Dani Bailey
BBC Local Live

Luton North MP Kelvin Hopkins is up against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn today in the Beard of the Year contest.

The Labour MP has made the Parliamentary Bead of the Year shortlist of 14 men. The result will be announced this afternoon.

Image source, Labour Party

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Ford Shackcloth, who lives about 400m from the site of the Buncefield explosion, said the pressure wave from the blast momentarily lifted the roof off his house.

Image source, Ford Shackcloth

When the roof came back down, it popped out the windows and the front door. Ceilings came down and the walls were damaged.

He said: "The rebuilding work took about a year – there were lots of contractors in our house and the other houses – it was chaos – and then it took five years to sue the oil company."

BBC Travel

Traffic is queuing on the M1 northbound after J12 due to an earlier broken down vehicle. Congestion to J10.

One lane is closed and there is heavy traffic on the M25 clockwise J24-J25 due to a broken-down bus.

BBC Weather

For most places it will stay dry with some lengthy sunny spells likely to the north of Bedfordshire. It will be cloudier further south with a little rain possible at times in Watford. 

Maximum temperature: 9C (48F).

Lee Agnew
BBC Three Counties Radio

The top stories this lunchtime:

• Bedford Borough Council says an administrative mistake led it to wrongly fine people for walking their dogs off leads in a cemetery 
• Staff at the Open University headquarters in Milton Keynes are on strike today 
• On the 10th anniversary of the Buncefield explosion, Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service says the blaze led to changes in how major incidents are tackled

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Hertfordshire fire service’s response to the Buncefield explosion has helped form today’s national template for tackling major incidents known as the Control of Major Accident Hazard (COMAH).

Image source, Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service

These are emergency planning guidelines for all local authorities and businesses handling potentially dangerous substances.

Firefighters from Hertfordshire have also been around the country to provide presentations on the incident, as well as welcoming delegations of emergency planners from as far away as China and Pakistan.

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Since 2005, Hertfordshire County Council and Dacorum Borough Council have helped the Maylands Business Park recover.

Image source, Ford Shackcloth

County councillor, Richard Thake, called the Buncefield explosion "a disaster. Not in terms of loss of life, but certainly measuring huge damage done to the local economy and people’s lives.

“It speaks volumes that the county council and its partners have been able to re-establish the Maylands Business Park which is, once again, a thriving hub of enterprise.”

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

One man has been taken to Addenbrooke's Hospital with life-threatening injuries following a crash on the A5 in Dunstable in the early hours of this morning.

Bedfordshire Police said a Ford Transit van and a Vauxhall Insignia collided at the junction of Half Moon Lane and High Street South at about 02:45 this morning.

The road reopened at about 09:50.

Jonathan Vernon-Smith
BBC Three Counties Radio

Bedford Borough Council say an administrative mistake led them to wrongly fine people for walking their dogs off leads in a cemetery.

When Lynette Tweedale refused to pay her fine as she said there were no notices up at the Foster Hill Road Cemetery, Bedford Borough Council took legal action. But her case was taken on by lawyer Nick Freeman after she appeared on my show.

The pair were due to go back to court in January, but now the council says all 44 people who received the fixed penalty notices will be offered a refund.They have apologised for the mistake.

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Jon Batchelor was in charge of the first fire engine on the scene shortly after 06:00 on 11 December and said “nothing could have prepared us for the scene we were confronted with”.

Image source, Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service

“We could see flames climbing hundreds of feet into the dark sky, making it almost seem like daylight… It was a scene of utter devastation, with buildings severely damaged and glass and debris lying across the road,” he said.

Mr Batchelor said it was "the biggest fire I had ever seen," something which prompted him to immediately declare it a major incident - something that would normally have been left to a more senior officer.

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Image source, NASA

• The explosion registered as 2.4 on the Richter scale
• The blast wave shook buildings 25 miles away, rattled windows and letterboxes on the coast and was heard on mainland Europe
• The smoke produced by the fire spread out across London, the south East and eventually across France and was visible from outer-space (pictured)
• Twenty-two fire services from across the country helped Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue tackle the blaze
• Sixty people were treated for injuries, but miraculously nobody was seriously hurt or killed in the explosion or subsequent blaze

Neil Bradford
BBC Look East

Staff at the Milton Keynes headquarters of the Open University are taking strike action today as part of an ongoing dispute.

Members of the University and College Union are at picket lines at the main entrances. 

The president of the Open University branch of the union, Pauline Collins, says staff have "a lot of support" for their regional colleagues "because [central staff] know of the role that they play in supporting our students".

Hertfordshire County Council is live tweeting what would have been happening exactly 10 years ago in the aftermath of the Buncefield explosion.

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

The family of Sylvia Blackburn, a lollipop lady who suffered life-changing injuries after being run over outside a school last December, have reacted after the driver was cleared of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.

Image source, Blackburn family

Brian Wright, 55, told a jury he did not see the grandmother because he was blinded by the sun.  

Ms Blackburn's family said: ""The family acknowledge Brian Wright did not set out that day to cause hurt or harm to anyone, but the fact remains that his actions did cause Sylvia’s irreparable brain injury and his failure to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity have caused the family continued angst."

Former East of England ambulance officer Gary Sanderson has been tweeting about his experience of the Buncefield explosion.

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Staff at the Milton Keynes headquarters of the Open University are taking strike action today.

Image source, Google

It's part of an ongoing dispute over plans to close some of their regional centres across the country.

Members of the University and College union will be on picket lines from 07:00 at the main entrances.

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Hertfordshire’s chief fire officer and gold commander at Buncefield, Roy Wilsher, said the explosion was “by far the biggest incident the Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service has ever dealt with”.

“I’m very proud of our response… We had plans to tackle an incident at the site and thankfully those worked well," he said.

“Our fire fighters worked incredibly hard... it’s a testament to their professionalism that we managed to contain the blaze.”

Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue remember the Buncefield explosion 10 years on... Even the fire dog!

Simon Oxley
BBC Three Counties Radio

The latest headlines:

• The A5 in Dunstable has reopened following a serious collision in the early hours of this morning 
• Residents in Hemel Hempstead are recalling the Buncefield explosion on the 10th anniversary of the blast at the oil storage depot in 2005 - the biggest explosion in the UK since World War Two

Katy Lewis
BBC Local Live

Some 92 businesses on the Maylands Business Estate, employing 9,500 staff, were directly or severely affected by the Buncefield explosion ten years ago, Dacorum Borough Council has said.

Image source, Ford Shackcloth

Seventeen businesses permanently relocated – costing the area 513 jobs - and eight companies temporarily relocated. The East of England Development Agency reported there were 923 temporary and casual jobs lost and 410 redundancies were announced shortly after the explosion.

In the subsequent decade businesses have recovered with the park now part of the West Hertfordshire Enterprise Zone.