One resident, who lives nearby, off Bucknall New Road, said: “My son sent me a message to say there’d been a fire and then I read it on StokeonTrentLive. “I came out and saw all the emergency services. I just hope everyone is okay. I’ve never seen this amount of emergency services here before.”
Meanwhile, separate data showed the estimated range of England's COVID-19 reproduction or R number held steady at between 1.1 and 1.4, the UK Health Security Agency said.
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It means that for every 10 people with the virus, they will on average infect between 11 and 14 others.
Although the estimate was unchanged from the previous week, the daily growth of infections was put at +3% to +6% compared to a previous estimated range of +2% to +6%.
Lifting of restrictions gives more opportunity for virus to spread
The more infectious BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron is driving the current surge in infections.
And with all the legal restrictions lifted, the virus has lots more opportunities to spread.
The latest Office for National Statistics data shows the number of people in the UK with COVID last week rose almost 30% on the week before.
The week before that the rise was just under 26%.
The prevalence is up in every part of the UK, apart from Northern Ireland where the virus seems to have hit a wall of immunity and cases are falling sharply.
The disease is rising in every age group – bad news for parents who will have to take more time off to look after their children, and for employers who will see a rise in staff absence.
Whether the high prevalence in people over 70 – one in 20 had COVID last week – leads to more seriously ill patients is yet to be seen.
Data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) shows hospital admissions in the over 75s are now higher than they were at the peak of the Omicron wave at the start of the year.
But the health secretary has said 60% of people testing positive in hospital are being admitted to treat other conditions, not COVID.
The virus is incidental to their reason for going to hospital.
That is certainly good news.
But it means the other 40% are there because of COVID and it underlines the need for people over 75 to book a spring booster dose of the vaccine to top up their immunity.
How long will this surge go on for?
The head of the UKHSA told Sky News last week that it would likely be short-lived – as it was in countries like Denmark and the Netherlands.
With high rates of population immunity, the virus will run out of road.
And perhaps there is a glimmer from the daily dashboard data that the surge is already beginning to slow and even level off.
In parts of the UK daily cases look to be falling.
It’s very tentative, and the lower rates of testing make the dashboard less reliable these days.
But additional data over the coming days will give us a bit more certainty on what the virus is up to.
The sharp rise in cases across much of the UK is due to the Omicron BA.2 variant, a more transmissible form of Omicron, the ONS said.
In England, around one in 15 people in private households are estimated to have had COVID in the week to 19 March, or 3.5 million people - up from one in 20, or 2.7 million people, in the week to 12 March.
In Wales, the estimate is up from 125,400 people, or one in 25, to 192,900 people, or one in 16.
Scotland has seen infection levels rise for eight weeks in a row and they have now reached a new record high, with nearly half a million people (473,800) estimated to have had COVID-19 last week, or around one in 11.
This is up from 376,300 people, or one in 14, the previous week.
In Northern Ireland 108,700 people were likely to have had COVID-19 last week, or one in 17 people - down from 130,600 people, or one in 14.
The man accused of murdering Sir David Amess MP told police only hours afterwards that it was a terrorist attack, a court heard.
Sir David, the MP for Southend West, died after he was stabbed more than 20 times during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on 15 October.
Ali Harbi Ali, 26, denies charges of murder and preparing acts of terrorism.
The trial at the Old Bailey heard how Mr Ali told police officers he "killed an MP".
Jurors were told that in his first police interview at Southend Police Station, he was asked by PC Jody Grogan: "Mr Ali, is this a terrorist attack?"
To which he replied: "I mean, I guess yeah I killed an MP and I done it yeah."
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Asked if anyone else was involved Mr Ali said: "I was by myself completely."
Mr Ali was being interviewed at 17:45 GMT on 15 October, about five-and-a-half hours after Sir David was stabbed to death.
The police interviews, seven in all, were videotaped and are being played to the jury.
The suspect told police: "I thought one of the most just targets from my perspective…. would probably be maybe the MPs who carried out… a vote to carry out airstrikes in Syria."
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Asked how he chose Sir David, he said: "I typed in on Twitter 'MP's surgeries'… he tweeted about a recent surgery he'd done and there was a contact number.
"He was the easiest. I settled on him."
Mr Ali told police he had "bottled" carrying out an attack on previous occasions.
"There's been a lot of times where I've gone out in my head with the plan to do something and then I would come back home," he said.
"I felt like if I didn't do it yesterday I probably wouldn't."
He said the first MP he thought of attacking was the cabinet minister Michael Gove, but he had decided not to go to Mr Gove's house in London because the secretary of state for communities and levelling up had split up with his wife Sarah Vine.
