Global Trade

A food and drink festival is returning to an East Yorkshire market town.

The event will take place in Pocklington town centre over the weekend of 26 and 27 April.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council said stalls would feature street foods, bars and craft and there would also be live music, comedy and children's entertainment.

Helena Moss, the head of regeneration and funding at the authority, said the "feastival" was an opportunity for local businesses to reach new audiences.

The aim of the festival is to promote the local food and drink scene and it is being delivered by events company Market Square Group Ltd, in partnership with the council.

Stalls will line Market Place leading to a stage and seating areas in St Peter's Square.

It will run on the Saturday from 09:00 to 18:00 BST and on the Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00.

Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Soundslatest episode of Look North here.

Over the past three days, there have been a series of deadly incidents on the route to an aid distribution site in Gaza run by a controversial group backed by the US and Israel.

The three incidents took place on roads approaching one of the new sites in the extreme south-west of Gaza, which is under full Israeli military control. The facility is being operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The first incident took place early on Sunday morning when 31 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency. Another three people were killed by gunfire on Monday morning, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Meanwhile, a further 27 people were killed by Israeli fire near the site on Tuesday morning, according to health officials.

Israel has denounced what it called "false reports" that its troops fired on civilians at or near the sites. It said that some soldiers fired warning shots on Sunday 1km away, and that they also opened fire after identifying "several suspects" on Monday and Tuesday.

Very few videos have emerged from Gaza that show the incidents themselves, but BBC Verify has examined available footage and attempted to map how they unfolded.

Where have the incidents taken place?

All three are reported to have taken place near an aid distribution centre in the south-west of Gaza, in the Tal al-Sultan area.

The site, named Safe Distribution Site 1 (SDS 1) by the GHF, opened on the 26 May. It is one of four such facilities, three of which are based in southern Gaza.

The facilities are part of a new aid system – widely condemned by humanitarian groups – aiming to bypass the UN, which Israel has accused of failing to prevent Hamas diverting aid to its fighters. The UN says that has not been a big problem and that the GHF's system is unworkable and unethical.

However, only SDS 1 has been open and operational since Friday, according to official GHF posts online. It follows a chaotic opening week which saw the site overrun by desperate civilians, and projectiles being thrown towards Gazans at another facility at the GHF's northern site near Nuseirat on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the foundation did not respond to messages asking why the other facilities have been closed for several days.

The GHF has also encouraged civilians to follow a set route when approaching SDS 1, directing them along a coastal road called al-Rashid Street.

The instructions have been issued on the foundation's official Facebook page.

Chris Newton, a senior analyst at the Brussels-based think tank Crisis Group, said the route was neither "safe nor effective".

He added that directing civilians down a single route towards the site was "a very far cry from what was possible" under the UN-based system, which saw 400 distribution points scattered across the strip.

"This all looks designed to fail," he said of the new aid system.

How Sunday's incident unfolded

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, some 31 people were killed by gunfire on Sunday.

The GHF posted on its official Facebook page early on Sunday, telling civilians that SDS 1 would be open from 05:00 local time.

However, just an hour later it posted again saying that the site was closed. By this time many Gazans had gathered at the Al-Alam roundabout as they waited to be granted access to the site, Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist based in Rafah, told the BBC.

We have seen a limited amount of video that is claimed to relate to the shootings. In one video filmed on the route to the aid site, purportedly on Sunday, people lie on the ground and an explosion is heard.

There is a "realistic possibility" this blast sound was a battle tank firing its main armament, says David Heathcote, an intelligence manager with security analysts McKenzie Intelligence, but he adds that "there could be other explanations". Another expert we spoke to said the source of the sound was unclear.

An audio recording provided to the BBC by international staff at the UK-Med field hospital about 3km away from the site captured two apparent explosions and protracted gunfire for over five minutes.

Video footage posted at 06:08 showed dozens of people lying prone on sand, with automatic gunfire audible. BBC Verify could not definitively geolocate the footage.

Another clip reviewed by BBC Verify, which claimed to be from the aftermath of the incident, showed a number of bodies lying on a beach on Gaza's coast. As the video progresses, several of the bodies were covered by white bags. One of those lying on the beach appeared to be a young woman.

