20/10/2016 Look East

The Education Secretary prolises - so it's goodbye from me -

to raise standards and improve the lives of children in Norwich.

It is vital we leave no stone unturned to find out what it will

take to have them aim high `nd go a long way in their lives.

Good news for commuters - The secret weapon against ldaves

From ants to antibiotics - How these creatures could bd used

And I am in the Fens where disk for RE is set to become Britain's's

largest reed bed providing ` home to some of our rarest birds.

The Education Secretary has told this programme she is deterlined

that children in Norwich will be given more opportunities

Justine Greening used her fhrst visit to the region to come

to the city to talk about hdr plans to raise education standards

A recent survey placed Norwhch close to the bottom when it

comes to improving young people's life chances.

Now it's to be the focus of a new scheme which the Education Secretary

hopes will make a differencd within a few years.

We'll hear from her in a molent but first this from our polhtical

The Education Secretary with apprentices at Norwich city College

this afternoon. The new govdrnment is keen to talk about improving

opportunities particularly for young people from poor backgrounds. How

will you be that first person in your family... Most of thesd

shootings in this room were going to be the first in their familx to go

to university. Justine Greening believes that with the right

encouragement and good teaching young people can raise their

aspirations, get better jobs and improve their social mobility Richie

has designated Norwich one of the first opportunity areas. Around ?6

million will be spent on crdating apprenticeships, encouraging staff

from colleges and universithes to work with local schools while

employers will be funded to provide mentoring and career advice. It is

important children from an darly age get the chance to be aware of what

opportunities are available to them. In certain households, talk about

astrophysics, the law or ambassadors is common. In other households, and

I would have included my own all those years ago, that sort of talk

is not nearly so common. But critics question if such a scheme c`n really

work. A1 billion pound inithative to help troubled families this judge

this week to have had littld impact while Labour say opportunitx areas

are no more than a PR stunt. Knowledge is going to lose ?14

million in the next round of cons and the money they are offering

means children will lose out despite this money. They are giving with one

hand and taking with the other. The government wants opportunitx areas

to be one of its flagship policies and this will be one of the places

where its success will be jtdged. I sat down with the Education

Secretary during her How much was it down to schools

and how much was it about pdople's In the end, if we are going to have

a country where it does not matter where you start, you can make the

most of your talent, it will take three things. One is making sure

young people have the knowlddge and skills they need, the second is that

having fantastic experiences as they grow up, whether it is the national

citizens service, but also having good advice. It sounds great but we

have this week about the government's project to invdst in

deprived areas and it does not seem to have had any effect. Is ht a case

offering money at a problem? We do have investment, a ?60 millhon

investment will go into the opportunity areas but we nedd to

have a longer-term approach and when you are looking at issues that a

generational in nature, perhaps young people who have not sdt their

sights high and they have their own children and don't pass on to them a

sense of where they could ahm for, these are things that do not get

fixed overnight but we do nded to find ways to break those cycles and

to lift our young people and I believe that young people growing up

here in Norwich have every luch the same talent and potential as anyone

else in England and it is vhtal we leave no stone unturned to find out

what it will take to have them aim high and go a long way in their

lives. I can imagine people outside of Norwich which have more problems

schools than Norwich does, they are thinking why does Norwich gdt this

when the problems are widespread? I hope this will be the beginning of

how we roll out opportunity areas rather than just ten but we have to

make a start. Is this a sign Norwich will get a grammar school? Hn the

end it will be down to local communities here in Norwich and what

they want. We don't think there should be a blanket ban sayhng even

if they want a grammar school, they can't have one but a part of this is

also saying for those parts of the country that you have gramm`r

schools, we want to do a better job at them having their doors open to

the most disadvantaged children so they can come in and get thd

benefits. If there not a danger that it means more people are left

behind? It is not a binary choice that we are giving our young people

but we do want to respond to the fact that where there are grammar

schools, often they can be oversubscribed so we do not think it

is right to ignore parents `nd their choice but we think Ramos c`n do a

better job of being social lobility drivers. How long will it t`ke to

get the social mobility in Norwich far higher than it is at thd moment?

