14/08/2013 BBC Points West


14/08/2013

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West. Our headlines tonight. The boat owner who went to the rescue of

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a blind man after he fell into Bristol's docks. At the centre of a

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political storm - a nurse who donated a third of a million pounds

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to the Government in her will. tonight, remember this?

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futuristic hovercraft which operated between Weston-super-Mare and Wales.

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And we were meeting some of the people helping to conserve plants

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that grow right here in the West -- that is plants that grow only here

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in the West. Good evening. A boat owner helped to save a blind man's

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life last night after he fell into the water in the Bristol docks.

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Jenni Britton was woken in the early hours of this morning by screams for

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help. While the police and fire services watched from the dockside,

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she went to his rescue using a kayak. Charlotte Callen has the

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story. This is one of the quietest areas of the Bristol Docks.

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Woman-macro heard shouting and saw a man clinging to the side of the

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dock. Her quick thinking helped save the life of 48-year-old Robert

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Jarvis. He was partially sighted. I decided to pop my kayak in the

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water. And I got Robert to hang onto the front of the kayak. The Avon

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Fire and Rescue boat did finally arrive and pull 48-year-old Robert

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Jarvis to safety. He was taken to hospital and allowed home this

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afternoon. It does take a few minutes to get here and to get the

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equipment sorted out. Thankfully these incidents are pretty rare, but

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when they do happen, questions are often raised about safety on the

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docks. There are railings surrounding most of the water down

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here. It is a case of being careful by the water. We can go round

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putting in access for people to fall in and get out of. In the meantime,

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Jenni Britton and her fellow residents down here in the Bathurst

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Basin are hoping for a quieter night down on the water tonight. A Bristol

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pensioner who died last year has become the focus of an extraordinary

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political row today. Joan Edwards left hundreds of thousands of pounds

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in her will to "whichever government is in office." The money went to the

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Conservative and Lib Dem parties - but after a day of mounting

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pressure, they've now agreed not to keep the money for themselves, but

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instead have passed it to the Treasury. Dickon Hooper has spent

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much of the day in the fish ponds area of Bristol where Mrs Edwards

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lived, and joins me now. Good evening. This is St John's Church,

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where Joan Edwards was a regular right up until she died. She was

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quiet and unassuming and she always sat at the back. Around the corner,

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is her modest three-bedroom council house, described to me as a time

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warp back to the 1920s. She was such a quiet, private person, friends and

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neighbours say that they are surprised at the attention that the

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story has got today in the national media. Joan Edwards stayed local all

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her life. She'd lived here since she was a child. And worked nearby as a

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children's nurse and midwife. But she kept herself to herself. Nobody

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could no Joan Edwards well. She was a very private person. Today the

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private became very public and very political. She had left hundreds of

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thousands of pounds in her will to "whichever government is in office

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at the date of her death" for them use as they may think fit. This

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sparked fierce media interest - and a political row - after the money

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went not to the Government but to the Conservative and Lib Dem

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parties. It's money neighbours say they had no idea about. It surprised

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me. How she used to live over there. Just on an old age pension like

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that. But she did better than that. Quite rightly, if you knew Joan

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Edwards, and you saw her, he would not think that. The Government

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parties have handed the cash to the Treasury, but the local MP would

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prefer the money was spent, well, locally. It would be a nice gesture

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if it was spent on something specifically related to the lifetime

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of public service in the NHS. We've got Cosham Hospital brill new birth

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centre - University of Western England training people - very close

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by - rather than just being swallowed up and paying interest.

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That would be a nice gesture and close to her heart. What was close

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to her heart was privacy, and neighbours say she'd be appalled by

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the attention her life and her death have received. No-one knows which

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way she voted. People here are quite upset about what has been going on

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today. She was such a private person. Nobody knew who she voted

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for or what the political allegiance was but if there is a silver lining

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to the story it is that party politics has been taken out of it.

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The money will go back to the Treasury which, of course, paid

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their wages of Joan Edwards for all of those decades. She was a lifelong

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public servant, and perhaps that is the best legacy that she can now

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have. Now, the West may be known for its prowess in the aerospace

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industry, but did you know it played a key role in the development of the

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hovercraft? 50 years ago, a hovercraft service ran between

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Weston-super-Mare and Penarth in south Wales. The model was an

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experimental one and it ran for just one summer. Afterwards, the craft

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was broken up so engineers could learn from it. Clinton Rogers has

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been looking back through the archives. Points West pictures from

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50 years ago. Yet the flying machine hitting the Weston beach looks

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strangely futuristic. At the time it was was the world's largest

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passenger-carrying hovercraft, and it was built by Somerset based

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Westlands. 70 people on board crossing a ten mile stretch of water

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from Penarth to North Somerset in ten minutes. And it certainly drew

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the crowds at Weston. Getting, it seems, almost dangerously close.

