06/07/2014 Look East - East

First tonight, the region is bracing itself

In just 18 hours, the third leg of the Tour de France

will pass through the East, en route from Cambridge to London.

BELL RINGS 24 hours before the real thing hits town, more than

a thousand cyclists were trxing out the roads of Essex today.

Today is a cycling event that follows some of the stage that will

be ridden tomorrow morning by the professionals.

We've over 1,100 cyclists here taking part and we should bd raising

And this is where the real thing will kick`off tomorrow.

The grandstand is in place on the starting line of stage thred of the

Meanwhile, on Parkers Piece, the big tour themed weekend will be

The roads around here will begin closing tonight

and extra trains are being laid on to get into the city tomorrow.

There is extra parking at Cambridge Rugby Club,

but if you want to try Saffron Walden, there is Park and Rhde

There will be a giant screen on Saffron Walden common

and big crowds are expected to line the town's streets.

The position that most people seem to want to go to is to go to is

the bottom of the High Street, which is where the route turns

That's a very sharp left`hand turn, so we are all quite interested

to see how the cyclists are going to negotiate that.

Further along the route, the picture postcard village of Finchingfield is

We've got two public car parking areas,

one very close to the southdrn part of the village, that's near

the village centre, and one about half a mile outside the village

They will take thousands of cars.

The bells at many churches `long the route will toll to welcome the Tour.

Among them, the Church of the Holy Cross at Felsted.

It's a chance of a lifetime for many.

People are saying, we are going to come because we will

Just up the road, the final touches are being made a big party.

There is even a special Tour de France real ale on tap.

We've got nearly 3,000 car parking spaces, we got a 40 metre spuare

screen, which is going on the back there, real ales, 2

In the village of Rayne on the edge of Braintree, a music festival is

And as the race skirts the edge of Chelmsford,

Melbourne Park is being turned into a car park, while the centrd of the

Road users can't say they'vd not been warned, the tour is coming.

Neither can customers at the Waitrose supermarket in Cambridge.

It put up a sign pointing out that a "local sporting event" max disrupt

A case, perhaps, of the Tour de France being,

Police are investigating a burglary near Milton Keynes,

It happened early today, at a house near the town of O'ney.

One raped the woman, who's in her fifties, while the

Tributes have been paid to the naturalist, Philip Wayrd,

With his wife, he founded the Otter Trust, near Bungay in Suffolk.

They're credited with saving the otter from extinction

Philip Wayre at the Earsham Otter Trust,

which became the test`bed for an international wildlife experiment.

Pesticide pollution had all but wiped out lowland otters by the 70s.

so the trust bred them in captivity.

In 1983, it began releasing them again.

People said, if in ten years time, if you've made no further

reintroductions on these rivers and the otters are still thdre

and still breeding, OK, we will believe it works.

As Cambridge countryside calpaigner, Robin Page, observed for himself.

1993, wild otters arrived in this little brook and otters are

He was a fantastic man and he set the agenda

Philip Wayre had already established the Norfolk wildlife park before

founding the Otter Trust with Jean Franklin, whom he later married.

Unusual house guests were all there as part of our family life.

Our days out, you know, you didn't go to your theme park,

even if they existed in those days, we'd be off to the gravel phts,

wildlife searching, and really interesting things as children.

Now his family are organising a celebration of his life,

So, what does the weather hold for the tour?

It is not looking too bad for the cyclists tomorrow. Tonight we have a

much fresher nights to come. Clear skies and isolated showers. For many

of us it will be dry, feeling more comfortable with temperatures around

11 or 12 Celsius. A truly starts tomorrow, it could be a pleasant day

`` cooler start. Temperaturds were they should be fit this time of

year, high teens, low 20s. Hf you sharp showers and those will not

make ideal road conditions. `` HQ. Some

Hello again. Today's big event was certainly blessed by fine weather,

but there has been some rain around here and there. Those showers will

continue to drift further east over the next few hours, but by and

large, they should become more confined to western areas. These are

the sorts of temperatures we will see in towns and cities. We have to

talk about a mix of sunny spells and showers once again for much of the

day tomorrow. Very few places will miss out on the sunshine. A brisk

Riz making it feel on the cool side. -- a brisk Riz.

As we come further south, a line of showers developing from