Jane Platt’s bright pink polo shirt marks her out as a volunteer at the Big Venture Centre.

The community shop provides discounted items and other help to people living in some of the most deprived areas of Wolverhampton.

Places like Bushbury, Heath Town and Low Hill, where Ms Platt believes “everyone is struggling”, including herself.

The local council insists it is there for those who need support, but some living in the areas say they feel forgotten.

“My baby won’t play out in the streets,” explained Ms Platt, who lives near the Scotlands Estate.

The 45-year-old has been volunteering at the centre for years and said it helped her gain skills and look after her own mental health.

But she claimed it was also one of the only places she felt safe in the area.

“You can’t look at people when you [are out],” Ms Platt said.

“I try and look the opposite way because you just don’t know what they’re going to say.”

Tracey Walters, a resident being supported by the Big Venture Centre, was born in the area.

The 61-year-old said she liked living there but felt it had been “forgotten” about.

She demanded more activities for younger children on the estate, and was also concerned about rubbish.

“I don’t think Wolverhampton Council care about this area,” she said.

The council said there was more than £121,000 in funding for children in the Scotlands during the school holidays, adding it received regular litter picks and sweeps.

The local authority also insisted 112 jobs involving roads and street lighting had been carried out.

But another centre user, who asked not to be named, said it looked “scruffy”.

The woman, who has lived in the area all her life, said drugs and other forms of anti-social behaviour were a big problem, often because young people did not have anything to do.

“It used be nice area at one time but there’s nothing left,” she claimed.

“It’s just empty houses that get smashed up. You find needles on the floor [and] nobody cares.”

Despite the issues, volunteer director David Chadwick insisted the Scotlands was a place where “everybody will help everybody”.

“Without us a lot of families would suffer and that’s why we’re here,” he said.

City of Wolverhampton Council said it was working with police and other organisations to make sure the area was safe and nobody was “left behind”.

“The council has awarded millions of pounds in regeneration grants in the area and created The Big Venture centre by a community asset transfer,” a spokesperson said.

“We hold regular community resident meeting where people can talk directly to the council.”

The BBC is threatening to take legal action against an artificial intelligence (AI) firm whose chatbot the corporation says is reproducing BBC content “verbatim” without its permission.

The BBC has written to Perplexity, which is based in the US, demanding it immediately stops using BBC content, deletes any it holds, and proposes financial compensation for the material it has already used.

It is the first time that the BBC – one of the world’s largest news organisations – has taken such action against an AI company.

Perplexity has been approached for comment.

The BBC’s legal threat has been made in a letter to Perplexity’s boss Aravind Srinivas.

“This constitutes copyright infringement in the UK and breach of the BBC’s terms of use,” the letter says.

The BBC also cited its research published earlier this year that found four popular AI chatbots – including Perplexity AI – were inaccurately summarising news stories, including some BBC content.

Pointing to findings of significant issues with representation of BBC content in some Perplexity AI responses analysed, it said such output fell short of BBC Editorial Guidelines around the provision of impartial and accurate news.

“It is therefore highly damaging to the BBC, injuring the BBC’s reputation with audiences – including UK licence fee payers who fund the BBC – and undermining their trust in the BBC,” it added.

Chatbots and image generators that can generate content response to simple text or voice prompts in seconds have swelled in popularity since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022.

But their rapid growth and improving capabilities has prompted questions about their use of existing material without permission.

Much of the material used to develop generative AI models has been pulled from a massive range of web sources using bots and crawlers, which automatically extract site data.

The rise in this activity, known as web scraping, recently prompted British media publishers to join calls by creatives for the UK government to uphold protections around copyrighted content.

Many organisations, including the BBC, use a file called “robots.txt” in their website code to try to block bots and automated tools from extracting data en masse for AI.

It instructs bots and web crawlers to not access certain pages and material, where present.

But compliance with the directive remains voluntary and, according to some reports, bots do not always respect it.

The BBC said in its letter that while it disallowed two of Perplexity’s crawlers, the company “is clearly not respecting robots.txt”.

Mr Srinivas denied accusations that its crawlers ignored robots.txt instructions in an interview with Fast Company last June.

Perplexity also says that because it does not build foundation models, it does not use website content for AI model pre-training.

The company’s AI chatbot has become a popular destination for people looking for answers to common or complex questions, describing itself as an “answer engine”.

It says on its website that it does this by “searching the web, identifying trusted sources and synthesising information into clear, up-to-date responses”.

