· The Dearing Report

Despite being leaked for a long time in advance, the governent-sponsored Dearing Report into the future of higher education in Britain was published recently. It proposes a series of cost-cutting measures which will mean students paying a lot more for their education. A lot of opinions are being expressed for and against this, but one conclusion is that fewer students would be going away to another city to study and that, therefore, there less student accomodation would be needed. Given that, we are told, the official University halls are far from full one wonders what the future would be for a speculative private venture in student housing such as that proposed by the developers for the tunnels site. Remember, the proposed flats are nothing to do with Liverpool's two universities and no responsibility can be attached to our friends at Liverpool University and the Liverpool John Moores University. The proposed flats are a case of a private developer hoping to make money out of a perceived student boom in the area.

· Hope Street Festival

Liverpool holds an annual arts and culture event called the Hope Street Festival. This year we were invited to take part and held a number of audio-visual shows and had our stands up at a number of concerts and shows. The interest generated was great and a lot of people joined FWT. Our thanks go out to HOPES, the organisers.