I like to have seen some re`l progress over the course of this

Parliament and I hope in terms of education, and aspiration and

attitudes, we will be able to start changing and sooner rather than

later. The police in Suffolk say

they are following up a number of calls after the family

of a missing airman made an appeal Corrie Mckayg, a gunner

based at RAF Honington, disappeared last month after a night

out in Bury St Edmunds. On the Victoria Derbyshire

programme, his uncle, who has a background

in counter-terrorism, called for the search

effort to be stepped up. They are limited resources

and I think that where we do now have an opportunity is with the RAF

and nearby garrisons in Alddrshot. We've got expert search resources

there that we could bring to bear Last November, so many leavds fell

on to the region's train tr`cks that commuters endured 13 days of severe

delays and disruption. So this year, the train companies

are getting prepared. Network Rail and Greater Anglia have

spent an extra ?3 million on new equipment to stop thd tracks

getting so slippery and rep`ir Meet Greater Anglia's latest weapon

in the war on slippery rails. A labourer which schemes damaged metal

from the wheels, damage caused by leaves. The work is carried out in

Norwich. It is just one weapon in a new armoury. Network Rail h`s

brought an extra specialist trains which clean and spray a sandy blue

over rails to stop train slhpping and a so-called soundproof to reach

more remote lines. This is `bout being prepared for worst-case

scenario with extreme weathdr, you have to be prepared for worst-case

scenario. We have covered otrselves far, far better than this thme last

year. In November, many comluters would rather forget. Ten out of 27

engines were out of action. As the leaves to felt they were crtshed by

trains using the lines. It left a residue which led to the whdels

spinning on the rails and that created so-called flat spots which

means the wheels were no longer perfectly round. They want to be

prepared now. Some schedules are being tweaked, their detenthon is

being cleared and some land owners are being asked to remove trees

This is one of three stations in Norfolk where there are quite a few

overhanging trees. From now on, trains will only stop here hf

requested and that means drhvers won't have to break or accelerate in

case of leaf mulch on the lhne. With all this in place, could le`se on

the line be a problem in thd past? Leaves will get onto the tr`ck at

some point or other. We can minimise that and that is what we ard trying

to do. They hope now that the weather will be kind and colmuters

will be forgiving. The body of a fin well has washed up this aftdrnoon.

It is 12 metres long. This xear six sperm whales were found dead on

beaches in Norfolk and Lincolnshire. A postmortem will be carried out to

find out how this latest fine died. We will have an update on otr late

news tonight. Campaigners staged a protest

in Ipswich today demanding that the local mental health trust

does more to reduce the number of unexpected deaths

among people in its care. It took place as the Norfolk

and Suffolk Foundation Trust A crystal clear message tod`y

from campaigners who claim this health trust is guilty

of complacency and in denial. The thing that we find unforgivable

is that in this annual report NSFT has decided to go and deletd

the numbers of unexpected ddaths from the report featured in every

report since the trust was founded. A 13% increase this year and NSFT

has removed that number Every death is a concern to us,

so it's not that we are tryhng to use numbers to somehow m`ke this

problem go away. I have seen on the wards

the aftermath of a death on a ward. Staff get really upset,

they take it really personally. It's a bomb being set off

inside a family. Jonathan and Anne Higgins are among

those who feel let down. Their son Christopher

took his own life while in We spoke to them in May

when an independent report on the problem gave the trust 1

recommendations, including hmprove internal investigation procdsses,

ensure lessons are consistently learned and improve support

for bereaved families. Last week, the trust came ott

of special measures, although inspectors say it

still requires improvement. Yesterday in the Commons,

this from the Labour leader. Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health

Trust has had a cut for every one We are giving ?10 billion

of extra funding to the NHS. You can't keep on cutting

mental health services The payback of that is people

losing their lives. If we were to try and reducd

all that unexpected deaths to zero or suicides to zero,

what would we do differentlx? And maybe set that mindset

in that direction. Trust officials said today

they will bring about real change. The protesters said they wotld keep

campaigning until they do. Still to come tonight:

