16/10/2012 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Welcome to Tuesday's Look North. Tonight's headlines. Counting the

cost. Councils reveal that the bill for repairing recent flood damage

will run into millions. 6 Caravan shock. A nasty surprise for this

woman when she tries to sell her mobile home back to the holiday

park. The bone collector, the teenagers who discovered an ancient

skeleton while playing in sand dunes. And branching out. Why a

heritage railway wants to raise cash to join the main line. In

sport, how the weekend's derby will help footballer Robbie Elliott get

through his marathon charity bike ride through Europe. And the

Aussies hit Yorkshire for six in It is three weeks since a wet start

to autumn led to extensive flooding in the North East and Yorkshire.

Road and rail links were hit. Some property owner will be out of their

home for months. The cost is starting to be calculated. In North

Yorkshire alone the council estimates the repair bill stands at

�3 million. Richard Thomas is in Scorton tonight. One of a number of

communities badly affected? Well, in is Scorton beck, which son the

outskirts of the village. It is quite swollen because there has

been a bit of rain this will flow into the River Swale. It is not the

water that is the problem. It is the bridge which spans it. There is

evidence everywhere of emergency repair work being undertaken. Three

weeks' ago on the night of the floods part of the foundations were

washed away and a hole appeared in the road which crosss over the top

of the bredge, so the council have put an emergency bridge in to allow

cars to don't use it there is evidence of the police tape that

was put across the public footpath to deter pedestrians from crossing

the water so high were the levels. Three weeks on and one of the main

routes through Scorton is still not repaired T water washed away part

of the bridge's structure. It made a huge hole in the sur tais,

despite a temporary road over the torpbgs it has made village life

difficult. -- surface. For the first three or four days, village

life was affected a great deal. This is the main link between

Teesside and Cleveland, and and the west, which of course leads to the

A1, but that the time the A1 itself was closed for I believe it was

three days, for about 40 miles. miles away in Gilling West, they

are clearing up too. More than 20 people here are still not in their

homes. 16 of them from this nursing home. The whole episode has left

the villagers feeling vulnerable. What everybody wants is some action

to be taken. As I see it all we can do is to go to the various

authorities, and organisations and say "This is what we want." Please

help and that is support materially and financially. So if we can get

those two, then the villagers are prepared to go and dig the river

out, but it it still need money. Now the the immediate threat is

gone, the talk turns to money. And who will foot the bill. It will

seem that the County Council might well have to foot the bill, and of

course, the budget is under pressure not only from high ways

but all sorts of services which we provide, and of course, within high

ways, there are constant pressures and one of these is that we are

catching up on two-years of pothole damage, and that is still a battle

we are having to fight. And of course at this stage, the three

million repair bill is only a conservative estimate. This bridge

alone will cost �600,000 to repair. That is a fifth of the total budget.

And the longer the repairs take to do, the more it will cost. But this

is just one County. If we include the flood damage in Teesside,

Tyneside and Northumberland, then �3 million is a drop in the ocean.

So what about these other areas then? What are the local councils

saying? Well, they are yet to calculate last month the flooding

cost them. We know North Yorkshire put a figure of �3 million but two

councils are given us the flooding estimate damage for just one day,

in the summer. Go back to June 28th, thunder Thursday. South Tyne siend

and Newcastle council say that day cost them �12 million in damages.

Morpeth in Northumberland was badly flood damaged last month. The

council say it has cost them �200,000 but the big releasers were

the people of Newburn, where people haved that to leave their homes,

they won't be able to go back because the houses will be

demolished shortly. The future of the Friarage Hospital at

Northallerton is being discussed in London. Anne McIntosh raised the

issue of North Yorkshire hospitals with the new Health Minister Dr

Daniel Poulter T Friarage which op could be replaced with a short stay

paediatric assessment unit and a midwife-led maternity service.

Police in Carlisle are continuing to question six people after a

Polish man was stabbed to death outside his home. Piotr Kulinski, a

factory worker, was pronounced dead in the cul-de-sac where he lived.

Magistrates have given detectives extra time to question five men and

one woman in connection with his death. Now she thought she had

bought the perfect holiday home. �10,000 for a static caravan on the

coast. But Louise Baines from Anfield plain was then diagnosed

with cancer and the treatment she is about to start means it will be

a long while before she can get to the caravan. So, she decided to

sell it back to the caravan park, and was offered just �500. We have

been on the case today, and tonight, there is a happier ending. Our

chief reporter has the story. It's a five-star site and it is not

surprising. Play areas, bar, restaurant, gym, it has got its own

swimming pool, which is why Louise Baines wanted a caravan there, for

her and husband Lewis, their three- year-old daughter and baby lie yon,

so off they went to amble Links and spent �10,000 on this 14 years old,

but simply perfect. Until some shock news. I was diagnosed with

breast cancer on September 13th. And the nurse said it is going to

be a hard year. My treatment and things which starts next Friday, so

but I am staying positive, and we just knew if it was going to be a

hard year, she said, I said we had a caravan and thing, and with it

being an hour to get there, so maybe better off being at home and

things, so it was going to be a year wasted. I thought we might as

well sell it. Shock number two, the park said it wouldn't want to try

to sell on a caravan more than ten years old, and she was offered �500.