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John Crockford-Hawley remembers it well. He was just 16 when he saw the

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revolutionary hovercraft for the first time. In she came, with sand

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blowing everywhere. It just arrived. And the only safety precautions

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between the craft and us kids was a chestnut paling fence. It was a

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prototype, part sponsored by the oil giants Castrol, but commercially it

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didn't take off and after its six-week trial it never returned to

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Weston. The white heat of technology, that was. It was very

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expensive to run, which is probably why Castrol had to sponsor it.

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unquestionably, lessons learned from that design spawned the hovercraft

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of today - like the one used by Avon Fire and Rescue - though some things

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don't change. It is still the same thing it was 50 years ago. There are

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no breaks, it is hardest year and there was no reverse. Essentially,

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it is one large and to slow you down and one to propel you forward.

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it works - as a rescue vehicle anyway. But 50 years on from this,

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there is still no sign of a cross channel commercial service. Thank

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you to everybody who contacted us with their memories of the

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hovercraft. This is BBC Points West, your regional news, with Alex and

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Sabet. And we've much more still to come this evening, including: Could

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this be the super-fast travel system of the future, that was actually

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first imagined many years ago, here in the west? And the real-life comic

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character. We meet the schoolboy from Bristol who has found fame on

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the front page of the Beano. The unemployment figures came out today,

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and for the fifth month in a row, they've fallen in the West. Our

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Business Correspondent Dave Harvey has been crunching the numbers.

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a number eagerly awaited by employers, policy makers and those

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looking for work - and here it is: Nearly 43,000 people in the West

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Country were out of work and claiming benefit in July. It's down

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- and not for the first time. As you said, for most of this year

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unemployment has been on the way down - five months in a row, lower

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:10:00.:10:02.

now than since 2008. But let's look at the bigger picture. You can see

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that the numbers have been going up and down throughout the downturn -

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but always higher than the pre-recession levels. Unemployment

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doubled in 2008, and it's hasn't come back down yet. Still, things

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are going in the right direction, and that may be partly because of an

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army of home workers. People who have decided to set up shop at home.

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Chris Brierley's been to meet one of them. Following my redundancy this

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is when I started the business, and it is nice to be able to do what I

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want to do. Louise is one of many people in the West ditching the

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daily commute for an office based in her own home. The lease on my

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shopping Cirencester was coming to an end that it seemed like the ideal

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opportunity to enjoy the first year of my married life and have a little

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bit more time at home with my new husband. When I was at the shop it

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was very long days with lots of things to do when I get home, and

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now being at home I can be more flexible with my time, and have a

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little bit more time for myself, and the overheads are greatly reduced,

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and I can still do the same as I was doing before. There are 2.5 million

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home-based businesses across the UK. People like Louise. That

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accounts for one in 12 of us. In the points West region that number

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increases to around one in six. That is 210,000 people. Then you come to

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the Cotswolds. And it goes up even further. It goes to one in four of

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the people in this area, who have home-based business. Terry left the

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City lifestyle for rural Gloucestershire 15 years ago, and

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believes the trend will only increase. It is now much more

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feasible for people in my situation to run a business, because we have

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got e-mail, we have got Internet, we have got everything making it

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possible for us. When it comes to funding home-based businesses, some

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rely on their savings to get them started while others head to the

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banks. 112,000 start-up business accounts, the highest number we have

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opened since wrappings began. -- records began. There are even

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college courses now being designed to cater for the market. This is a

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new course that we have developed this year for business start-ups.

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Business and finance, communications and planning. With the figures

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showing a constant rising of cottage industries, it's a trend likely to

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:12:44.:12:47.

continue for the foreseeable future. 200,000 people then, working from

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home. Obviously not all making cakes. We have landscape gardeners,

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stonemasons, people who are good at their white, and recovered that

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Honda story when 600 people had to take redundancy from the big Swindon

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car factory, and many of them were taking to fitting kitchens and

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bathrooms. I would love to hear from people at home, if they are busy

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working while they are watching points West. Tomorrow, A-level

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students get their results. Those living University, what are their

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job prospects? Things are better than last year, but it has been a

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very difficult few years. Overall, youth unemployment has gone up

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across the country. But in the West Country it is about 5% of under

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24-year-olds who are looking for work, so that means that 95% of them

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have got work, and when I spoke to a Bristol recruitment consultants this

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morning they told me that the sun is coming out now. It is slightly

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better. There are more jobs around and this time last year, but more

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students coming straight from school with no experience, they have to get

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their face out there, they have to be willing to accept jobs that are

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perhaps not what they want to do long-term, and be flexible, and

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accept anything they can't, just to get the right skills. --anything

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they can. Police are appealing for witnesses after an accident on the

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Portway in Bristol in which a motorcyclist was killed. The

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21-year-old man died at the scene last night. A bus, two cars and a

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cyclist were also involved, and the cyclist was taken to Frenchay

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Hospital. Over the years, modern architecture has raised more than a

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few eyebrows - and the Georgian city of Bath is no exception. Now an

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exhibition running at one of the city's museums is trying to show us

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why we should learn to love the buildings we loathe! Here's Ali

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:15:08.:15:09.