Alex will be here with a quarry in Cambridgeshire

into a haven for wildlife. For several years now,

we've been warned about bacteria The situation is so serious that

by 2050, a person will die dvery three seconds from so-called

superbug infections The fact is that some GPs prescribe

too many antibiotics and too many are used in animal health

and food production, Scientists at the Universitx

of East Anglia in Norwich are trying to do just that,

using leaf cutter ants They are tiny but they could help

provide a solution to a big problem. The leafcutter ants were brought

here to the University of East Anglia and are now

at the forefront to The problem we have is that

all the antibiotics used in medicine now were discovered in the 0940s,

'50s and '60s and by the end of the '60s, people started

to rediscover the same antibiotics In the meantime, in the intdrvening

50 years, the antibiotics that we have used for bacterial

and fungi that cause diseasd in us have become resistant to those

antibiotics so they don't The scientists are interestdd

in the ants because they usd They grow this fungus that they feed

leaves to and whenever they smell a foreign fungus

in there which might cause disease, they cut that bit of the fungus

garden out, they take it aw`y from the nest, they rub thehr bodies

against it and then they dig The ants are washed in water

which is then put into a petri dish Matt and his team then look

at the DNA of that bacteria and how it reacts to other bacteria to see

if it makes antibiotics. One of the reasons why scientists

are having to develop new antibiotics is because GPs

are often feeling the presstre to prescribe them and as a result,

bacteria in our bodies He processes on average 24

antibiotic prescriptions per day. There is a pressure on GPs

to prescribe antibiotics. People get colds, or we are just

starting called season and flu season and people think thex need

an antibiotic to cure it, but some GPs do get pressurhsed

to the extent where they Work to develop new medicathon

is taking place across the region It is part of a government strategy

to develop new drugs and to make us think about whether or not

we even need to take them. Back at the lab, Matt's teal

are continuing to study They have been working

on the project for seven ye`rs now and have already discovered two

antibiotics that they are They are hoping to uncover tp to 50

new compounds over This afternoon, I spoke

to Chris Smith, The Naked Scientist. He's made it his mission to help us

all understand and engage This is called biomimetic shr. You

dig around in nature and find over the millions of years, life has

arrived at a solution the problem you are grappling with. It has

usually got a better solution than one we could dream up ourselves

Antibiotics are no exception. They get most of our antibiotics in the

hospital and their ancestors from nature. The fact that antibhotics

don't seem to work in all c`ses now, is that something that is ndw or has

been going on a long time? This has been going on for billions of years

because antibiotics come from bacteria and fungicide that live in

the soil, by chance, becausd there are billions of bacteria living

around us, some of them nattrally have the ability to break down some

of the chemicals we use as antibiotics. What that means is if

we use lots of antibiotics on patients, those chemicals gdt into

the environment and give an advantage to the bacteria that have

the ability to break down those chemicals. They will become more

common in the environment. @re we reaching the end of those places we

can find antibiotics? Not rdally because in the last few years,

scientists have invented a new way of extracting bacteria and their

genetic know-how. The majorhty of antimicrobial drugs they get from

soil dwelling bacteria but we can only grow about 10% of the bacteria

in soil. Using these new techniques, we can get those bacteria to grow

and we can extract from thel the ability to make various chelicals

that were as strokes tests have stumbled on a number of new

antibiotic monocles and firdd that route. Just because they can find

new antibiotics, it does not mean we are free to abuse the ones we

already have. No and that is worth this idea of good antibiotic

stewardship comes in. When H lived in Australia, there was a brilliant

sign that said, common colds need common-sense not antibiotics. That

is because many people get the symptoms of a cold and they think

antibiotics are what you nedd. Colds are caused by viruses which don t

respond to antibiotics. There is a rise in types of drugs being made

available over the Internet and people are buying antibiotics

online. They are taking drugs which may not necessarily be the right

thing for their infection and this is increasing the risk of

resistance. We need to look at this and work out how we can clalp down

on it. Every year in this country,

3,500 babies are stillborn `nd many For the parents who've lost babies,

any investment to improve training But they also want people to stop

treating baby loss as a taboo subject and to start talking

about it openly. Prints of her baby's hands `nd feet

made into jewellery. It is one of the few mementos Carla has of

Daisy's existence. Given an emergency Caesarean due to worries

over Daisy's heartbeat, the child was stillborn. It was just shocked.

No one expected that to happen, nothing had been said to us that

something could go wrong like that and it was the shock and thd despair

of not bring that baby home. The baby you had not before. At

Colchester hospital they have a dedicated the treatment midwife and

a Private room. It is when lothers can give birth then spend as much

time as they need with the child before making some vital but

heartbreaking decisions. Thdy are either an environment where they can

make unhurried decisions regarding possible postmortem examinations,

the type of service they might like, whether they want the chapl`in to

bless their baby and other difficult decisions.

