24/02/2014 Look East - East

question is whether the Games will deliver a

Good evening. There's anger tonight over proposals to move the Suffolk

Police control room to Norfolk. Dozens of jobs could be lost as part

of a cost`cutting exercise. Staff were told of the plans at special

briefings today. Jenny Kirk has more.

Thanks. At the moment this is just a recommendation and no decision has

been made but it is causing concern as around 70 jobs could be lost if

it goes ahead. If they can prove to me, categorically, there will be no

compromise on this, and it is all properlily costed, then I will auto'

have a serious look at T but I'm not going to do it, if it is going to be

a Is rock. You can't afford, in an emergency service like police, to

have any doubt whatsoever in the public's mind that the service will

be compromised if the control room moved to Norfolk or anywhere else

for that matter . But something does need to be done. In the latest round

of cuts imposed on police forces over the next four years, Suffolk

needs to save more than ?16 million and Norfolk more than ?20 million

but combining the control rooms will save less than ?2 million. This is

what people in Ipswich had to say. It's not good. I think it should be

more local. Control rooms have been centralised and people have ended up

in a different county to the one they were intending to be in simply

because there are two places with the same name. #24e probably don't

know some of the idiosyncrasies. Is If it goes ahead, it'll mean all

three emergency services for Suffolk are despatched from outside the

county. The ambulance control room is in Norfolk. The fire is in

Cambridgeshire. The Chief Constables of Norfolk and Suffolk will formally

propose the idea to the Police and Crime Commissioners on Thursday. So

we'll know more then. Thank you very much. Mark Trask from the union,

Unison, is the Suffolk Police branch secretary. He joins me now. What are

your concerns about these proposals? Well, it is a very sad day here in

Suffolk, Susie. More than 120 of our dedicated police staff, with all

their years of experience, have been told today that their future may not

be here in Suffolk. But they do have to save ?16 million, as we heard.

Tough decisions are going to have to be made, aren't they? Sure they do

and many tough decisions have been made. We have been supportive of

working with collaboration and finding savings where we can but

this is a step too far. This is unprecedented. No other police force

in the UK has done this. You see how the cuts have reached the

Environment Agency. You know, I watch your programme and I see

almost every night you are talking about the Ambulance Service and how

they have reacted to the cuts and the centralised call centre.

Obviously you are concerned about job losses, but do you believe that

there actually would be an impact in the service the public gets if this

goes ahead? Absolutely. I'm worried about my members. I'm worried about

their livelihood and the impact on the community but they are also,

they are expressing their concern, their serious concern, about the

risk to the public and the lack of local knowledge. They are frontline.

They are the people who answer 999 calls and they are the people who

get the police to you when you need them. You need local knowledge. Many

of them won't go to Norfolk and we won't retain that knowledge.

A man has appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court charged with the murder

of his ex`partner. Leanne Meecham, who was 26, died last week, nine

days after being stabbed at her home in Westcliffe`on`Sea. Simon Meecham

has been remanded in custody. He'll appear in court again in April.

The widow of Simon Hall, the convicted murderer found dead in his

prison cell yesterday, has told the BBC she plans to write a book about

his story. He was found guilty of killing pensioner Joan Albert at her

home in Capel St Mary in 2003. He consistently protested his

innocence, before finally admitting his guilt last year. Stephanie Hall

says she spoke to her husband at Wayland prison in Norfolk the day

before he died. An inquest has recorded a verdict of

accidental death after a man died in an industrial accident in Norfolk.

Kevin Alderton, who was 34, was crushed by farm machinery in

Seething more than a year ago. Paramedics were called but he died

at the scene. The Education Minister, Liz Truss,

is in Shanghai talking to officials about new ways to teach maths.

Shanghai and Singapore are at the top of the international league

tables, while England is in 26th place. We've been to an independent

school in Ipswich which made its own decision to teach maths the

Singapore way. Get your whiteboards out. At St Joe testify's College

Prep School in Ipswich they've used the Singapore method to teach maths

for the past three years. `` St Joe testify's. The system is so

effective these ten`year`olds are doing secondary school equations. In

the past the curriculum was wide but not deep. They would spend a week

doing one topic and another week doing another topic. They didn't

goad the depth they needed to understand and make the links that

are important for learning. Today this year 5 class are working on

this problem. This is how you traditionally work it out, using a

series of equations. The Singapore method is different. Children use

this bar shape to represent the sum and add, subtract or divide it, as a

way of creating the answer, talking it through as they G Using the bar

method has taken them that extra step because they are able it

visualise the problem. Singapore adopted the bar methods in the

1980s, the country's children are world beaters in maths. St Joe

testify's say it has driven up attainment, year 6 pupils all attain

attaining the results in their SATs. This school starts in reception.

They are already learning the building blocks. With ministers

already in the Far East, this school believes they have already found the

answer. Now, all this week on Look East, we

are looking at how people here were affected by World War I. Tomorrow we

are finding out how the region's shoe`making industry helped the war

effort. You can see our stories online at bbc.co.uk/w w 1. And your

BBC local radio stations a more stories at 8. 15pm every morning.

Now the weather. During the rest of tonight a be band

of rain pushing eastwards, some on the heavy side. The cloud, the rain

and the fact that the wind is going to pick up to a moderate to fresh

south`westerly, means temperatures shouldn't drop lower than 6 to 8. A

frost`free night. Tomorrow the last of the rain should clear. By the

rush`hour, everywhere should be largely dry with brightness and

sunshine and a few scattered showers. Temperatures at best around

10 or 11, taking us into the low 50s Fahrenheit with a keen, fresh,

south`westerly. We finish the day with a lot of fine, dry weather with

a few showers here and there. Certainly not for everybody. In a

moment Susan will have the national forecast but I'll leave you with the

outlook. Coming up on Wednesday, a largely fine and dry day with a few

isolated showers and then a band of rain moving eastwards during

Thursday with brighter rain moving eastwards during

will be more rain overnight into Thursday.

Good evening. We have a spell of wet and windy weather working across the

British Isles. Today brought many of us some decent spells of sunshine

and it brought us some decent temperatures. In fact, our warmest

day of the year so far. At the moment, though, things have

changed. This is the gap in the satellite picture. Now, this curl of

cloud looks like a snail's shell, it is an area of low pressure that is

sweeping wind and rain across us. It's pushed into the west already

and is now making rapid progress eastwards, moving into eastern

England through the small hours Strong, gusty winds around the Irish

Sea coasts. The weather front will weaken as it gets into eastern

areas. Behind the weather front things are a good deal clearer and

that is the way we will start tomorrow. Our wet and windy weather,

the worst of it is out of the way as we look at Tuesday.