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At this time of year thousands of us head to our favourite holiday destinations around the UK but the crowded roads are enough to cause dread in the hearts of many travellers. Traffic jams are bad enough, but potholes are now also a major problem. Jules Hudson is in the Lake District discovering how recycled nappies and other soft plastics could be the answer to fixing the growing number of potholes in our crumbling road network. These critter craters are behind millions of pounds worth of insurance claims and have killed or injured 400 cyclists: among them mum of two Samantha Sugden who had a narrow escape when she hit one on a bike ride. It took her six months to fully recover from her injuries.

It鈥檚 reckoned it will take twelve billion pounds to get our roads shipshape, but cheap and durable plastics could come to the rescue of cash-strapped councils, cut back on what ends up in landfill and ultimately keep us all safer.

Steve Brown鈥檚 favourite creature is the bumblebee. But this endangered little pollinator, worth 拢600m to the UK economy and crucial to what ends up on our plates, is in big trouble. A certain type of pesticide is affecting how they buzz and therefore how effectively they can pollinate fruit and veg. In Bristol鈥檚 Botanic Gardens, Steve meets bee expert Mario Vallejo-Marin from Stirling University to discover more and in the lab he gets a special bumblebee music lesson to understand what dangers they face and why they need our help.

There鈥檚 nothing like a trip to the seaside in the summer and tourism is a godsend to countless coastal communities all over the UK. Margherita Taylor is in Croyde in North Devon to discover just what a lifeline visitors are to the village, how farmers are turning from tending crops to tending tourists and how holiday villages and campsites are emerging from fields. But how do you protect the very beauty tourists come for in the first place?

Large-scale urban agriculture is on the rise with more farms appearing in our cities. Urban farms employ local people, regenerate neighbourhoods and give residents access to fresh produce. James Wong heads to the University of Liverpool and their rooftop farm, to meet the聽 co-founders of Farm Urban, Dr Paul Myers and Dr Jens Thomas. They believe that urban farming is the high-tech job of the future, working with renewable energy sources, plumbing and pump technology, fish and animal husbandry, design and construction.聽

Paul Martin finds out how water shortages might no longer be a summer heatwave phenomenon but something we have to face all year round. So what can we all do to cut down on our consumption of this liquid gold?聽 Ozzie water expert Aaron Burton has no shortage of tips and advice to help us ensure that every drop counts.

Keeley Donovan is looking to the skies for inspiration for her top five favourite signs of summer from star-spangled nights to the drama and fury of thunder and lightning.