15/03/2017 Look East

Hello, welcome to Look East, with Susie and me.

The region's response to the threat of serious flooding

two months ago is condemned as "inadequate".

A review highlights 64 short-comings.

Faulty equipment, losing a set of keys for the emergency stores,

lack of training - those don't instil confidence?

Well, as I say, there's definitely lessons

to learn and it's a relief to us all that it was a near miss.

Keeping babies safer at night by sleeping in a box.

Experts hail the success of a pilot project in Essex.

and speak to the man who invented the Chopper.

And the X Factor auditions come to Clacton.

We will be meeting some of the contestants.

# I can't answer, I can't answer that #.

The night of Friday 13th of January this year,

You might remember it was the night the North Sea threatened to flood

Luckily it didn't and it seems that was just as well.

It turns out that behind the scenes there were dozens

A new report highlights 64 in Suffolk alone.

losing a set of keys to emergency stores

The short comings will go before councillors tonight.

Let's get the details now from Kevin Burch.

We are at Felixstowe Ferry, the waters tonight really benign but

look back to January, there was an angry sea up there. We had had

warnings what to expect going through the night. As it was, things

were baited but still hundreds of people had to be moved from their

homes. These tidal surges still represent a major threat and that is

why officials have gone through everything in microscopic detail.

The village of Snape knows only too well about the impact of flooding,

the surge of 2013 left a pub and homes awash,

so as trouble loomed again in January, they were ready.

A rest centre in the village hall took in about 30 people, it emerged

as one of the busiest around on that night.

But one area of worry was a lack of communication with council

The initial concerns we got as a community

were through the media, people were asking us as volunteers

in the community, are we going to be asked to evacuate?

So it took a bit of time just to get the clarity

That need for better communication is the key one

in this list of more than 60 recommendations after council

officials ordered a root and branch review of how it handled the threat.

On that night, this community building in Leiston was set up

as a rest centre but, says the report, it

lacked amenities and the team here had not been trained or told what

There's also the question of public car parks in flood zones, they

weren't closed off, it suggested they should be to avoid potential

damage to vehicles and keep the sightseers away.

And Waveney's own council base in Lowestoft is

flagged up, home to the emergency control centre but sitting in a

And what about other niggles there on the night, a missing key

for a vital storage cupboard, an emergency satellite phone which

didn't work and staff being unsure how to login to or use a critical

I've used the analogy before, it's a bit like

You'll always have somebody who says, "yeah,

but the defence could have been a bit better."

There are also some recommendations in there, like having an extra

whiteboard in the room and boxing blankets

how many we are issuing, that sort of stuff is pretty easy

The really important ones are about communications, about

access to facilities, they have very much been takEN on-board

and they will improve our response next time around.

He says he doesn't accept if the latest

surge had been more damaging these flaws in the planning could have

Whatever the level of threat had been, he

believes, what's already a pretty slick system would have adequately

Officials say it is important to keep this in perspective. 60 odd

recommendations but this is a water no process. This report will go

before councillors in Felixstowe tonight.

Therese Coffey is the MP for Suffolk Coastal

Late this afternoon I got her reaction to the report.

I actually thought the council's worked

really well together with the

emergency services and I think it is the hallmark of a strong performing

council that they go back and look in detail at this near miss and then

I think there were some obvious things

that perhaps could have been done but they have also been, they have

very high standards and I think overall,

my impression is from the

communities that I have visited at that time,

is that they felt the council had been responsive.

Faulty equipment, losing a set of keys for

the emergency stores, lack of training - those don't

Well, as I say, there are definitely lessons to learn

and, you know, it's a relief to us all that it was a near miss but I

think the broader communication that happened at the time made sure that

householders were certainly aware of the risks to them and certainly I

saw in different communities that they had learned from the previous

flooding and that they'd developed their own community plans.

Now, that hasn't happened quite everywhere.

And I'm sure that councils are working with the Environment Agency

will continue to try and do that and of course there are things that

could've been done better but I think we saw generally much better

response along coast than we have seen in previous times, including

But you will accept that 64 items on that list is not

I think there are some big lessons to learn but I

think other smaller things, sometimes it is human error,

sometimes it is systematic failure but the important thing is that they

have done this review and they are going to address it for the future.