We cannot definitively geolocate the footage. However, lights seen in the distance suggest that the footage may have been filmed in an area about 1km from SDS 1.

Images – provided to the BBC by doctors – of bullets recovered from those killed and wounded in the incidents showed that both 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds were used.

But Benedict Manzin – an analyst with the risk consultancy Sibylline – said that the source of the rounds was unclear, noting that both the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian armed groups "will have access to weapons that fire 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds".

The IDF denied its troops fired at civilians "near or within" the site and said reports to this effect were false. But an Israeli military source later said warning shots were fired approximately 1km (0.6 miles) away from the site "to prevent suspects from approaching the troops".

The GHF said in a statement: "There were no injuries, fatalities or incidents during our operations yesterday. Period. We have yet to see any evidence that there was an attack at or near our facility."

What happened in the later incidents?

On Monday, three people were killed while waiting for food near SDS 1, according to the ICRC.

The Israeli military said "warning shots were fired toward several suspects who advanced toward" troops approximately 1km from the site.

The Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were then killed when Israeli forces opened fire near SDS 1 early on Tuesday.

Very little footage has emerged purporting to show the moment of the shooting. But one clip posted online showed people running with gunfire audible. BBC Verify geolocated the footage to a road near SDS 1 and established it was newly published on Tuesday although we cannot say for certain it relates to Tuesday's incident.

• Killings near Gaza aid centre will deepen criticism of Israel's new distribution system
• How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos
• Gaza aid trucks rushed by desperate and hungry crowds, WFP says

Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence agency, told the BBC that the incident again occurred a few hundred metres away from the Al-Alam roundabout. He said most of those killed or injured "were hit by gunfire from tanks, helicopters and quadcopter drones".

Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old who has been displaced from Rafah, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency that the shooting began shortly before 04:00 local time. Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, told AP "there was gunfire from all directions".

And the ICRC said in a statement that its field hospital in Rafah received "a mass casualty influx of 184 patients".

"This includes nineteen cases who were declared dead upon arrival and eight more who died due to their wounds shortly after. The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds."

In a statement, the IDF said approximately 0.5km from the aid distribution site "several suspects" moved towards them. It said troops shot warning fire and when "suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects". It said it was looking into reports of casualties.

Responding to Tuesday's incident, the GHF said: "While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that IDF is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone. This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area."

BBC Verify will continue to investigate footage surrounding each of the three incidents.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

A Birmingham high street described by traders as "lawless" has been given a dedicated police team.

Last November traders in Erdington said shoplifting and drug dealing was destroying businesses and police were failing to deal with offenders who were openly dealing and stealing products.

West Midlands Police started Operation Fearless in January to tackle the issues and now a team of six officers will have a visible presence on High Street, the force said.

More than 140 arrests have been made since the operation started and the "look and feel of the area" around High Street had improved, Det Supt Jim Munro, operation lead, said.

The operation will move to other parts of the city with the aim of reducing crime, like shoplifting, in key areas and make people feel safer.

In the 12 months up to June, a total of 26,145 shoplifting offences were recorded by the force, compared with 19,184 in the previous 12-month period.

'Constant presence'

The 36% rise is higher than the average for England and Wales over the same time frame (29%).

West Midlands Police said the six officers and a sergeant would be on regular patrol on High Street, speaking to local people as well as building relationships with businesses and partners.

"The results we've seen in Erdington speak for themselves – not just in terms of arrests and charges, but in the look and feel of the area around the high street," Mr Munro said.

"We're delighted that our work has been met with such positive feedback, and grateful to the Erdington community for their invaluable support and information.

"The new dedicated High Street team will be a constant presence in the area, and although Fearless is expanding to a new location – our Fearless officers will be using their impressive local and operational knowledge to support them."

The team started working in partnership with other officers in the town on 4 April, and has already made 17 arrests, the force said.

Three drug dealers have been spared jail after their case took four years to pass through the court system.

