14/02/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Welcome to Tuesday's Look North. so it's goodbye from me,

In tonight's programme - Questions over a council's plans

to loan millions to the Alnwick Garden.

While on Teesside, another council plans to invest

Also tonight, doubt over the future of a new nuclear power plant

planned for Cumbria which could create

And thousands of enthusiasts turn out as the first scheduled steam

service in 50 years makes its way across this scenic landscape.

In football, a tough night for both our League Two sides

and can the return of Dwight Gayle help Newcastle stay on top

of the Championship when they face a resurgent Norwich City side who're

It needs to save ?6 million from its budget.

But Northumberland County Council wants to loan ?8.5 million

to the Alnwick Garden to create an outdoor play area.

The garden's run by a charitable trust, and was created

She and her husband are thought to be worth ?365 million,

which makes them among the richest people in Britain.

Northumberland's council leaders say financially backing the scheme

will boost the local economy, but critics claim the money

Our News Correspondent, Mark Denten, joins us from Alnwick.

The Alnwick Garden has been hugely successful since it opened 16 years

ago. Over 5 million visitors have come, and now wants to be something

new. It wants to create what it describes as the biggest play

village in the world. But to do that, controversially it may have to

have to ask its cash-strapped council in the north-east. It's

becoming the alternative uniform for politicians, fluorescent jacket and

hard hat. These Northumberland councillors wearing it are at the

site for a new headquarters of the council, ?32 million building in

Ashington. We are trying to lower the costs of the Council by moving

people back to the market towns. We are centralised in the town of

Morpeth, and it's very expensive to deliver services in rural areas. The

scheme has faced criticism with some saying moving the council

headquarters from Morpeth is a monumental waste of money. The

council does have ?6 million to shave from its budget next year, so

what should Northumberland councils spend money on? Roads, schools or a

play structure for elves? The council plans to loan the Alnwick

Garden ?8.5 million to build a play village, the Elphick play structure

billed as the biggest in the world. It is run by a charitable trust, but

the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland are thought to be

worth in the region of ?365 million and that is more than Her Majesty

the Queen. Some councillors think taxpayers money could be better

spent. Why can't the Northumberland estate pay for this? The project was

originally started by them, so why can't they borrowed money? They have

a better credit rating than the county council, probably, so why

can't they loaned the money to the Alnwick Garden for the facility? Why

should the taxpayers be building it? It's not the first time

Northumberland council has been criticised this way. In 2012 is

loaned the Northumbria health care trust money to pay off the cost of

building two hospitals. Last year the council's property arm bought

Manor walk shopping centre for ?78 million. The council has to save ?6

million this year from its budget, and the council tax could go up by

nearly 5%, including a 3% hike to support social care. Budgets are

very, very squeezed. Why at that time has the council loaned money to

what is described as a play structure for elves? It is about

jobs and the economy. We have got to boost the economy of Northumberland

and we have to increase the job numbers here in Northumberland. The

council will meet to discuss its budget plans on their the 22nd. --

February the 22nd. Mark, is there any comment

from those in charge They say it is early days and they

are still looking at various funding options for the new project but they

say if it goes ahead it will be an international attraction and will

also, they say, have a measurable impact on the region's economy. They

also point out it is a charitable, nonprofit making trust that runs the

garden. And one other important point from the garden is that they

say if they do take the loan from the council, it will be alone, and

it will not be a grand. They will pay it back. We watch with interest.

Well, here's another council considering a controversial loan.

Stockton's taxpayers may be about to find

The Labour-run council is planning to borrow ?17 million,

to invest in a Hampton-by-Hilton hotel, which will then be built

Opponents say it's "a reckless waste of public money."

Here's our Political Editor, Richard Moss.

A scrappy car park, and former garage site in Stockton.

But by the end of 2018, it could look very different.

It'll become a hotel the local council believes the area needs.

Putting an estimated ?6.7 million into the economy

The businesses are saying it is a good idea. They find it difficult to

find rooms for visitors to their companies. There are lots of events

that take place across the year which brings people into the town

centre without any hotel provision. But to get the Hampton

by Hilton built, the council a ?17 million stake -

funded by a loan. It'll share in any profits the hotel

makes, but to earn money 80% of its 150 rooms will need

to be constantly occupied. Some doubt the council

is making a wise investment. I think they will struggle to get

that amount of money in, and if you are borrowing that kind of money,

you're paying a lot more than ?17 million back over the 30 year life

span. That will probably cost something in the region of 30

million once you have added the interest.

on Stockton High Street are also concerned.