For a caravan bought just a year earlier. Spotted the

inconsistencies, if you can't normally sell your caravan here

once it gets beyond ten years why was Louise sold a caravan that was

already 14 years? The answer? It is the recession. Not so much money

about these days, say the park owners Park Leisure, they say that

perswaifded them to make the odd exception and they say offered �500

later increased to �1500 that is all they were offered. But this

afternoon they took Look North they will sit down again with Louise and

because she is a special case, they will be offering �6-7,000. Louise

said she looks forward to that and Lee yon seems fairly content too.

You can find out what people are saying about this on our Facebook

page. Red flashing light t a a level cross, they mean stop of

course, not everyone thinks that applies to them. Every year there

are near misses and worse as drivers take risks, now the Nexus

have installed red light cameras at another crossing to try to put a

stop to it. Will that work? We have all seen them but pictures like

these, not to mention people being killed aren't enough to stop the

chancers, now they are hoping that cameras that snap your number plate

might be this is Kingston Park, one of the busiest level crossings on

the Metro network. We reckon about once a week on average, at one of

our five level crossings, somebody is distracted or stupid enough not

to stop at a red light. It isn't complicated A red light means one

thing, in Kingston Park or Kathmandu, and that is stop. Of

course we have had red light cameras on our roads for many years,

so if people are so keen to take a chance, is this going to be enough

of a deterrent? Come to think of it, isn't it time you went the whole

hog and put barriers in? It is difficult to justify that for a

publicly funded network like this. If it saves a life what kuz the

money matter? Matters because it has to come out of our council tax

and you would still have people jumping over the barrier, trying to

force them Opus Dei. You might think I am making it up, people

have used their cars as battering rams. If commonsense isn't enough

three points and a fine might be. On the other hand there has been a

camera down the line aticaler on the parkway for more than four year,

this year alone there have been nearly 200 prosecutions there.

People take unnecessary risks, that is why we are getting people to

think twice, and this should act as a deterrent. Sometimes it's a split

second decision people are making. It is important they think long and

hard before they put people's lives in danger. A remote Cumbrian

village that was without mains electricity for ten months has been

connected. Wasdale Head one of the last places to be connected back in

1977. The underwater cable that brought their electricity to the

area voted Britain's favourite view went wrong on Christmas Eve 2011.

But today its replacement began working. Peace at last T generators

that gave Wasdale Head power for the past ten months were finally

switched off. The mains electricity was reconnected to the small West

Cumbrian community. When the electricity fist went off we were

told we would be back on mains by Easter. And then that turned into

June, that turned into August, and then that turned into today. So we

just -- we are just happy it is here. To walk outside and hear the

nature of as oppose to the hum is lovely. The power went off on

Christmas Eve, a fault with the cable below the waterline proved

impossible to fix. The first generators brought into the area

were noisy and unreliable, and had to be replaced. Then, an attempt to

put another cable under the only road there failed in the summer,

because the frowned was too hard., So over the past few weeks a new

cable has been laid, back in the lake. A we spoke cable designed for

us for this project. It is 1600 metres long. It's a continuous link.

There no joints and that is normally the weak point of an

electricity network, so we are confident this will stand the test

of test and provide power for many years to come. If there was a fault

would we be back in this situation again? We would need to replace the

cable, but I must stress, the actual likelihood of a fault on

this cable is low. An underwater cable brought mains electricity to

Wasdale Head for the first time in 1977. Today that same method is not

only reconnected them, but restored tranquillity. Millions of pound

could pour into the North Yorkshire economy if a he tadge railway can

raise cash to extend its route. The Wensleydale Railway wants to allow

East Coast Mainline passengers to use it. If the money can be found,

the Wensleydale Railway claims businesses along the line will feel

the benefit. Our business correspondent reports. The start of

a new round of fundraising on the Wensleydale Railway. It wants to

find �2 million issues shares, but alongside that it need cash to tap

into passengers, from the East Coast Mainline. We have launched a

campaign called going places which is apt, because we are going places,

we intend to re-open the stretch to Northallerton, we are trying to

raise �250,000 to complete the extension we are working on to give

us passenger access to Northallerton. For the this family

from Ipswich the line is so enchanting they would be willing

investors. Think in a small way I would, but I support lots of other

thing, so it is difficult to do everything, isn't it, but yeah, I

think I would, and I would love to volunteer in something hike this.