Mr Ali said he had also gone to London MP Mike Freer's surgery in Finchley.
Metropolitan Police
Talking about the attack on Sir David, he said: "It's hard. You see a man alive, and then he's dead."
But a few moments later he told police: "Obviously I killed someone yesterday, there's no doubt about that, but it still doesn't really feel like it."
Mr Ali, who is thought to have been on the phone to his sister when he was arrested, said he was mostly worrying about his own family that day.
"The only reason I dropped the knife in front of the police officer was because my sister was on the phone crying her eyes out," he said.
Mr Ali said he felt he had an allegiance to the so-called Islamic State and wanted to be seen as an "Islamic State militant".
Boris Johnson is trying to persuade Nato allies to supply tanks to Ukraine in a move that has put him at odds with President Macron.
President Zelensky asked Nato yesterday for hundreds of tanks and jets during a video address to the Nato summit in Brussels, saying his country needed them to survive. He said he wanted only 1 per cent of Nato’s tanks and jets and said “we will see who is our friend, who is our partner and who has sold us out and betrayed us”.
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Johnson said that while Britain wanted to help there were “logistical” problems. He wants allies nearer Ukraine to provide armoured vehicles. However, Macron ruled out supplying tanks and planes because of concerns that doing so could drag
Rishi Sunak has been accused of not doing enough to help the poorest as the cost of food and energy increases at its fastest rate for 30 years.
The Resolution Foundation and Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tanks said Mr Sunak could have done more to protect those hit hardest by rising costs.
The chancellor insisted he would help "hard-working British families" through the "challenging months ahead".
Boris Johnson also hinted more help for people struggling was on its way.
"The cost of living is the single biggest thing we're having to fix, and we will fix it," the prime minister told LBC Radio, adding: "As we go forward, we need to do more".
It comes as the government's own forecasters, the Office for Budget Responsibility, said UK households faced the biggest drop in living standards since records began in the 1950s.
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Mr Sunak sought to address the rising cost of living in his Spring Statement on Wednesday, cutting 5p from fuel duty and taking some of the sting out of April's National Insurance rise by increasing the point at which workers have to start paying it.
But the Institute for Fiscal Studies' (IFS) director Paul Johnson said the measures announced by Mr Sunak "will still not be enough to protect poorer households from a significant hit to their living standards".
He said that the 3.1% planned increase in benefits compares to an inflation rate, which tracks how the cost of living increases over time, now expected to average nearly 8% over the year.
"The inflation rate experienced by poorer households will be even higher than that," he added.
"While benefit levels will catch up with inflation next year, that will be of little comfort to those budgeting week to week or to those who are unemployed this year but not next year.
"It is hard to understand the lack of action on this front."
New analysis from the Resolution Foundation also suggests that 1.3 million more people would be pushed into "absolute poverty" from April.
Its estimate includes 500,000 children. It's defined as having an income less than 60% of the middle-earner in 2010-11.
That would bring the total number of people classed as being in absolute poverty to 12.5 million, the biggest rise seen outside of a recession.
Torsten Bell, its chief executive, said: "It means we're all getting worse off, and at the bottom end you're having to cut essentials because you don't have lots of luxury spending to go in the first place. I think that is really serious."
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Mr Bell pointed out the changes would provide "some help" to families on higher and middle-incomes.
But he added: "It means we're all getting worse off, and at the bottom end you're having to cut essentials because you don't have lots of luxury spending to go in the first place. I think that is really serious."
Mr Sunak also used Wednesday's statement to promise to cut 1p in the pound from income tax by the next general election in 2024, when he said the UK economy would be in better shape than it is now.
Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said Mr Sunak had failed to understand the scale of the cost of living crisis.
"I think most people are looking at their pay packets now and looking at their taxes, and saying these promises in the future are not going to help me pay these bills this year," she told the BBC.
"I was incredibly surprised that the chancellor didn't do anything yesterday with rising gas and electricity bills, when the profits being made by North Sea oil and gas companies are at near-record highs."
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Mr Sunak insisted the measure he announced on Wednesday would protect the most vulnerable.
"It's absolutely right we support people on the lowest incomes. I'm confident that the policies we put in place are doing that," he told Today.
He insisted that the energy bill rebate announced recently would also "help people meet the rising price of energy", when the price cap changes in April.
Asked if he would provide further help with energy bills before October, he said: "We will have to see where we are in the autumn."
The OBR's latest forecast predicted that inflation, which measures the change in the cost of living over time, is set to hit a 40-year high of 8.7% in the final three months of 2022.
Rising prices and tax hikes mean living standards will not recover to their pre-pandemic level until 2024-25, it said.