Kelly Wilkinson, 39, and her partner John Hunstone, 46, ran a crack cocaine gang in Northumberland with their friend Ashleigh Weatherstone, 35, and her ex-partner in late 2020 and early 2021, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Their barristers said the trio had turned their lives around in the intervening years and had endured significant anxiety as they waited four years to learn their sentence outcome.

All three were given suspended prison sentences after admitting drug-dealing offences.

The gang were caught when police found the two women with cash and drugs in an Audi at a petrol station near Bedlington on 12 January 2020, judge Carolyn Scott said.

Hunstone was later discovered with a large quantity of heroin and crack cocaine which was being repackaged into smaller packets at his home.

It subsequently took two years for their case to reach court, with all three admitting their offences in May 2023, the court heard.

There was then another two-year delay – in part due to Weatherstone disputing aspects of the prosecution case, which required a separate hearing- before they were finally sentenced on Tuesday.

The court heard there were "various reasons" for the delays, ranging from reports not being prepared as requested and the unavailability of court space and barristers.

'Turned life around'

All three had been addicted to drugs in 2020, and sold crack cocaine to fund their own habit – with the two women having a "significant role" in the dealing operation, according to prosecutor Peter Sabiston.

Andrew Walker, representing Wilkinson, said a "lot of water [had] passed under the bridge" in the intervening years, and stipulated the delays were not her fault.

Wilkinson had been "blighted" by a Class A-drug addiction that, for many years, was a "lifelong struggle" from which "very few people are able to emerge unscathed", Mr Walker said.

But she had "completely" turned her life around, to the point where she had successfully concluded programmes with addiction recovery services, and had since had a child with Hunstone, the court heard.

Mr Walker said she had found the uncertainty of her future, caused by the court delays, "extremely difficult", but it had "allowed her to show to everyone else she is capable of turning her life around".

"She couldn't have done very much more in her case to show all of this is well and truly behind her," Mr Walker said.

Mental health issues

Kate Barnes, representing Hunstone, said he had been left with severe post-traumatic stress disorder and other serious mental health conditions following his service in the army, and had been preyed upon by other drug dealers for his pension, which was now almost totally depleted.

However, over the past four years, he made "significant progress" to address both his mental health and drug use and was now routinely returning clean samples, Ms Barnes said.

He too was not responsible for the court delays, the court heard.

Prospect of rehabilitation

Part of the delay was caused by Weatherstone submitting a basis of plea – namely that she was being coerced into drug dealing by her ex-partner – which had required a separate session, known as a trial of issue or Newton hearing, the court heard.

Weatherstone's barrister, Liam O'Brien, said she was not at fault for much of the "extraordinary" delay, and said not knowing if, or when, she might go to prison had taken a "toll" on her mental health.

He said Weatherstone, who had a traumatic history as well as various serious mental health conditions, had demonstrated "remorse" and had made "significant steps" to address her problems and drug addiction.

"She is, and always be, a drug addict, but [she] is no longer using any of the drugs she was using at the time she committed these offences," Mr O'Brien said.

He stressed Weatherstone had made "extraordinary progress in turning her life around during the period of delay".

Judge Scott said, although Weatherstone had been subjected to domestic violence, she found Weatherstone had taken part in the drug dealing of her own "volition".

The judge said drug dealers should "ordinarily" be jailed as "punishment", and all three might have faced potential jail terms of between three and seven years.

But she acknowledged the efforts they had made, the impacts of the delays, and said there was a "realistic" prospect of rehabilitation for each of them.

Wilkinson, of Millbank Terrace in Bedlington, and Weatherstone, of Sampson Close in Morpeth, both admitted being concerned in the supply of Class A drugs.

Wilkinson was jailed for 21 months, suspended for 18 months, while Weatherstone was jailed for two years, suspended for a year and a half, along with 100 hours unpaid work.

Hunstone, of the same address as Wilkinson, admitted two counts of possessing Class A drugs with intent and was jailed for 19 months, suspended for 18 months.

All three were ordered to carry out activities with the probation service, while Weatherstone was also ordered to pay a £100 fine for missing an earlier court date which her barrister claimed had been caused by her "confusion".

The UK government is in negotiations with France on a scheme to return illegal migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats.

