You and Yours

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You and Yours: Mobile Phone Coverage, Hairdressing, Smelly Paint.

Mobile Phone Coverage, Hairdressing, Smelly Paint.

BBC Radio 4 - You and Yours, Mobile Phone Coverage, Hairdressing, Smelly Paint.

Patchy mobile phone coverage. Success of hair and beauty salons. Smelly paint complaints.

Ending patchy mobile phone coverage. The success of hair and beauty salons on the high street. Complaints from people who claim a paint they've bought from B&Q smells of cat wee.

We report on a new billion-pound public-private partnership which is aiming to finally eradicate patchy mobile coverage by 2025. The new shared rural network will be a joint partnership between the government and the four big mobile companies - EE, O2, Three and Vodafone. It should mean that more than a quarter of a million homes and businesses and nearly ten thousand miles of roads with poor or no signal now, will get a decent signal. We hear from people living in rural areas who hope to benefit from the scheme. We also speak to Gareth Elliott from Mobile UK, which represents the UK's four major network operators and Jamie Davies, the deputy editor of the industry news site, Telecoms.com.

In recent years hair and beauty salons have been the success story of the high street. Research for You and Yours suggests they’ve been opening at a rate of 25 new salons every week for the past 5 years. But is this kind of growth sustainable? Our reporter Samantha Fenwick finds out more.

We investigate more complaints about a paint that people have bought from B&Q and say smells like cat pee. We first started reporting on customers problems with the Valspar paint in 2017. Some people have told us the paint smells bad straightaway and others say it starts to smell of cat pee in hot weather or if the windows are left open. At the time, Valspar said the problem had been caused by an additive being removed from some of its paint and it had been re-added. B&Q said it would compensate hundreds of people who'd experienced bad smells after decorating their homes with the paint. We speak to Martyn James from the online complaints website, Resolver, about what people can do if they're still experiencing bad smells from the paint.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Tara Holmes

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You and Yours

Mobile Phone Coverage, Hairdressing, Smelly Paint.

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