I think it is more shops that they need rather than a hotel. There are

places that are shutting down. There are a lot of unemployed people here,

so who can afford to stay in a hotel? Or is it for? Not the people

round here. They are spending that money and all of these shops closing

down. They want to get more shops opened. That argument would be to

have a hotel here and it might help the shops. I don't think it will,

you know. there is a reminder

here of how the hotel Stockton's previous town

centre hotel shut almost overnight in 2009 -

and has never reopened. The shell of what used to be the

Swallow hotel has a haunting impressions here in Stockton. They

were going to turn it into student flats. The council say they have

looked over the figures hotel they will invest in will not end up like

the Swallow. It's good for the town and the council any money left over

after all of the costs are paid for for the hotel will go back into

front-line services. the plans on Thursday,

before making a final commitment on whether to go

into the hotel business next week. Two of our councils taking loans

to put into developments. There are two reasons why they might

be increasingly tempted to do this. One is familiar to all others. We

all have savings and so have the council, they are called reserves

and they have invested them in a bank account and low interest rates

do not get your return. They might be tempted by the idea of loaning it

to someone else and getting a better return, but it comes with slightly

more risk. Another factor is that councils are funded through

accommodation of government grant and taxes raised locally. The

government grant will disappear locally. By 2020 it will be gone

altogether. Council will have to rely on council tax and business

rates. Take the hotel in Stockton, the council estimates that will

generate ?150,000 per year plus on business rates. You can see why the

council is tempted to lure in private individuals of them loans

and boost business rates on the local economy, and they get more

money they can put into local services. But there is a risk

involved. If the investment lose money, there's only two ways to

recoup the money, raise council tax or services further. -- or cut

services further. Warehouses full of drugs

and illicit alcohol - that's how the Prison Officers'

Association is describing our jails, following an undercover BBC

investigation into conditions at HMP Panorama found evidence of drug

abuse, violence and intimidation at the privately-run prison,

and the POA says there are similar Last night's Panorama revealed

a level of chaos at HMP Northumberland that many people have

described as shocking, but the situation has come as no

surprise to the Prison Officers' Watch you saw there was a snapshot

taken over two months which gave an absolute idea to your viewers of

what life is like inside HMP Northumberland for the men and women

working in there. How has it ended up like this? Because of the cuts in

funding and what we have now our prisons full of drugs, full of

illicit alcohol, violence and that has been caused by the huge staffing

cuts and the lack of resources in today's modern prison service.

This afternoon in Acklington village,

which sits in the shadow of the prison, some residents told

us they were too frightened to sleep last night.

Others said the situation has become intolerable since the prison

was taken over by Sodexo, a private company.

My father used to be a governor there and there were many incidents,

and a lot of them were amusing incidents, but he was never

frightened. It was never somewhere we were encouraged to go to, but we

were never frightened about it. I feel very sorry for the staff who

are working there. But I still feel that it has to be somewhere. Are you

happy it is being run properly? No. That is a different thing. That's a

completely different question. We invited the company to take part in

the report but they declined. Instead referred us to a statement

that reads we are proud of the staff at HMP Northumberland who do such a

professional job in such difficult circumstances. Security and the

safety of the prisoners and staff remains our top priority.

And if you didn't see last night's programme,

you can still watch it on the BBC iplayer.

The future of a new nuclear power plant near Sellafield in Cumbra has

been thrown into doubt, after the Japanese company Toshiba

said it would be pulling out of its construction.

The ten million pound project at Moorside would create around

This is supposed to be the future of nuclear power.

Moorside nuclear plant is due to be built over the next few years.

Japanese company Toshiba announced massive financial losses

and said it would be selling its shares in Nugen,

the company which plans to build Moorside.

There are more than one Japanese company involved in this business,

so we will continue to discuss with industry players what the future

strategy might be. We have an open mind about how best to deliver this.

For decades, this part of Cumbria has been a hub

Down the road from Moorside is Sellafield, a reprocessing plant.

Nearby Heysham power station is coming to the end of its life.

Moorside is part of a new generation of energy production.

Plans to build large pylons in the Lake District to transport

The plant is due to be online in 2024.