In return, the British government would accept legal migrants seeking family reunion in the UK.

The French interior ministry told the BBC this would be a pilot scheme based on "a one-for-one principle", with the aim of discouraging smuggling networks.

The Conservatives said Labour's decision to scrap the Rwanda deportation agreement last year had removed a deterrent to illegal immigration.

UK Transport Minister Lilian Greenwood said the government was talking to France about migration issues but did not comment on the possibility of a removals deal.

She told Sky News: "I can confirm that there are discussions ongoing with the French government about how we stop this appalling and dangerous trade in people that's happening across the English Channel."

The talks with France were first reported by the Financial Times.

"France's interest is to discourage migrants and smuggling networks from attempting to reach the UK from France," the country's interior ministry told the BBC.

The ministry suggested the pilot scheme could pave the way for an agreement on migrant returns between European Union member states.

"It is based on a one-for-one principle: for each legal admission under family reunification, there would be a corresponding readmission of undocumented migrants who managed to cross [the Channel]", a spokesperson for the ministry said.

Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory, said the "deterrent effect of this measure is likely to depend on how many small boats arrivals are transferred" from the UK back to France.

"In the short term, it won't reduce our responsibility for the number of asylum seekers we take in," Mr Walsh told the BBC.

"The hope would be if we send sufficiently large numbers back to France, that would have a deterrent effect."

Shelves are still not full in Co-op and Marks & Spencer branches across Kent due to recent cyber-attacks.

Shoppers were unable to purchase items such as crisps, mayonnaise and pet food after hackers interrupted supply chains and stole personal information from the retailer's customer database three weeks ago.

M&S chief executive, Stuart Machin, said the firm was writing to customers to inform them that some personal customer information had been taken, but that there was no evidence it had been shared.

A Co-op spokesperson said all of its stores were open and trading, but due to sustained attempts by hackers to access its systems, it had taken steps to keep systems safe, which was temporarily impacting how many deliveries it could make to its stores.

Customers at M&S in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells accepted that cyber-attacks could happen, but were worried about their personal details being shared.

Kerry Smith, from Aylesford, told BBC Radio Kent: "I received an email from M&S telling me what personal information has been compromised.

"It does make me concerned about what it could be used for, but I think they'll get it sorted soon."

Meanwhile, Jackie Lamb, from Tunbridge Wells, said she could not believe that the problems were ongoing.

"It happened weeks ago and I cannot order anything online still. The lady in front of me in the queue was trying to settle the balance on her account but couldn't due to the outage.

"They must be losing lots of money."

At the Co-op in East Peckham village centre, the shelves were depleted.

June James, who has lived in East Peckham all her life, said the stock levels were improving.

"However, my daughter had to drive me to the nearest big supermarket as there were lots of things on my shopping list that I couldn't get. I hope it returns to normal soon," she said.

The National Cyber Security Centre warned that criminals launching cyber-attacks on British retailers were impersonating IT help desks to break into organisations.

Lisa Barber, tech editor at consumer group Which?, said it was concerning that criminals had gained access to information that could be used for identity fraud.

"It's always a good idea to change your password as soon as possible if there's been a security breach, and to ensure your new password is unique from any other online accounts," she said.

Matt Hull, head of threat intelligence at cyber security company NCC Group, said attackers who had stolen personal information could use it to "craft very convincing scams".

Next week the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will reveal the outcome of her Spending Review.

It will allocate money to day-to-day public services for the next three years.

It will also set infrastructure budgets for the next four years.

The review will directly impact on what Stormont Ministers have to spend on public services in Northern Ireland.

What do we already know?

Last year Reeves set what is known as the "spending envelope" – the amount by which total government spending will change in a given period.

Day-to-day spending is planned to grow by an average of 1.2% above the rate of inflation each year for the next three years.

Infrastructure spending is planned to grow by 1.3% above inflation a year over the next four years.

These are much lower growth rates than this year and last year, reflecting the new government's "emergency" injection of cash into the health service and public sector pay deals.

On Wednesday the Chancellor will break it down further, making allocations to each central government department.

The precise allocation of this money matters for Stormont's spending plans.