think you would probably get from local people any way a lot of

support, because obviously, there is quite an interest in revialing

or keeping going some of the Railtracks. The railway already

carries 35,000 passengers a year, and puts �3 million into the local

economy. If the line can be extended, it will be more. Marcus

knows the value to his nursery business, of Wensleydale Railway

passengers. At least 10% of the business comes from the train

station, they get on at Leeming Bar and the train stops here at dinner

time for half an hour, so they don't have long to walk up into

Leyburn so they will have a look round. Theest smait with the line

running to Northallerton an extra 6,000 passengers a year would use

the trains. Business in this part of North Yorkshire can't wait.

Plenty more to come, including only the best for these hand fed chicks,

in the hope that they will end up looks like their handsome a --

adult versions. Wet and windy weather brought scenes like this to

some parts, and with more rain on the way I will have your full

forecast. A group of young friend have been talking about the moment

they dug up a prehistoric human skeleton, as they played near sand

dunes, the teenagers unearthed two leg bones, part of a pel vi, a rib

cage, spine, and a jaw bone in the dunes round criminal don deefpblt -

- pelvis. Police initially investigated the find and

archaeologists say they believe they uncovered a burial site which

could be several thousand years old. Just take a look at this. This

pelvic bone is thousands and thousands of years old, experts

believe it could have belonged to a teenager, a table boy perhaps. Let

us have a chat to some of the school-children who found it. Who

found it first? What did you think? I didn't know what to think at

first, I just thought, wow, but it was like basically looking at a

ghost from the past. Were you scared? I was really scared stkpwh.

What did you see? I saw the rib cage and the spine and I touched

the rib cage and I shouted out, I just touched the ribs. The whole

cage was poking out from under the sand? Yes. I heard one of you found

a kneecap, who was that? Me. What did you do with it? I swimmed it

across the see sea. You skimmed a prehistoric relic across the sea.

Yes. I you thought it was a stone. Yes Do you regret that now. Yes,

Thank you for talking to us, here you are, a few metres away from,

few hundred metres from the sea over there, close to Hartlepool, is

it unusual Rachel Graham, you are a local archaeologist to find bones

like this, so close to the seaside? It is unusual. It happens very

occasionally, but this is a rare find, yes. Now what do you know

about this skeleton from what you have been able to see already?

the moment, we think it's a prehistoric burial, that is mainly

based on the position of the body crouched, on its side that. Is a

typical prehistoric position for burial. We know it is probably a

teenage boy na, is really all we know at the moment. We have no find

to give us any dating stkpwh. Did the children do a good job, have

they been able to help you? We wouldn't have found it if it hadn't

been for them exploring, and it is an exciting find for the area.

