UR TV CAST

Future maps will show the planned Sustrans network across the country and Mr Whitfield is confident there is a big market for his maps: “Interest in cycling is growing, with more cycle paths and cycle routes being developed.”5 Bristol cycling map, from CycleCity Guides, 3/4 Zig/Zag, Clevedon, Somerset, BS21 7EJ, pounds 4 95.. With normal maps, they might well not see what the best route is.”Mr Whitfield researches all the routes on his bicycle before working with the Ordnance Survey to produce the maps to his requirements. He says: “It takes about 300 to 400 miles’ cycling to cover the area of one map. I received a lot of suggestions on the best local cycling routes from local cyclists, and then checked every single detail personally.”His work took about three weeks of cycling round the area: “You can’t do lots of miles every day because of having to stop and make notes.”The first map covers Bristol, while those for Oxford and East Kent are in production and should be published next month, although a theft of computer chips at the Ordnance Survey’s Southampton HQ may delay production.

It is the first time the Ordnance Survey has used the sophistication of its computer mapping techniques to reverse the road hierarchy.As Martin Whitfield, who has devised the maps, said: “Britain is criss- crossed with an abundance of byways and lanes on which cyclists should be able to avoid the worst of the traffic. CHRISTIAN WOLMAR

Transport Correspondent
The first in a series of local maps, based on the Ordnance Survey series and specially designed for cyclists, has been published in an attempt to cash in on the growth of interest in environmentally friendly forms of transport.In a reversal of priorities which will give any motorist mistakenly using them apoplexy, the maps give prominence to the best routes for cyclists. Therefore, the thick green splurge running from Bath to Bristol dominates the map as it shows the pioneering cycle path built by Sustrans, the group now developing the 6,500-mile national cycle network. But in contrast the M5 and M4 motorways are almost invisible thin blue lines, because they are as useless to cyclists – who are barred from them – as the canal towpaths are to juggernauts. Bringing the former Secretary of Wales back into the Cabinet would be a high-risk policy, resurrecting the criticism that Mr Redwood made of Mr Major during the leadership contest.The MPs believe that Mr Redwood would be able to give the Cabinet a more right-wing appeal, particularly if he was given the post at the Treasury in charge of reducing public expenditure currently held by William Waldegrave, who survived the Scott inquiry report.Since going on to the backbenches, Mr Redwood had built up a following outside Westminster and shown himself capable of out-playing right-wing competitors, such as Michael Portillo, while remaining fundamentally loyal to the party.. Mr Major has protected him from backbench sniping, but Mr Maclean is seen as the best replacement if Mr Hogg is sacrificed.Mr Maclean was offered the agriculture post in the last reshuffle, but turned it down to stay at the Home Office.The Prime Minister has privately made it clear he intends to resist the pressure for Mr Redwood to return to the Cabinet. COLIN BROWN

Chief Political Correspondent
John Major is being urged to bring John Redwood back into his Cabinet by senior Conservative right-wing MPs as part of a Cabinet shake-up to sharpen the party’s campaign for the general election.The pressure for Mr Redwood – who challenged Mr Major for the leadership – to be given a Cabinet post is coming from some of the officers of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, which advises Mr Major on backbench opinion.David Maclean, a right-wing Home Office minister, and David Curry, a hard-hitting left-of-centre local government minister, are also being urged on Mr Major for promotion to the Cabinet.Douglas Hogg is fighting for his career as Minister of Agriculture after criticism of his handling of the European Union negotiations on beef.

This scheme recognises common law wives so that both the partners of the Gwent firefighters will receive pounds 85,000.In a letter to Mr Cameron, Baroness Blatch, Home Office minister, said the firefighters’ pension arrangements were generous compared with private-sector schemes.. Both men had entered a blazing house at Blaina believing that a child was trapped inside.Ken Cameron, leader of the firefighters’ union, denounced the decision as “miserly and unfeeling”. Referring to expressions of sympathy by John Major after the deaths, Mr Cameron said: “So much for the fine words of the Prime Minister when the `selfless bravery’ he refers to is rewarded in a manner which is more suited to the last century.”Ministers have told the joint pension committee for the fire service that proposals to change the system so that relatives other than wives and husbands can benefit from pensions, “should not be taken any further”.A separate compensation scheme administered by a joint union-management committee, paid the pounds 950 to Ms Lombard’s parents. Her family has set up a trust fund for the rehabilitation of firefighters in her name.The decision by ministers also means that the common law wife of the Gwent firefighter Kevin Lane, who died fighting a fire two days earlier, will not receive a pension. Although she was the mother of Mr Lane’s 10- year-old son, they were not married and she therefore does not qualify to receive the benefit.The wife of a colleague, Stephen Griffin, who died in the same blaze in February, will receive full pension rights. BARRIE CLEMENT

Labour Editor
The Government has refused to increase the pounds 950 lump sum received by the parents of the heroine Fleur Lombard, the first female firefighter to be killed on active duty in Britain.Despite protests from the Fire Brigades Union, the Home Office has decided not to change the system under which only a small “death grant” is available to bereaved parents.The firefighter, 21, was killed in February when the roof of a Co-op store in Bristol collapsed as she went in to see if shoppers were trapped.

“I’m told the whisky is a fine blend, but the salt’s got to it I haven’t had any myself. You won’t find a skipper in Fleetwood who’s touched a drop.”. ROS WYNNE-JONES

Lancashire fisherman found themselves in the drink yesterday as they re-enacted scenes from the Ealing comedy Whisky Galore and pursued a liquid cargo that was lost six months ago but has surfaced in the Irish Sea.
Bottles of Scotch were selling for as little as pounds 5 in the port of Fleetwood as the local population took to their boats.”The conversation round here is `What bottles have you caught today?’, not `What fish have you caught?’, said a spokesman for the Harbour Control office. “It’s not very good stuff, though, so I’m told.”The alcoholic cargo, worth pounds 50,000, was lost from the roll-on roll-off vessel Spheroid when a 26-ton container went overboard in October, off Drigg Point, in Cumbria.It was thought that the whisky had sunk 15 fathoms below the sea, but locals said the container had broken open and thousands of bottles were along the seabed.Fleetwood Police said no offence was being committed, but after local radio reports that Customs and Excise officials were taking a keen interest, a blanket of silence fell over Fleetwood.”I’ve got a terrible head-ache,” said one skipper. Mr McAvoy said: “In every area members have voted to extend democracy in the way the executive have suggested. If conference rejects that, it will be rejecting the views of members.”. Union leaders are proposing the changes after the left inflicted a series of defeats on the executive at last year’s conference.Conference motions calling for a one-day strike over class size and a special conference on salaries were overturned by a ballot of members.Members have also been balloted on one-member-one-vote.