A THREE-YEAR public inquiry to prevent peat extraction from a protected moor has cost council tax payers at least Pounds 80,000. For the past decade campaigners have been fighting to try to get peat mining stopped on several remaining stretches of moorland at Crowle.

By PIPPA CRERAR TRANSPORT Secretary Ruth Kelly has come under pressure to hold a public inquiry into the collapse of Metronet amid allegations of corruption. An MP on the Commons transport committee accused Metronet shareholders of "funnelling cash" into a building contractor which they owned.

A PUBLIC inquiry will be heard into plans for a controversial city bypass, the Scottish Government confirmed yesterday. The hearing into the proposed Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR) will be held early next year, Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson said.

CAMPAIGNERS are to meet with health secretary Nicola Sturgeon this week to discuss the terms of a public inquiry into how haemophiliacs became infected with hepatitis through contaminated blood products.

IF A defendant claimed the right to sit in judgment of his own criminal trial, no government would countenance it.