The cost of driving tests will rise on the 1st of April. The theory test will increase in price by £1.50 to £30 with the practical test rising £8 to £56.50. The fee will also increase for motorcycle riders from £60 to £80.

Asda will start large scale expansion this year in a plan that will open 22 new stores. The plans will create around 9,000 new jobs both in store and as part of its home delivery service. The first of the new stores will open at Andover in March. Other new stores will open at Dalgety Bay in Scotland and Brigend in Mid-Glamorgan. Several stores will also be extended as part of the plans.

Vodafone and Orange have announced a plan to share mast sites. The deal will see the two companies working together to ensure better coverage for their customers. Sites across the UK will host both Orange and Vodafone equipment. Both 2G and 3G coverage will be involved in the scheme which is likely to mean that the total site numbers are cut by about 15% meaning 3,000 fewer masts. The move is not a merger and both companies will continue to compete with each other.

Many of the UK’s large retail names are looking to stock lightweight bottles of wine and beer to try and offset the environmental impact of their businesses. The advances made recently in manufacturing technology mean that the amount of glass used in making a bottle can be cut by more than 30%. Tesco has signed up to sell more then 40 million lightweight bottles of wine this year and aims to have 25% per cent of all wine bottles it sells reduced in weight by 2010. This should save 72,000 tonnes of glass a year. Major brewers such as SABMiller and Scottish and Newcastle are also looking at introducing lightweight bottles.

Thousands of salmon products have been recalled from eight different supermarket chains because they may have been contaminated with diesel. The alert affects 50 types of Scottish salmon products including steaks, pies and fillets. The problem has been traced to the seafood company Marine Harvest which supplies fish to Morrisons and Young’s Seafood Ltd. The fish is thought to have been contaminated by diesel from a vehicle during transportation to a processing plant. The problem was detected when some customers complained of an unpleasant white spirit like taste. The alert does not affect organic salmon.

Scientists have revealed that carbonated drinks are behind a rise in cases of gout. A study of 46,000 men found that men that drank more than two cans of fizzy drink a day were 85% more likely to get gout compared to those who had one fizzy drink a month. The risk also increased with men that drank five to six fizzy drinks a week.

Pepsi are to launch a new drink that they claim is healthier option. It is called Pepsi Raw and is made from natural ingredients with no artificial preservatives, flavourings, colouring and sweeteners. Instead it contains apple extract, caramel colouring, coffee leaf, tantaric acid, gum Arabic, cane sugar and water. It contains around 90 calories as opposed to a normal Pepsi that contains about 120.

British Gas has put up its prices by more than 18% meaning it is no longer the cheapest energy supplier. The British Gas Click Energy 4 tariff was the cheapest tariff for many people in the UK. This will now be replaced with Click Energy 5. This new tariff works out about £138 a year more expensive for the average customer.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has criticised credit card companies for making their products too complicated. It recommends that a comparison website is launched to make credit cards easier to compare with each other. The OFT found that 70% of customers do not shop around for a credit card and could be wasting money. An investigation was launched last April after it was found that the top 20 card issuers all have different ways of working out their interest charges. This means that cards with a low Annual Percentage Rate (APR) could be more expensive to use than those with a higher APR.