Health vs Defence: Why it matters?

More than 90% of what Stormont ministers have to spend comes from the Treasury through what is known as "the block grant."

The increase in the block grant is worked out using a calculation known as the Barnett formula, which is based on the annual changes in UK central government departmental budgets.

It gives Stormont an equivalent spending increase for the size of the NI population, adjusted for the extent to which each service is devolved.

Some services, like health, are almost entirely devolved but defence is not devolved.

If the government decides it is going to spend more on defence at the expense of other services that will have an impact on the amount of extra money in the Stormont pot.

In simple terms: If the UK Department of Health sees its budget increase by £100m, then Northern Ireland would get approximately £3m extra.

If the Ministry of Defence budget increases by £100m Stormont does not get anything extra.

A bigger Stormont top-up?

When devolution was restored in 2024 the government agreed a financial package which included an automatic top-up of any money awarded by the Barnett formula.

The government was persuaded that the level of need in Northern Ireland means it requires spending of £124 per head for every £100 per head spent in England.

As Northern Ireland was funded below that level, the government said that in future every £1 that comes through the Barnett formula will now come with an extra 24p.

That will apply until the overall level of funding need is reached.

The independent Fiscal Council has estimated that will be worth £815m over five years.

The government said the size of the top up could be reviewed if "independent and credible sources" provide evidence.

To that end the Executive commissioned a study from the economist Prof Gerry Holtham, an expert in the devolution of public finances.

The BBC understands that his work has come back with a range of possible funding need.

The central estimates are £123 per head, for every £100 spent in England, if agricultural spending is excluded and £128 per head if agriculture forms part of the calculation.

If the Treasury is persuaded to accept the higher end of the range it will be worth tens of millions of pounds extra over the next five years.

Softening the cliff edge?

The devolution financial package also brought a large dollop of one-off UK government funding, largely to pay for public sector pay deals.

However that creates a cliff-edge drop in Stormont funding of about £500m in 2026/27 when that short term money runs out.

The government committed to review "concerns about 2026-27 funding" at the Spending Review.

The Fiscal Council has suggested options to tackle the cliff edge could include more one-off funding or setting a new, higher baseline for Stormont's budget.

However, it is also possible that the normal operation of Spending Review will allocate enough money to largely remove the cliff edge.

Casement Park breakthrough?

The Chancellor will be allocating trillions of pounds in the Spending Review but it is a tiny fraction of that which may have most political impact in Northern Ireland.

There is a growing expectation that the UK government will come up with additional money for the construction of a new GAA stadium at Casement Park in Belfast.

That project has been bogged down in labyrinthine planning and funding issues.

The GAA official leading the project has told the BBC he is cautiously optimistic that the Spending Review will include a new financial contribution for the redevelopment project.

A railway line has reopened after four days of engineering work to make the track safe.

Trains between Shrewsbury and Hereford and between Shrewsbury and Llandrindod Wells were suspended, with some services replaced by buses.

Network Rail said had to take action after a collapsed culvert was discovered beneath the track between Craven Arms and Church Stretton in Shropshire.

It said track had to be lifted up to allow the work to be carried out.

Trains on the Heart of Wales line ran between Llandrindod Wells and Swansea only.

Network Rail said it was looking into the cause of the damage.

A man who beat a woman to death in her own home in Moray has been jailed for a minimum of 24 years.

Mother-of-two Lucretia Donaghy, 32, who was known as Keshia, was found dead at her home in Anderson Drive, Elgin, in November 2023.

Owen Grant, 43, had denied assaulting and murdered her by repeatedly striking her on the head and body.

However a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh found him guilty of murder, where Lord Scott jailed him for life.

The judge, who described the attack as involving a claw-hammer or similar implement, said: "The attack was exceptionally savage, frenzied and brutal."

He said that in a victim impact statement Keshia's mother said her heart was broken.

Keshia died after sustaining multiple blunt force head injuries and was found lying face down in a bedroom.

A neighbour had heard sounds of an argument coming from the downstairs flat and the victim calling out: "No, no, no."

After the murder, Grant turned up drunk at a woman's address and gave her money to source cocaine. She returned to the house and told him she had learned that Keshia was dead.

