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Consumer news with Winifred Robinson.

Northern towns are taking a battering with shoppers down and shop vacancies on the up but when the good times come around again, will the damage done in recent years be so great that they will struggle to recover? Do we need to radically re-think how we plan and run our town centres?

A fifth of consumers are caught out by confusing consumer contracts. The result is that we are paying over many billions of pounds a year more than we ought. The Office of Fair Trading says 70% of the complaints it receives are related to contract disputes and they are preparing new rules to banish unpleasant 'traps' in the small print.

Centrica, the parent of British Gas have published its results. They show that income and profit margins are at a record high. Consumer groups are angry and want the regulators to take action to curb prices in future.

Many local authorities have proposed cuts to their library services in a bid to meet government demands for budget cuts. It is reckoned as many as 500 libraries could close or be cut back but one council has bucked the trend. Salford city council say they expect to have more libraries and longer opening hours after shaving nearly a million pounds off its leisure and culture budget; how have they pulled that off?

A proposed bio-fuel power plant has provoked fierce opposition in Bristol. The plant intends to use palm oil to generate 50 MW of electricity . The plan was turned down by Bristol city council but the government has overruled the decision. The power station spokesman says not a single palm oil tree will need to be planted to supply it with the fuels it needs.