Chester Zoo has today opened its doors and revealed a magnificent new African savannah habitat, the Heart of Africa – one of the largest in the UK.
The massive new habitat at the beloved attraction is home to dozens of African species, including giraffes, rhino, zebra, vultures and meerkats.
Chester Zoo has created a vast open savannah where guests can come across species living side-by-side, as well as new indoor habitats where you can see smaller species like never before, and habitats you can clamber inside.
The centrepiece of the Heart of Africa is the savannah, where you can see giraffes, Grevy’s zebras, roan antelopes and ostriches all roaming together across grasses and water.
As you weave around the incredible new habitat, which spans an area the size of 17 football pitches (22.5 acres), you’ll also come across several new aviaries where birds hoot, tweet and screech.
There are 31 species of bird here, including a fabulous flock of 120 greater flamingos, three types of critically endangered vulture, colourful black cheeked lovebirds, and Africa’s largest owl, the Verreaux’s eagle owl.
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One of the most impressive new areas is the Hidden Savannah, where you can clamber inside a safari jeep that’s within the actual enclosure, so that you can see 10,000 locusts all around you from the driver’s seat.
This indoor habitat is also home to adorable, wrinkly little naked mole rats, who have a network of tunnels to burrow through, and other rodents like short-eared sengi and pygmy mice.
Heart of Africa at Chester Zoo, in pictures
Heart of Africa at Chester Zoo, in pictures. Credit: The Manc Group
As for the cold-blooded animals, or ectotherms, there’s Trevor the African bull frog, plus dung beetles, red spitting cobra, Ethiopian viper and pancake tortoises.
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There are 15 other mammal species to encounter too, including African wild dogs, meerkats, Eastern black rhino, yellow mongoose, and dik-dik.
The Heart of Africa stands as a symbol of Chester Zoo’s continued conservation efforts across the continent, which includes combatting poaching and illegal wildlife trade.
It’s thought that the Heart of Africa will attract an additional 200,000 visitors to Chester Zoo each year while creating 30 new jobs.
Heart of Africa officially opens to visitors on Saturday 5 April – you can book zoo tickets HERE.
Ryanair introduces immediate £500 fines for ‘unruly’ passengers
Emily Sergeant
Ryanair is majorly clamping-down on passenger conduct by introducing a new immediate fining system.
In a bid to get onboard conduct to an acceptable level, Europe’s largest budget airline has today confirmed (12 June) that it has introduced a £500 fine for disruptive passengers whose unruly behaviour results in them being offloaded from the aircraft.
The airline – which prides itself on being one of the most ‘punctual’ in the continent – says passengers expect to travel in a ‘comfortable and stress-free environment’ that’s free from ‘unnecessary disruption’ caused by a tiny number of people travelling onboard the aircraft at the same time as them.
Ryanair has introduced immediate £500 fines for ‘unruly’ passengers / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
While it’s no secret that passenger disruption is a problem that’s increasingly affecting the airline industry as a whole, Ryanair says it’s ‘committed’ to tackling unruly behaviour for the benefit of its passengers and crew.
The company intends to continue to pursue disruptive passengers for civil damages, but at a minimum, they will now be issued with a £500 fine immediately.
“It is unacceptable that passengers are made suffer unnecessary disruption because of one unruly passenger’s behaviour,” a Ryanair spokesperson commented as the fines were announced today.
The airline says it’s committed to tackling this for the benefit of its passengers and crew / Credit: Pxhere
“To help ensure that our passengers and crew travel in a comfortable and stress-free environment, without unnecessary disruption caused by a tiny number of unruly passengers, we have introduced a £500 fine, which will be issued to any passengers offloaded from aircraft as a result of their misconduct.
“While these are isolated events which happen across all airlines, disruptive behaviour in such a confined shared space is unacceptable.
“We hope that our proactive approach will act as a deterrent to eliminate this unacceptable behaviour onboard our aircraft.”
Featured Image – CCNull
Travel & Tourism
Travel warning issued as more than 100,000 people head to Parklife 2025 this weekend
Emily Sergeant
Parklife 2025 kicks of a thrilling summer of musical events in Manchester this weekend, but attendees should expect disruption.
Manchester‘s major music festival will once again be taking over Heaton Park this weekend (15 and 16 June), with headliners Charli XCX and 50 Cent, alongside other huge names and festival favourites like Jorja Smith, Bicep, Peggy Gou, Rudimental, Confidence Man, and countless others.
But with all the action, of course, comes the annual travel warning.
That’s right, just as we’ve come to expect every year, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is urging anyone attending Parklife, or anyone travelling around the Heaton Park area, to ‘plan their journeys’ by public transport ahead of time, and allow plenty of time for travel too.
Not only are around 110,000 people expected to make the journey Parklife this weekend, but there’s also events on at Co-op Live and Old Trafford too, so it’s all making for a busy weekend on the transport network.
TfGM wants festivalgoers to use trams and dedicated shuttle bus services to get to and from Heaton Park as much as possible to avoid disruption, and it’s also advised to pre-purchase travel tickets on the Bee Network app to make the process smoother too.
Anyone planning to get the tram to Heaton Park should travel from Victoria station, according to TfGM, as this will help safely manage the demand for transport and allow trams to run every six minutes.
Both Heaton Park and Bowker Vale stops are just minutes from the festival gates.
A travel warning has been issued as more than 100,000 people head to Parklife 2025 this weekend / Credit: TfGM / Parklife
Parklife shuttle buses will run from Lever Street in the Northern Quarter from mid-morning to the last bus at 4:30pm – with drop-off being right inside the festival site.
After the event, returning trams will run from Bowker Vale to the city centre until 1:30am, but the Heaton Park stop will close at 9pm. The last services from Bowker Vale to Bury will run at 12:46am on Saturday and 12:44pm on Sunday.
Return shuttle buses to Manchester city centre will run from inside the park in a temporary bus station, until the site is clear.
Anyone travelling at the weekend, but not to Parklife, can expect roads and public transport be ‘busier than usual’, TfGM admits, especially with the other events at Co-op Live and Old Trafford.
Extra staff and TravelSafe Support Officers will be ‘out and about’ across the transport network to help passengers throughout the weekend.
Key travel and ticket advice for getting to Parklife, as well as general travel advice for the busy weekend ahead, is available now at on the Bee Network website here.
Daisy Jackson -
31st March 2025 