Grant cried but went on to claim the information was wrong and that police activity at her home was a drugs raid.

In parts of Birmingham waste continues to go uncollected as all-out strike action by bin workers grinds on into its sixth week, leaving some of the city's 1.2 million residents to deal with the fallout.

The UK's second city is the largest local authority area in the country, with more than 400,000 households within its boundaries. But they have not been affected equally by the industrial action, and as more time has passed a contrast has begun to emerge.

The dispute has seen waste pile up in some areas, with the problem most stark in the densely populated inner-city areas. Wealthier, more sparsely populated parts have experienced fewer problems.

On the same day that the streets of Balsall Heath were being overwhelmed with rubbish, so much that it was hard in places to walk down the street, a few miles away in wealthy Harborne, wheelie bins stood neatly waiting for collection with no sign of any additional waste.

Talks to end the bin strike in Birmingham will not resume until next week, after the Unite union and the city council failed to reach an agreement on Wednesday.

Members of Unite began staging one-day walkouts in January after being told some workers would be downgraded and have their pay cut.

The action escalated on 11 March, when more than 300 workers began an all-out strike.

Unite said that if the council was prepared to make a firm offer of a one-off payment and guaranteed that there would not be any further pay cuts, its members would go back to work.

For the first three-and-a-half weeks of the industrial dispute striking bin workers used delaying tactics at the city's three main depots to prevent the working wagons, staffed by non-union members and agency staff, from leaving to carry out their rounds.

They walked slowly in front of the gates to delay the lorries departing and continued to walk in front of them after they had left the gates for several hundred metres.

Although more than 300 staff are on strike, several hundred are not.

The delaying tactics meant that wagons were stopped from carrying out their rounds and only about 10% of Birmingham's regular daily bin collections were being completed.

By the beginning of April, because of the industrial action, 22,000 tonnes of uncollected waste had accumulated on the city's streets.

I've been covering the industrial action since it began, and even before it escalated, piles of waste were already mounting up in parts of Birmingham.

This time it already seemed worse than the last strike in Birmingham in 2017, and like then, it appeared to highlight the disparity of wealth in Britain's second city.

The poorer the area, the worse the smell and the bigger the mess.

There was already talk of the infestation of rats, and a pest controller I met in Handsworth told me his workload had already doubled as result of the waste piling up in the streets.

The effects of the strike have been most visible in the city's most deprived wards and places like Small Heath, Sparkbrook and Ladywood.

Here the streets of Victorian terraced houses are home to large multi-generational families or have been divided into flats.

The population density is highest in this area, so there is more waste, and fewer people have access to cars to take their rubbish to the tips. These are the areas where the biggest piles of rubbish have grown.

In Small Heath I met Semir Said, the senior outreach project manager at the Green Lane Mosque, who described how the area had been affected.

"It's very obvious really, piles of rubbish, mountains of rubbish really in streets inner city Birmingham, so yeah a very, very big problem," he said. "Rats feasting is the way I'd describe it, so yes it's a very, very big problem."

He told me, he thought the inner city areas were faring worst.

"It's sad to say but these deprived areas… [you] do find this problem of not being treated fairly, it's very unfortunate, but it is the reality."

The mosque was, he said, trying to find its own solutions and that was why they had arranged for the council's street cleaning team to base their wagons there, so people could bring their rubbish to be disposed of.

Queues of cars were waiting to offload their rubbish, and the mosque had enrolled the services of teenagers on their Easter break to help with the unloading.

During the strike these have been one of the few options people could take to get rid of their rubbish. At one, at Woodgate Valley Park, on the outskirts of the city near its border with Worcestershire I witnessed a queue that was more than a mile long.

Some people had parked their cars and were carrying unwanted items into the site, where everything was simply thrown into the same waste truck – metal, glass, household waste and recycling. Here there was exasperation and anger, and the sense that Birmingham's reputation was being dragged down.

"It's absolute carnage, it's scandalous", one man with heavy bin bags in each hand and a full car to unload told me.

'Postcode issue'

I first met Naz Khan during the last bin strike when he and his friends hired a lorry to collect rubbish from people who could not take it away themselves.