Sue Armstrong also puts Perrins in touch with charities. One of our

local MPs whose son was stillborn two years ago has set up an all

Parliamentary group to highlight the issue. Around 50% of all sthllbirths

are preventable and we are talking around 2000 children per ye`r babies

lies that can be saved but ht is looking at that after-care. In the

last five years, Carla has known loss and grief. On top of

Daisystillbirth, she has suffered three miscarriages and a twhn

ectopic pregnancies. She is now raising money for Tommies. Her

campaign slogan says it all. Doing it for Daisy.

And if you want to talk to someone about any

of the issues in Jenny's report you can call Tommys every

weekday between 9am and 5pm on 0800 0147 800.

Now here's a challenge, how to turn a dirty,

busy quarry full of lorries into the peace and quiet

That's exactly what's happening at Ouse Fen in Cambridgeshire.

The RSPB has teamed up with a construction company so that

when the gravel pits are finished with, they are filled with water

Looking more like a tropical paradise than the fans, this

ambitious project is creating one of our most prestigious habitats. You

may not believe it, but this is how these wetlands started out `s a

quarry for gravel. But thanks to a pioneering partnership betwden the

RSPB and this construction company, the UK's largest reed bed is

appearing out of the dust. The store all our operations either to

farmland or habitat but to create something that the public whll enjoy

for generations to come is ` really unique opportunity. To give you a

sense of scale, the quarry hs seven hectares at the finished wetland

project will be 700 hectares. That is 2.5 square miles. Just fhve years

ago, this rich habitat was `bly quarry. He's regions hold the key to

its importance. The secret of Britain uses reed bed to fish at

risk because of coastal erosion This site offers it hoped. Ht is

producing habitat for a number of species that are coming in `nd when

it is complete, it will be 700 hectares. It is that size which

means it can attract in the number and variety of species. Voltnteers

have already planted more than 130,000 reads. It has made ly

retirement. I love being outside. I think this area has a stark beauty

all of its own. I remember when it was fields so to see transformed

into this is fantastic. When completed in 2030, the projdct will

include 30 calamities of public footpath, offering the chance to

enjoy this mosaic of reed bdd and swamp and the wildlife that will

thrive here. Did you notice that all of the

volunteers were just in jumpers Louise had about ten coats on! She

was working hard as well! An incredible project. Cold today. A

chilly wind for us here in the East but there was quite a lot of good

weather around, some brightness and sunshine. A real typical water mix.

Beautiful photograph of an `utumn scene in Hertfordshire and there

were lots of showers across the eastern half of the region so lots

of photographs of rainbows. This is a lovely one on the Norfolk coast.

And look, a double rainbow hn Essex this afternoon. Looking at the

satellite image, we have had a lot of cloud feeding in from thd North

Sea and that has brought in showers across many parts of the region We

have had an area of low pressure and an associated weather front close by

which has meant showers, but they have not been quite widesprdad. They

will fade across the western half and become more confined to the

eastern half. If you live in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, yot may

well catch the odd sharp shower Quite a spread of temperatures

because if you go across thd western half, temperatures could be six or 7

degrees. Further east, a bit more cloud cover, a bit more of ` breeze

and temperatures in double figures. Some will start tomorrow quhte

chilly. Low pressure still close by, high pressure building in from the

west, so the rest will be bdst in terms of dry and bright weather The

further east you are, at thd risk of those showers speeding in from the

North Sea. But also some brhghtness, some sunshine around. Still feeling

cool with a northerly breezd although that wind should e`se

through the day. 13 or 14 Cdlsius the hive. Looking ahead tow`rds the

weekend, it is looking pretty reasonable. Low pressure sthll close

by. Perhaps the risk of somd showers for Saturday, we get more of an

easterly wind but it does look largely dry for Sunday. Expdct

isolated showers for Saturd`y but lots of dry weather around `nd for

Sunday also. It stays at around 13, 12 degrees. Overnight, if wd get any

clear skies, six in towns and cities, could be called in the

countryside. Age the police settled and for October. That is all from

us. Have a good evening. Good night. Everyone's living these

amazing lives,