It's been clear for some time that financing new nuclear power stations

is enormously challenging. It took as eight years to get to this point

with Hinkley C. We haven't seen it coming directly, but I don't think

it is any surprise that even very large international companies are

finding difficulties with the sort of capital investment we are talking

about. Toshiba says it had always planned

to sell its shares in Nugen, and would still work

on its The Liberal Democrat

leader Tim Farron, joining party campaigners

in the Copeland by-election, has accused Conservative

ministers of neglecting rural Mr Farron was meeting voters

and party activists in Keswick, with nine days to go before the area

goes to the polls. He said successive governments had

let local people down. What we struggle with all the time

is Westminster, with politicians in London making all sorts of

assumptions about rural communities which are just totally wrong and

that's why we have lost police numbers in the last two months and

why schools are under threat of closure and white, maybe the biggest

issue in Copeland, the threat to the hospital faces is so great. The

government needs to get the message from this by-election that they need

to stop taking rural communities for granted as well and invest properly

in places like this. A 47 year-old Cumbrian man -

who was sexually abused as a boy - It's to encourage other

victims to come forward, so that their abusers

can be prosecuted. Fire-fighter Ade Kevern admits

the abuse he suffered as a youngster He struggled at school,

and, as a young adult, But he's adamant that telling

others what happened, and seeing his tormentor brought

to justice, has helped him And he urges anyone else who's

suffered, not to stay silent. I'm not a victim any more and that's

why I decided to waive my anonymity. Time and time again I would read in

the press and I would see on the news countless occasions, it seemed

to be an almost daily basis, that there were dangerous people that

were harming kids and I thought somebody will have do stand up and

say something. Scientists from Durham University

are moving closer to predicting That's after conducting

a remarkable project in Whitby. The team of geologists

scan the cliffs billions of times every year,

and from across the harbour can even see tiny rocks move

just a few centimetres. It's giving the experts tell-tale

signs about when a potentially Phil Chapman went to their highly

unusual seaside lab. They are not sure average seaside

snaps, these colourful images of the cliffs at Whitby are the results of

thousands of scans every second, which allow geologists from Durham

University to see the tiniest movement from a very unusual vantage

point. There aren't very many places like this to put an instrument of

the type that we use, so we are very fortunate that somebody quite a long

time ago decided to build a light has here for us so we could scan

East Cliff. It's really well-positioned, relative to the

cliff, for us to scan from. I can show you that now. We can pick up

rock falls as small as a coffee cup. And that surrounds -- around three

centimetres deep and five centimetres across. What we've been

able to show in the couple of hours before the rock wall colours -- rock

fall occurs, there are these small events, and that is not to say that

we can now prove it -- predict when a rock fall will occur but it means

we have the long-term goal to try and work out when rock falls will

occur. For the team from Durham, the Whitby project is one of their

nearest. We do a lot of work looking at landslides, and am when people

say, have you heard of Whitby, people think I know Whitby, and

people just eat fish and chips all the time. Throughout this year, Jack

and the rest of the team from Durham University will be taking their

findings from here in Whitby to various Earth science conferences

around the world. Plenty more to come

in tonight's programme. Dawn's here with

tonight's sports desk Plus, ticket demand soars

for the first scheduled steam And we've seen some sunshine today

and it has been quite mild, but will it last? I will have a full forecast

later in the programme. What could be more romantic

for Valentine's Day than a ride on an historic steam train,

on one of the most scenic The Darlington-built "Tornado"

is replacing diesel locomotives on the Settle to Carlisle line -

running for three days between Appleby in Cumbria

and Skipton in North Yorkshire. The move by Northern Rail

is an attempt to compensate passengers for disruption caused

by a landslip on the line. And it's all for the price

of a regular ticket. Our Business Correspondent,

Ian Reeve, went along for the ride. Something not seen for nearly 50

years, a steam locomotive on a mainline, onto Carlisle, and running

a timetable passenger service. This is Tornado, built in Darlington

between 1994 and 2008. It is a copy of a so-called Peppercorn A1 class.

And for three days it is in service between Appleby in Cumbria and

Skipton in North Yorkshire. Normally this line is worked by diesel

trains, but they have surrendered to steam. Tornado is a thank you for

inconvenienced passengers. The line has been closed for the last three

months because of a result of a landslide in 2016. What we wanted to

do was do something special to say something like a thank you to the

local community for their patients at that time. We will put on around

6000 seats on the services over the last -- over the course of three

days and I expect the seats to be filled and it will be a great event

and something everyone will enjoy. Alan and Carey not paying

passengers, basking in the past and glimpsing another age. We saw it

advertised and thought it would be a really nice idea to come on a steam

train. A bit of nostalgia, really and then we realised it was

Valentine's Day so we thought we would tie the two in together.

Instant nostalgia something like this, really. You have the sun and

the steam out in the carriages and the old rolling stock. What is not

to like about it? This is what is being recreated. Sunday, August 11,

1968. The very last train to operate on standard gauge track hurled by a

British Railways steam locomotive. The 15 Guinea special ran from

Liverpool to Carlisle and back, partly on the Tornado route. Then

450 passengers paid the equivalent of ?250 say goodbye to 138 years of

history, the end of steam. -- to say goodbye. For three days though, it

will have a resurrection. The soot and the noise is taking the

passengers back down the years, but then the diesel train returns,

smoother, quieter, faster, cleaner, steam usurped, just as it was nearly

50 years ago. It does look fantastic. What my idea

of a romantic Valentine's Day. -- not my idea. My husband Robbie

sneaked off to have a look at it today. Big matches tonight.