It also advises users to double check responses for accuracy – a common caveat accompanying AI chatbots, which can be known to state false information in a matter of fact, convincing way.

In January Apple suspended an AI feature that generated false headlines for BBC News app notifications when summarising groups of them for iPhones users, following BBC complaints.

Gas and electricity bills will fall on 1 July, when the new energy price cap takes effect.

The drop will more than reverse the increase which millions of households faced on 1 April when the current cap began.

The energy price cap sets the maximum amount customers can be charged for each unit of energy, but actual bills depend on how much gas and electricity you use.

The energy price cap covers around 21 million households in England, Wales and Scotland and is set every three months by Ofgem.

It fixes the maximum price that can be charged for each unit of energy on a standard – or default – variable tariff for a typical dual-fuel household which pays by direct debit.

Between 1 April and 30 June 2025, gas prices are capped at 6.99p per kilowatt hour (kWh), and electricity at 27.03p per kWh.

This means the annual bill for a dual-fuel direct debit household using a typical amount of energy is £1,849 per year, an increase of £111 from the previous cap.

However, from 1 July, this annual bill falls £129 to £1,720.

Between 1 July and 30 September 2025, gas prices will be capped at 6.33p per kilowatt hour (kWh) and electricity at 25.73p per kWh.

Those who pay their bills every three months by cash or cheque pay more, but those on prepayment meters pay a little less.

The cap does not apply in Northern Ireland, which has its own energy market.

Your energy bill depends on the overall amount of gas and electricity you use, and how you pay for it.

The type of property you live in, how energy efficient it is, how many people live there and the weather all make a difference.

The Ofgem cap is based on a “typical household” using 11,500 kWh of gas and 2,700 kWh of electricity a year with a single bill for gas and electricity, settled by direct debit.

The vast majority of people pay their bill this way to help spread payments across the year. Those who pay every three months by cash or cheque are charged more.

Submitting a meter reading when the cap changes means you will not be charged for estimated usage at the wrong rate.

This is especially important when prices go up.

Customers with working smart meters do not need to submit a reading as their bill is calculated automatically.

About four million households had prepayment meters in January 2025, according to Ofgem.

Between April and June, households on prepayment meters paid slightly less than those on direct debit, with a typical bill of £1,803, a rise of £113 from the previous quarter.

From 1 July, households on pre-payment meters will still pay slightly less than those on direct debit, with a typical annual bill of £1,672.

Many pre-payment meters have been in place for years, but some were installed more recently after customers struggled to pay higher bills.

Rules introduced in November 2023 mean suppliers must give customers more opportunity to clear their debts before switching them to a meter. They cannot be installed at all in certain households.

Households who pay their bills by cash or cheque will pay more than pre-payment or direct debit customers, with a typical annual bill of £1,855

Fixed-price deals are not affected by the energy price cap, which changes every three months and can rise and fall.

They offer certainty for a set period – often a year, or longer – but if energy prices drop when you are on the deal, you could be stuck at a higher price. You may also have to pay a penalty to leave a fixed deal early.

Ofgem, the energy regulator, says customers who want the security of knowing what their bill will be should consider moving to a fixed deal. However, it says they should make sure they understand all the costs.

Martin Lewis, founder of Money Saving Expert, recommends checking whole-of-market energy price comparison sites to help find the best deal.

Standing charges are a fixed daily fee to cover the costs of connecting to gas and electricity supplies. They vary slightly by region.

On 1 April, the average electricity standing charge fell from 60.97p to 53.8p but the average gas standing charge increased from 31.65p to 32.67p

Some customers in London and the North Wales and Mersey region saw larger increases.

From 1 July, standing charges will typically fall to 51.37p a day for electricity and 29.82p a day for gas.

Campaigners argue standing charges are unfair because they make up a bigger proportion of the bill of low energy users.

In response, Ofgem has said that energy firms must provide a choice of price-capped tariffs from winter 2025.

One would have a standing charge and unit rate – as is the case now – and another no standing charge but a higher unit rate. However, the proposals have been criticised as being too complicated.

The Household Support Fund, which was introduced in September 2021 to help vulnerable customers, has been extended until March 2026.

The Warm Home Discount scheme is being overhauled. From winter 2025, anyone on means-tested benefits will automatically see £150 taken off their bills, no matter what size of property they live in.

The government’s Fuel Direct Scheme can help people to repay an energy debt directly from their benefit payments.

In addition, suppliers must offer customers affordable payment plans or repayment holidays if they are struggling with bills.

Most suppliers also offer hardship grants.