Vowles. Be honest, this is what most people expect to see when they seek

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images of Bath. The Georgian architecture has made it a world

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Heritage city. What happened after the Second World War made many

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residents shudder. The post-war architecture of Bath is almost

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universally hated by people who live here. We wanted to do something that

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explained a bit more about how it came about, and what the ideas

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behind it were. The opening of Bath University in 1965 stop being the

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great success and a perfect example of the new architecture. We were all

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moving forward and looking to the future. Celebration in 1968 for

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Bath's first multistorey car park. But there was an outcry about the

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destruction of Georgian buildings with dozens of tiny streets being

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destroyed. It was part of a process known as The Sack of Bath. This site

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dominates and outrage as the finest urban site in the whole of the West

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Country. It dominates it and outrages it. It was hard though, to

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match beauty with business. I think it is this building in the city

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centre that topped of the most loved building in Bath at the moment. Ruby

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is what it was all about, brutal bosom. At the time it was respected.

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In the guidebook, it is the place to go. That hotel is an absolute

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shocker. It should be not down and replaced with something nicer.

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car park and the Hilton were not loved by anybody, I do not think. It

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is not just about the ones that got built, but the ones that got away.

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This was planned to be built close to Bath Abbey. And these were going

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to be the new law courts, right next to the Hilton hotel. Like them

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:17:34.:17:39.

although then, many of these architecture, how about modern

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transport? Yesterday in America, the multi-billionaire founder of Paypal

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unveiled plans for a travel system which he claims could transport

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people at up to 800 miles an hour. The Hyperloop would transport a

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dozen or so people in individual pods through a tube. But he's not

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:18:05.:18:08.

the first to come up with the idea. Stuart Olds from Keynsham drew up

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very similar plans back in 1984 when he was just 14 years old, and he's

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brought in the drawings to prove it. Welcome, Stuart. The drawings look

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very similar. Tell us how they are different. The comparison is not

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much invisible but his design is a lot smaller with the tube to the

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train itself. Mine was drawn up from a roller-coaster ride which I try to

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improve on. Since then I have developed the idea to produce

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electricity and further on from that, ideas to help the global

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climate. It was a springboard for a creative mind. As regards Hyperloop,

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do you feel a little bit gutted. Initially, I thought it was bad

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news, but then I thought, it could work, so it gives me credibility for

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my other ideas which could be looked at and taken forward and produce a

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new range of jobs in different industries. I have to ask about the

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14-year-old Stewart. When I was 14, I was not coming up with ideas.

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You've got a letter back from ten Downing St, didn't you? I wrote to

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her just after she got ousted when she had more time on her hands. She

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wrote back and she said to send it on to the trade and industry

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Secretary. And I got advice from John major and from Michael

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Heseltine. Since then I had been pitching ideas to lower levels.

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this was you when you were 14? My dad was brought up on a poultry farm

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and he came in with an idea to improve the speed lines. And being a

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carpenter by trade, you always overcoming problems, so it has been

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developing from an early age. carpenter, do you look at problems

:20:12.:20:19.

and try and find solutions? It is almost like you just clash your mind

:20:19.:20:23.

with certain things that it might overcome was up for example with sea

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levels and global warming, we need solutions, to use the condensation

:20:32.:20:37.

method with polythene over the ground, which condenses quite

:20:37.:20:42.

instantly, so I thought, let's use that over deserts and industrialised

:20:42.:20:49.

that principle and by doing that we can see -- keep sea levels and use

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the sort to resell and eight the north Atlantic which would keep the

:20:53.:21:03.
:21:03.:21:10.

Gulf stream going. Brunel came up with a similar idea. He could not

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keep the panel airtight because he was using leather and fat to seal

:21:15.:21:25.
:21:25.:21:28.

it, and rats when the bling the fact. -- rats were nibbling the fat.

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If you were watching yesterday, you'll have seen the One Show's Mike

:21:32.:21:35.