The important thing to remember here is that

everybody knew this was coming

and so for some things to fail at the last

Well, I'd think the fact that people were

notified, that people were encouraged to evacuate, kind of the

I mean, there are some recommendations

on that report, for example, a lack of mobile phone signal at

Well, that is something that will need to

be addressed in due course but it is not entirely in the hands

It does highlight the problem that many people have in

rural communities in this area, that is you can't get a mobile phone

signal, sometimes you can't get decent broadband.

Well, that's something you'll be aware

I'm personally keen to see greater deployment of

mobile phone masts around our countryside

and that is what we're doing in trying to encourage

more of the mobile network operators to set up those

Norfolk was also threatened by the tidal surge.

The county is ranked tenth in England

Away from the coastal defences, the county council

is spending millions of pounds on tackling surface-water flooding.

This from our chief reporter Kim Riley.

Scenes in the heart of Norwich after heavy

rains overwhelmed dreams and

threatened homes and businesses in May 2014.

It came about that far away from the front door and it was about

that far away from coming in the back door.

Fire crews pumped out flats and nightclubs after flash

Against siff competition, the county council successfully bid

for more than ?9 million from the Department for Transport

to improve surface water drainage in high risk

areas like Thorpe St Andrew near Norwich.

The problem was, historically, the surface water when

it rained wasn't drained away properly, it went into old systems

What we are doing now is opening up the ground,

putting pipelines in that are taking the surface

water away when it rains, when we have flooding events, it

will now go away, it will discharge down to the river

Today the pipe laying meant Jill Thomas couldn't drive

from her home but she accepts the work is important.

There certainly have been flooded areas, big puddle in

It is something that has to be done, isn't it?

A new network of surface water drains is replacing many boreholes

A growing population, thousands of new

homes on the way and more heavy rainfall expected heighten

This will be a state-of-the-art scheme, it will put

everything right to dispose of all the surface water here in the city.

I can never say no more flooding but I

It will deal with hopefully everything that is thrown at us in

So far, three miles of piping has been laid in high risk

areas of Norwich and a further two miles

will be laid before the

The county council will then spend hundreds of thousands of

pounds more addressing training issues in some of our market towns.

Elsewhere, the Environment Agency has recently completed a

multi-million pound scheme replacing over 500 metres of title defences,

reducing the risk of flooding to the Southtown and Cobholm

There's been a drop in unemployment in this region.

The latest total is 138,000, that's down 9,000 on the previous quarter.

4.4% of the workforce is unemployed, the national figure is 4.7%.

A fire has badly damaged a thatched cottage near Stowmarket.

About 70 firefighters spent most of last night

It is believed to have started in a wood burner.

Crews were alerted just before 10pm by the owners who heard a smoke

Last year we told you about the small cardboard boxes

given to new mothers at Colchester Hospital

to help reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

The idea is to stop babies rolling on to their tummy.

The experiment appears to be working.

Midwife Tracy demonstrating to new parents Jenny and Stuart how to use

their baby box. Baby Poppy, less than 24-hour gold will sleep in this

cardboard box to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. The

idea is simple, besties in Finland in the 1930s, the baby is based on

its back in the box, preventing it from rolling onto its tummy which

could cause the Internet to stop breathing. A lot of families are

telling us that if they have got a Moses basket, if they have got a

baby, they will use these bands, they are there in front of them and

encouragement their baby done and not to co-sleep with their babies.