Eight years later I bumped into him again, once again trying to help people get rid of their rubbish.

He told me that the problems in his area had been exacerbated by people from elsewhere bringing their rubbish into poorer inner-city areas to get rid of it.

"A lot of people are using our areas to do a lot of fly-tipping", he said, adding that he felt there was a "postcode issue" when it came to bin collections.

In one of the biggest piles of waste I saw there was an old bed frame, several empty tins of catering cooking oil and even the front bumper from a Toyota.

Other people have also been doing their bit and trying to clear up their neighbourhoods. Sadia Khan, the chair of Friends of Sparkgreen Park, has been organising litter picks since before the strike began, but things have only got worse since it started.

"It feels like the litter picks aren't making any difference, the litter and the fly-tipping is coming back twofold. It's a gloomy place to be in, it's depressing," she said.

Her aim was to try to clear the park of waste before the Easter weekend so that if the weather was nice, people would be able to head out for picnics.

"You want a beautiful park, enjoy the Easter weekend and the holidays now, and people can't go for a picnic, they can't even have time with their friends and family out in the park.

"It's just so sad to see," she added.

Two-tier system accusations

One evening in Balsall Heath, I spoke to a resident who told me that the problems had been exacerbated by a lack of civic pride from locals, but blamed the poor waste collection service their area had experienced even before industrial action began for creating a sense of malaise.

It is a common complaint, that waste collections are missed here and not in wealthy Edgbaston.

You often hear the unsubstantiated claim that streets where councillors live are always spick-and-span, but the ones nearby are left to fend for themselves.

People repeatedly have told me they believe there is a two-tier waste collection in operation.

During the dispute I have put those allegations to both the leader of the council, John Cotton, and the strategic director of city operations, Craig Cooper, and each told me that they were aware of the problems and were committed, as part of the council's reorganisation of waste collection, to make things better and fairer once the strike was over.

The striking members of Unite also acknowledge that there has been a problem in poorer areas, but say council plans to go to fortnightly collections will simply mean a return to some of the scenes we have witnessed since March.

"There were so many bins it was causing conflict with neighbours", said Alexandra Giddings, who lives with her 12-year-old son in a small house near the busy Ladypool Road, in another of the more deprived parts of Birmingham, within the city's famous Balti Triangle.

Her son has chronic asthma and their home is damp, but she was unable to open the windows even during the recent warm spell, because of the stench from the bins that had been mounting up outside.

Things have begun to improve since strikers were prevented from delaying the non-striking bin workers from completing their rounds and army logistics experts were brought in to help with the clear-up.

Despite one recent collection, the bins are piling up again and the stink is really unpleasant.

"I want to go out at least for a walk. Now, I don't want to because the smell's horrendous," Ms Giddings said.

The situation has changed since the beginning of the fifth week of the strike.

West Midlands Police stopped the strikers' delaying tactics by threatening them with arrest and being fined, which enabled more working wagons to carry out daily collections, so that now about 50% of the council's fleet is fully operational.

It cannot separate household waste from recycling, but everyone should now be getting a weekly collection.

People who had waited for six weeks to see a bin lorry have finally had their black bags removed, with the most noticeable improvement made since Army logistics experts were brought in, as they have been able to better co-ordinate the clear up.

The council said that the backlog of waste should have been cleared by this weekend.

By Wednesday, the amount of uncollected waste had fallen to less than 5,000 tonnes.

It has represented a major clear-up operation since the police tactics changed on the picket line and the behind-the-scenes interventions by the government.

One of the striking bin men, Dave, said: "We say to the people of Birmingham, obviously we're residents ourselves, and we really apologise… we're going to make every effort to come back to work as soon as possible and collect the bins again".

Nearly everyone I have spoken to has their own "rat" story.

Reports of infestations have been a headline writer and meme maker's dream, but the rodents have proven surprisingly difficult to capture on film.

When, before the all-out strike began, one resident told BBC News that there were "rats the size of cats" roaming the streets, it gave birth to the phrase that will haunt Birmingham and may tarnish its reputation for the foreseeable future.