinn, head of transport at Climate Group, which works with companies on climate action, said: “There is absolutely no justification for tinkering with the groundbreaking tool that has put the UK in the fast lane of the global EV transition. Carmakers face a simple choice: scale up EV manufacture now and seize a huge economic opportunity – or be left behind by those who do.”