In the eight years leading up to 2014, 221 babies in the east have

lost the rights to sudden infant death syndrome. Since the boxes were

introduced at the hospital a year ago, 700 have been handed out to new

parents in the hope of reducing that risk. It is a safe place for a child

to sleep, to rest but I think the most important part as well is the

basic but yet vital information that you get in the box as well. The

first-time parents, I think it is a wonderful idea. Will you use it? We

are definitely going to give it a go. I have got a Moses basket as

well and I'm sure she will have a preference. It is good in an

emergency as well. Colchester Hospital was the first in the region

to launch these baby boxes. They are now being rolled out our hospitals

in mid-Essex and Norfolk this spring. The baby Poppy, it is almost

time to lead the maternity ward. Her parents hoping for a good nights

sleep and a chance to try out the baby box in the comfort of their own

home. Gorgeous. will be spending 24 hours reporting

live from Ipswich Hospital They will be talking

to patients and staff in A You can follow live updates

on the web page for BBC Suffolk. Click on to bbc.co.uk/suffolk, we'll

have a full report on that tomorrow. You're watching Look East

with Susie and me. Stay with us for our special guest -

the man who invented the Alex has got the weather

and a new search begins in Essex It's Day Three of the Look East

Referendum Road Trip. we are re-visiting the places

we went to in June to find out what people

think about Brexit. and last night went

to Northamptonshire. Tonight, we take the road

to Cambridgeshire where there are concerns around

the availability of labour While in Silicon Fen, the focus

is more on where to recruit Hannah Olsson is at the wheel

for tonight's report. On the road in the Fens,

it may seem a long way from Westminster but the effects

of Brexit are far reaching. And even here the debate over

the EU is still growing. 7000 people in Cambridgeshire

work in farming, growing the food that ends up

in our supermarkets. 8000 tonnes of leeks

a year are grown by this farm and they rely on migrant

workers to pick them. But after the Brexit vote,

coming to the UK is no longer the first choice

for many Eastern Europeans. Most of them, you know,

they like to go more to Europe countries,

like Sweden, Denmark, because Brexit

and they are thinking of the future, That's why they are taking

a different kind of choice and the After harvesting,

the leeks arrive here But in the future, will there

be enough workers to keep our supermarket

trolleys full of produce? We're trying to make as much

as we possibly can and apply technology where we can

but if we can't find the jobs, the workers to fulfil our jobs,

we will go and find the workers which means we will

take our business abroad. It's not just workers

that farmers are concerned about, there is also

changes to subsidies. They have got to sort out trade,

where that has got to be, where the Labour is going to come from so we

can anticipate, from that subsidies to make us more productive, more

technically efficient in the future. At the moment, the government has

promised subsidies will be matched until 2020. But after that, there

are no guarantees. From farming to pharmaceuticals, in Cambridge,

developing drugs is big business. When pharmaceutical giant moved to

this camp later this year, it will become one of the leading medical

research centres in the wild, more than 17,000 people working here. It

is what we do with Brexit itself. You see the building behind me

represents real optimism about what Cambridge can become if it is a real

player in the global environment which has been since its inception.

There is a lot of optimism that can be greeted from it as well, it is

certainly not doom and gloom and you don't feel that in Cambridge at all.

That option -- opinion is not shared by many. There are still questions

what the pharmaceutical industry will look like after Brexit. He at

the outcomes research UK drug discovery Institute, they are

developing the dementia drugs of the future. Like the farm, they have

questions over funding and immigration. They also want to make

sure there are no issues with drug regulations. The moment we do that

wrap the whole of Europe with the European medicines agency, if we

lose that agency, we will have to have our own process. I do not think

we know at the moment what that would look like. The concern that

people have is that we might find ourselves behind the rest of Europe

in our ability to access the most exciting new medicines.

Keeping cross-border trials running and collaborative with partners

overseas is what the scientific committees that is needed now to

keep it in the driving seat. -- scientific communities.

And tomorrow night, Andrew Sinclair will bring the mini to Norfolk

to get the views of people in fishing and farming.

And a new bicycle came on the market like nothing before it or since.

which is the subject tonight of a BBC documentary.

Released in 1970, it is arguably Raleigh's

Motoring journalist Mark Hughes got one

There was just no way once you've seen that as a

ten-year-old kid, there was no way you couldn't have that.