Dilger dishing out tips on how to attract wildlife to your garden. But

:21:35.:21:39.

while he's urging us to get birds and butterflies into our new BBC

:21:39.:21:43.

rooftop garden, we think it would also be a good idea to have

:21:43.:21:46.

something local up there, too. So what plants say Bristol - what is

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unique to the West? Here's Jules Hyam. There isn't much that says

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Bristol more than this view - but for those in the know, it's not the

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bridge that's the highlight - it's all the wildlife around it. Hidden

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in rocky cracks - and in the woodland - the Avon Gorge is home to

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29 rare plant species - and several that exists no where else in the

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world. The species that exist here involved separately from anywhere

:22:07.:22:17.
:22:17.:22:20.

else. You have the Bristol Whitebeam. It is one of five species

:22:20.:22:26.

that are found nowhere else in the world. The Bristol Whitebeam - with

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its green and white leaves and its clusters of berries - is easy to

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make out in a spring breeze. Less easy to spot is the Rock rose -

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again extremely rare. It's the prime food source for the Silk Wave Moth -

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and they too are found almost nowhere else but in this one and a

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half mile limestone gorge. The problem with rare plants is that

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they are, and as habitats change they can be forced out and then lost

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the other. The University of Worcester botanic Gardens are not

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just conserving unique and rare species but cultivating them.

:22:56.:23:02.

have gone out into the gorge and collected seeds such as the rock

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rose, which we have sown, and you can see the seedlings coming up, not

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quite big enough to fit into that rocky ledge, but when they grow,

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label joined this, here, and if you look over here, you can see the

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Bristol rock crests. -- cress. This is a very rare plant that grows only

:23:24.:23:34.
:23:34.:23:35.

in the gorge, which provides ideal conditions. And it's not just rock

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cress and rock rose. They're growing Bristol onions, and they've been

:23:37.:23:47.

across the West collecting rare and unique plant seeds. We have some

:23:47.:23:50.

very special habitats that in turn support wildlife. If you want some

:23:50.:23:56.

ideas about what you can do in your own garden, the website address

:23:56.:24:01.

should be on screen now. That will give you lots of tips for what you

:24:01.:24:07.

can do at home. And finally, congratulations to 11-year-old Harry

:24:07.:24:10.

Wilson from Bristol, who's been turned into a comic character on the

:24:10.:24:14.

front page of this week's Beano. He was chosen to feature on his bike

:24:14.:24:17.

alongside Dennis the Menace because he's a cycling ambassador for the

:24:17.:24:23.

National Trust. He had to keep the secret for a whole week before being

:24:23.:24:32.

able to tell his friends. When I knew, I felt very excited. I was

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running around, and the excitement was fantastic. It felt really good

:24:37.:24:47.
:24:47.:24:51.

that I am actually in a comic. congratulations to Harry. Now, to

:24:51.:25:01.
:25:01.:25:02.

our own comic book super hero. In Clevedon, Gemma. If only I could

:25:02.:25:06.

have superpowers to magic the weather to what it should be at this

:25:06.:25:10.

time of year. The sun was blazing down over the Bristol Channel. But

:25:10.:25:16.

not tonight, with the weather being distinctly autumnal. As it has been

:25:16.:25:22.

for the bulk of the day. Taking a look at the forecast, we can see

:25:22.:25:26.

from the word go this morning, clouds filling in medley from the

:25:26.:25:31.

south-west, courtesy of a couple of week weather fronts, bringing moist,

:25:31.:25:39.

humid air. We saw a lot of showers coming in, some of those very light

:25:39.:25:46.

and patchy in nature, but at times, merging to form longer spells of

:25:46.:25:51.

rain. And we had some heavy downpours in the latter part of the

:25:51.:26:01.
:26:01.:26:01.

day. Ten bridges around 17-18 -- temperatures around 17-18. And

:26:01.:26:09.

tomorrow it will be even muggier still. But Friday, the best day for

:26:09.:26:18.

sunshine, so a decent entered a week. -- decent end to the week.

:26:18.:26:21.

Those week weather fronts that brought cloud and rain with them

:26:21.:26:28.

today are edging away and tomorrow, for a time, it will be dry with some

:26:28.:26:33.

sharp showers, although humid, then we have a weather system coming down

:26:33.:26:40.

from the North West bringing heavy, persistent rain into Friday morning.

:26:40.:26:45.

For the rest of this evening, it is cloud that dominates and muggy

:26:45.:26:51.

conditions. There will be very little difference between daytime

:26:51.:26:55.

high temperatures and night-time low temperatures. Sunshine will break

:26:55.:27:01.

through tomorrow, merging with muddy air coming up from the south,

:27:01.:27:04.

pushing temperatures into the low 20s. That is what we want for this

:27:04.:27:10.

time of year. But it will feel very sticky and not everybody enjoys that

:27:10.:27:16.

type of weather. That weather fun coming in from the North West. And

:27:16.:27:21.

heading into Friday, we are looking at decent spells of sunshine. But

:27:21.:27:25.

make the most of those because it will be wet and windy on Saturday,

:27:25.:27:35.
:27:35.:27:40.

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