us have a chat to a police officer from Cleveland Police. What was

running through your mind? We were concerned when you find some bones

in a sand dune, but having talking to an archaeologist it was

established we were dealing with ancient bones. Thank you for

speaking to us. There we are, more dones bones like this are being

tested. Let us hope in the future they will be put on display so

people can find out more about the local history in Teesside. Those

kids will talk about that for a long time to come. Five Chilean

flamingo chicks are being hand reared at Washington Wetlands

Centre. They arrived in the centre and just over a month ago the first

birds hatched. By then it was too risky to allow them to be parent

reared, due to the colder weather and lack of sunlight. That is where

aviculture expert Owen Joiner stepped in. Let us get you some

lunch. Today Owen mimics a flamingo parent with the latest arrival who

is just four days old. It is a lot of work, say it lot of work. When

they are little it is two or three hours through the day and night

they need syringe fed and parents feed the chicks beak to beak. It

has been a lot of sleepless nights. They hope the boost the flock long-

term. It will get our flock up over 40, which will give them the

confidence to hopefully breed. They have bred well for the last few

years in terms of dancing and nest building and breeding but they

haven't seen it through. Next year the young ones will join the

existing flock. By putting them in with adults the adults will assume

they produced them last year, so it will give them a false pride in

their work, if you like. You need fed. Good stuff. At four days and

four weeks old they ant showing any signs of turning pink but they soon

will. They are pink because what they eat. As they digest the

plankton they absorb the colour from the shrimp. When the feathers

get made they can push it into the feathers. So they are quite

talented. The Joyce of parenting. - - joys of parenting. Poor things

coming here from chilly, can you imagine to our summer. It is chill

-- Coming here from Chile. Alan Pardew could be without striker

Shola Ameobi during the African cup of naiing sh he will hang on to

Demba Ba and Papisse Cisse after seven tkpal were disqualified. But

Nigeria say they hope to persuade Shola Ameobi to represent the

country of his birth. He has played for England Under-21s, but hasn't

featured for the senior team and was cleared by FIFA to switch

nationality. With nine Sunderland players away on international duty

the build up to the Wear-Tyne derby will be a short affair. Most won't

be back from the World Cup qualifiers until Thursday, for the

players who have remained on Wearside like Jack Colback it has

been a quiet week without the hype that usually accompany --

accompanies the big gape. It is difficult with the break because

you lose half the team. There is only ten of us left. It is

unfortunate that the way that game has been put in the fixture list,

it is after this international break but it's the same for them,

and we get the rest of the lads back on Thursday and we will look

towards the game. Now, it's a build one a difference to the Wear-Tyne

derby for Robbie Elliott this year, the former Newcastle and Sunderland

player will listen to the match on the radio as he cycles thousands of

miles through Europe for charity. He will stop off at all the clubs

Sir Bobby Robson managed and it starts off at Sporting Lisbon's

Estadio Jose Alvalade. Biking for bobby, Robbie Elliott says it will

be his toughest channel yet. Over 3,000 miles in less than four weeks,

starting in Lisbon, passing through Porto then on to Barcelona.

Eindhoven. Fulham Westminsterly stadium and Ipswich, before ending

James' Park. A physical challenge and a mental one too. I am sure

mentally, my playing career has help me with that, the big breaks

in the football. The main thing is the family members I have lost and

Sir bobby, that will drive me through the hard times of the ride.

Cycling round 150 miles a day Robbie and Phil Grey have gone

serious lengths to improve their ier row dynamics and the difficult

terrain means they will need all the extra help they can get. By the

end of the third day we will have climbed the equivalent of Everest.

I didn't tell him that until a few days ago. We have another day

coming out of Geneva, that is the single, the most climbing in one

day we will have and it's a long day, it is about 160 miles we have

to do that day. Mind on the task at hand, but Robbie Elliott admits he

will be listening out for Sunday's score. I will hopefully have it on

the radio if I can. Hopefully it will get me through the tough bit

of the ride. My six month spell at Sunderland didn't go to plan in the

end, but I am a Newcastle lad, a fan, and that is the way it is.

good luck to lads there. Our League One teams are in action tonight.

Carlisle are looking to bounce back from their flashing against Notts

County at Bury and Hartlepool are hoping to build on their weekend

point when they take on Leyton Orient. You can hear full match

commentary on Radio Cumbria and BBC tees. Yorkshire faced on of the

tournament favourites Sydney sixers in the Champions League Twenty20 in

South Africa today. The Tykes won the toss and elected to bat first

but they were always going to be up against it. Joe Root top scored

with 25 hitting the on the six for Yorkshire of the game. The Aussies

started as they meant to go on, and they didn't mess about. Reaching

the target in less than nine overs, to win by eight wickets. Yorkshire

will face Mumbai Indians on Thursday so it won't get any easier.

Now, after a spell of beautiful crisp autumn day, boy are we paying

crisp autumn day, boy are we paying the price. Is it wet everywhere

Paul? It brought all sorts today. Wet and cold today. They were the

two notable thens, many places had half an inch of rain, and with

saturated ground, that did cause some problems withstanding water,

but it was cold today, the temperatures really struggled under

that blanket of cloud. The only place I could find in the region

that hit double figures was Durham Tees Valley airport. That rain was

heavy at times but you can see the thicker cloud and the heavier rain

spiralling away, out over the North Sea. We are into a drier slot of

weather for the time being. So as we head into the evening, the sunny

spells that ended the day give way and a fairly cold first half to the

night. Temperatures dip down to two or three grease. Later in the night

the cloud thickens up again. The cloud is accompanied by rain. So

tomorrow morning that wet weather and windy weather spread across the

region, fairly quickly. Many places have a wet start to the day. We see

an improvement, dry, brighter weather spread to most place, rain

might be slow to clear on the Scottish Borders. Further south is

where we will see the best of the sunshine. So places like Stockton

and York should see the best temperatures. Still a brisk south

to south-westerly wind. So that is the picture for tomorrow. The low

pressure stays in charge as we head through the next few days, so there

will be some rain at times, and as we head to the weekend things start

to change again. High pressure starts to build to the east, and

that should settle things down as we head through Saturday and Sunday.

So we will keep you updated on that. Here is how it is looking for the

few days in between. Thursday and Friday, there will be some cloud

round, outbreaks of rain but it won't be wet all the time and the

temperatures recover back to the low teens by day, sixes and sevens

overnight. The North East similar enough cloud to produce patchy rain

through Thursday and Friday. Drier and brighter and temperatures where

they should be for this time of they should be for this time of