Striker Dwight Gayle is back in Newcastle's squad for tonight's

The Magpies top scorer has been out of action with a hamstring injury

and his return will give the team a lift as they attempt to retain

the Championship's number one spot against the play-off chasing

Dwight Gayle has scored 20 goals in 24 games this season, including a

hat-trick against Norwich in a seven goal thriller back in September.

Newcastle are a less threatening beast without him, and they have not

lost a league game without him, but the return is tightly. It's

important to have the top scorer coming back. -- timely. He was doing

really well and hopefully he can carry on. After a mid-season

collapse, Norwich, who were relegated alongside Newcastle, on a

roll. A 5-1 demolition of Nottingham Forest is evidence of what they can

do, and Rafa Benitez surprise they are not further up the table. At the

first part of the season, it was clear that they were a candidate to

win the title. They are a team with experience, the manager, the

players, the quality, everything. They were in a very good position

and I thought they would be at the top of the table fighting for second

or first position, so they are doing well. Again, that means they will be

dangerous. Their home form is strong, while Newcastle have been

better on the road, which might suggest a goalless draw is likely,

but the last two games between -- three games between the two have

produced 20 goals. They are balanced in the approach, but the three games

have been high-scoring affairs, so if this is half and entertaining as

the last three it will be a good game. Fingers crossed.

Well, in League Two, there's another big game

on leaders Doncaster Rovers at Brunton Park tonight.

Keith Curle's side are still third in the table but only just

and the Blues will have to tighten up defensively after

losing 4-1 to mid-table Blackpool at the weekend.

Live match commentary on BBC Radio Cumbria.

Hartlepool who also conceded four goals on Saturday can do Carlisle

a big favour tonight if they can beat fourth placed Luton Town.

The Hatters will leapfrog Carlisle if they beat

A really tough away trip for Dave Jones side.

BBC Tees will bring you all the action from that one.

On to snooker, and a couple of Gateshead lads have

been in action today at the Welsh Open in Cardiff.

Gary Wilson put up a brave fight before going down

by four frames to three, against Rory McLeod.

And 22 y-ear-old Elliot Slessor faced a tough first round battle

against two-time world champion Mark Williams.

Slessor beat the home favourite and Welsh legend by four frames

to three in the best-of-seven tie to progress to the second round.

Great stuff. Thank you. Time for the weather with Jennifer. You are

looking very spring like. And it felt like spring was on its way at

lunchtime. What a difference a bit of sunshine

can make. We saw it coming through today and the sunshine has a bit of

warmth to it and the temperatures have been milder as well. A lovely

picture for Valentine's Day to start, from Allinson -- Alison. A

heart-shaped ruck ball, and a little heart-shaped ray of sunshine for

Valentine's Day -- rock pool. It will be mild over the next few days

and a bit more in the way of cloud and we have seen today and some

light rain at times and the forecast as well. This is the satellite

picture from earlier showing where the cloud is or isn't and we have

had plenty of blue skies, but this is a weather front and it's going to

bring lots of cloud and rain through the night. And tonight we can see

the cloud across all parts and it is mostly light and patchy and we will

have missed and Hill fog and the temperature will drop to around five

or 6 degrees. First thing tomorrow morning it is a bit of a great

start, dry initially and we will see spells pushing into Cumbria and

sunshine breaking through at times. By three in the afternoon we have

the showers in Cumbria and they will be hit and miss in temperatures up

to 10 Celsius. We will see the sunshine coming through.

Temperatures around eight or nine Celsius but still feeling pleasant

way you get the sunshine. And the showers will clear away to the east.

We could see a few patches of mist and fog. The temperatures will fall

back to six or 7 degrees. A little bit of cloud around. And we will

seek sunshine breaking through again. Eastern parts will favour for

the sunshine but they should be largely day on Thursday and picking

up a little bit of strength and a breezy afternoon to come with

temperatures around nine or 10 Celsius. We have a bridge of high

pressure on Friday that will keep things generally settled but out in

the Atlantic we have some weather fronts which will make its weight

in, so we expect a fair amount of cloud and some outbreaks of rain at

times. -- its way. Through Friday, calm day, temperatures around 10

Celsius across the board so it will feel mild, fair amount of cloud but

on Saturday we will see some outbreaks of rain and temperatures

still doing well with highs of 11 degrees. We're halfway to spring.

Very nice. That is it from us. How many valentines did you get? Wrong.

My wife forgot. She's been very busy -- one. We will see you tomorrow.

# I knew you were trouble when you walked in

# Now I'm lying on the cold, hard ground

They want to get to me through my son.

I'm a detective with the Metropolitan Police.

How long did you resist working for us?