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The Duke of Cambridge has expressed his "profound sorrow" about the horrors of the slave trade, adding that "the appalling atrocity... forever stains our history".
Speaking in Jamaica, in what will be his only speech of a three-day visit to the fourth-largest Commonwealth realm, he stopped short of apologising, but said: "I want to express my profound sorrow.
"Slavery was abhorrent.
"And it should never have happened."
He added: "I strongly agree with my father, The Prince of Wales, who said in Barbados last year that the appalling atrocity of slavery forever stains our history."
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Image:The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge during a dinner at King's House, in Kingston, Jamaica, on day five of the royal tour
Prince William was referring to a speech made by Prince Charles as he witnessed Barbados cutting ties with the Royal Family and becoming a republic last November.
His words came after protests in Jamaica, and an open letter written by 100 of its prominent citizens, calling for him to apologise for the Royal Family's role in the slave trade.
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It was a major moment for a country calling for reparations to help heal the wounds of the past, and a country that is questioning its future relationship with the British monarchy.
Prince William again highlighted the conflict in Ukraine, praising Jamaica for joining the international community in condemning the attacks.
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0:49
William and Kate greeted by protesters in Jamaica
He acknowledged the "irrefutable Jamaican belief in upholding democracy and working together with other nations in support of peace, security and international law".
He also referenced another controversial subject, giving his thanks to those of the Windrush generation, who came to the United Kingdom to help rebuild after the Second World War.
"We are forever grateful for the immense contribution that this generation and their descendants have made to British life, which continues to enrich and improve our society," he added.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are on their first tour of the Caribbean, which is taking place to mark the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.
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0:24
Kate and William dance during Belize tour
Image:The Duchess of Cambridge at the dinner
And the duke paid tribute to his grandmother after walking with Kate down the same stairs that Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh did in 1953.
He told the crowd: "It is no secret that the Queen has a deep affection for Jamaica, forged on her very first visit here with my grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, in 1953.
"And likewise I have been touched to hear today from Jamaicans, young and old, about their affection for the Queen.
"Her dedication, commitment, and sense of duty to the Commonwealth family is deeply admired.
"She may be my actualgrandmother, but everyone counts her as their grandmother too. And I'm ok with that."
The Queen remains head of state in Jamaica, but the Prime Minister Andrew Holness has already been very vocal about the need to become a republic in the future.
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2:32
'Unresolved issues' Jamaica PM tells royals
Earlier in the day, Mr Holness appeared to make it clear to William and Kate that a different kind of relationship between Jamaica and the UK will come, and sooner rather than later.
As they met in front of the cameras he was surprisingly blunt, saying: "There are issues here which are, as you would know, are unresolved.
"But your presence gives an opportunity for those issues to be placed in context, put front and centre, and to be addressed as best we can.
"Jamaica is, as you would see, a country that is very proud of what we have achieved.
"We are moving on and we intend to attain, in short order, our development goals and fulfil our true ambitions and destiny as an independent, developed, prosperous country."
Since William and Kate landed on Tuesday there have been small pockets of protests but the couple have also been welcomed by excited crowds in the likes of Trench Town, the birthplace of reggae, and a hospital in Spanish Town.
Emergency services are responding to a "major incident" at the London Aquatics Centre in Stratford and are treating "a number of patients".
London Fire Brigade said a "high quantity of chlorine gas" was released inside the building in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park due to a "chemical reaction".
The brigade tweeted: "Update Aquatic Centre in #Stratford. Due to a chemical reaction a high quantity of chlorine gas was released inside the centre.
Image:People are being treated outside the venue in the Olympic Park
"While we ventilate the premises we would ask those residents in the immediate vicinity to close their doors and windows."
The London Ambulance Service confirmed they were working alongside the London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police at the scene.
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Videos circulating on social media showed several ambulances rushing to the scene.
In a tweet, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park wrote: "There has been an incident at @AquaticsCentre this morning involving the release of a gas.
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"The area has been cordoned off and evacuated. We're working with emergency services on site.
Image:Gas incident at Aquatics Centre on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Pic: @BellotEmma
"There are a number of casualties with breathing difficulties being treated by @Ldn_Ambulance."
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan tweeted: "I remain in close contact with our emergency services who are dealing with a gas-related incident at the London Aquatics Centre this morning. A number of people are being treated by @Ldn_Ambulance.
"Please avoid the area which has been cordoned off and evacuated."
The Sky helicopter filmed people being treated by paramedics outside the building and sitting on large blankets on the ground.
Fire engines, police cars and ambulances could also be seen lining the roads around the swimming pool.