It was just lust, that is the only way you could

Grown men still talk about that name back. Tom Curran is the man who

designed the Chopper. He is in our Cambridge studio. Why do you think

it became so iconic? I ought to explain that in my design of it, I

wanted every project to be a huge success. I think the Chopper was a

bit unusual in that it was a bit unlike any other bike and it really

caught the imagination of children. I always meet people who either had

one or desperately wanted one. It just became a great success. We had

a lot of those in our newsroom today talking about it as well. What did

you do to come up with the idea? How did you come up with the idea,

especially of the saddle? The Raleigh, Raleigh needed to compete

with something in America. They came to me and asked me to design

something which would compete with this bike but had a different kind

of flavour. I was very keen to make it like a dragster with a big wheel

at the back and a small wheel at the front. I think that made it

different from any other bike. It had a lovely gear shift which

children liked a lot and the saddle was fun. It had make-believe springs

on it, you may notice. It was all about the looks, it was not

necessarily the best bicycle to ride but it was all about how it looked.

It... I am not sure I am quite with you.

I was just talking about the fact that the looks of it was so

important rather than what it was like as a right. -- ride. I have got

one in my home, I am not answering your question. I have got one in my

home and it belonged to my first-born who said a long time ago,

early 70s and it was restored by the Chopper club. I have got an

11-year-old grandson and he has got his eyes on it. He drove it down my

garden and went down some steps as well. Get me back on track, if you

will. You have invented so many things as well as the Chopper.

Including the also iconic marble run which I think both your children and

grandchildren have loved playing with. I am glad you mentioned the

marble run. I am so proud of that because it has given pleasure to

properly millions of children. -- Raleigh too. I thought of it in 1970

and we made a prototype and it has been running ever since. I was one

of the people who love that as well. Thank you so much for talking to us,

Mr Karen. Thank you. It's cold and dark,

the shops are bursting and the chances are the finalists

will come from Essex, Today, the search for a new star got

underway in Essex on Clacton Pier. # Oh, I do like to be

beside the seaside # Oh, I do like to be

beside the sea #. If you want to find fame and fortune

on reality TV, this is where the X Factor journey starts -

auditions in the spring. Olly Murs, Matt Cardle

and Louisa Johnson are all In a room next door

to the bowling alley, the Clacton hopefuls are

trying their luck. I found out yesterday

so I was like, why not? # I'm leaning on a lamp

post on the corner Natalie Imbruglia

could be good, I think. Go on, give us a little

burst of that now. # I thought I saw

a man brought to life # He was warm, he came around

like he was dignified #. Waiting in the queue

for more than two hours is 28-year-old Toni Parker,

she works for Asda and has always For as long as she can remember,

Toni has had a stutter and would break down

in tears when asked No, it was always, I always used

to sing a lot as a child and do karaokes and everything and it was

always all OK, the singing. For the X Factor

audition, Toni sings an Alanis Morissette

song called Thank You. We can't film the

audition itself but... I have to wait either

for an e-mail before I know It is a long way between here

and the X Factor final at Wembley just before Christmas but if today

proves anything, it proves that this Mike Liggins, BBC

Look East, Clacton. He was desperate going. You could've

gone on. Let's get the weather. Blue sky today. 18 Celsius in Essex.

Beautiful scene here in Suffolk coastline and lots more lovely

photograph sent in today showing the fine weather. It is going to change

a little bit through tomorrow, more cloud around that ending the day on

a clear night. It is expected to ten quite misty as we go through the

night, down to around six Celsius. We start the day tomorrow with some

mist bad thing. This weather from coming in from the west will turn

things cloudy. It should be a bright bat for many of us, once the mist,

some good sunshine, particularly across eastern counties drain the

morning. Across western counties, the cloud coming in from the west so

it is going to cloud over and it will not be as warm as it was today.

Up to 12, 13 Celsius. A notice or breeze as well from the south-west.

The evening and overnight, some patchy rain but not expected to

amount to very much. A splash of rain for many others. And we are

getting towards the end of the week and into the weekend, looking

unsettled. Some rain later in the day on Friday, much of the day does

that drive but cloudy. This is how it shapes up for the next few days.

We get a cold night for tomorrow night, worth noting once that

weather front has me through. We are into cloudy forecast for much of the

day on Friday with some rain arriving later. Looking mostly for

here in the east in the weekend, temperatures lifting to mid teens.

Not so much of the sunshine. Thank you. We've had an e-mail to

from Karen to say she was the only girl who

'The UK has voted to leave the European Union