22/03/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Hello and welcome to Wednesday's Look North.

Tonight: Our MPs describe events at Westminster from the Houses

Also coming up: The charities struggling to survive

A government report says 16 road projects should be

Will the A1 upgrade in Northumberland be one of them?

Snow hits towns and villages across the North.

Roads are closed and travel is disrupted.

And why we're being urged to stop paving over our front gardens.

In sport: An eight goal thriller as Wembley-bound York City

And the bikes without brakes are back!

We look at what the new speedway season has in store.

Some of the North's MPs have been describing events at Westminster,

The Houses of Parliament were put into lockdown shortly after events

began to unfold just before 2.45pm this afternoon.

So far we know a police officer and three other people

MPs were kept inside Parliament following the attack and have

been talking to the BBC about what they saw and heard.

On my way around the building I have kind of come across the view out of

some stairs looking down across Westminster Bridge, where there is

quite obviously ambulance staff and police officers. As I was moving

from one part of the building to another I heard a lot of shouting

and I gather that there were armed police officers within the confines

of the building running around, but, you know, irony can't tell you much

that I witnessed myself other than looking across Westminster Bridge

from one of the stairwells where it is quite obvious that there is

police and Ambulance Service personnel attending to people. We

were in a meeting of Liberal Democrat peers and we could hear

shouting going on outside which was obviously police officers shouting

instructions to each other and at that point the House of Commons

sitting was suspended. My main concern is for the people who have

been killed or injured in various parts. You worry that somebody

somewhere is going to get injured but I am reasonably confident that

we have good procedures in operation to keep people are safe as possible.

We have been marshalled around various parts of the building as

they have been clearing the building and searching it, sweeping it. We

have just left, the group I am with has just left Westminster Hall. They

have taken us across Westminster, which is completely eerie and scary

empty, and we are now being taken into Westminster Abbey where

everybody will be individually processed and, given that is 3000

staff and 1000 Lords and 250 -- 650 MPs, I think we're probably going to

be if most of the night. We're on our way to go and vote and we heard

a shot. I think that wasn't particularly the moment that you

realise that there is something up, it is more that when there is a

stream of people streaming towards the chamber and then they'll start

streaming back again. Terrible incident in what must be one of the

most secure locations in the country. Yes, you walk around

Parliament and UC smiling and very reassuring characters, officers in

your -- uniform, with guns. I think the obvious thing to say is that the

police did a stunning job with the way they reacted so swiftly. Just

immensely impressive and they were so brave, unbelievably brave and

obviously the officer who has been attacked himself is the ultimate

example of that bravery. Other news here this evening.

Charities in some of the poorest parts of our region are facing

a struggle to survive because their public funding has

That's the finding of research from Durham University

which analysed the financial health of more than 3,000 voluntary bodies.

It found those in low income areas were more

dependent on council support, but that help is being cut.

Our Political Correspondent Luke Walton reports.

Prince William at Centrepoint in Sunderland in 2013.

The charity helps homeless young people.

But four years on, it faces the closure of hostels

like this one after it lost local authority funding.

The city council has to make big savings,

and says it's setting up a new service for the homeless.

But the plight of this good cause reflects a wider problem.

Durham University studied thousands of charities across the north.

It found those in the poorest 20% of neighbourhoods were twice

as likely to be financially weak than those in the richest.

Three out of ten medium-sized charities in poor areas reported

The main reason for that is that they are reliant upon money

from either from national government, government departments,

or from local authorities or health authorities locally.

They are reliant on those, quite often the bigger charities

in particular for contracts in medium-sized

This furniture project in Gateshead distributes donated items

It still gets a council grant but says rising demand

We have more and more people coming into us,

people who a few years ago probably would never have thought of having

to come to a furniture project to furnish their homes.

Some of these families are families who are working.

The charity has started a separate online business

I think lots of charities now are looking at ways

I think it is a sign of the times you have to look to subsidise

Fundraising may be part of the solution, but many charities

have only limited opportunity to generate income.

This organisation encourages charitable giving, linking

But it says more can be done to get help where its needed.

Some of these organisations in less well-off parts of the community

are perhaps a bit shyer about going to some of the big

national funders and that is where an organisation like ourselves,

which has great strong connections to grassroots organisations

can perhaps help to build some of those connections.

The Big Society, with its emphasis on the voluntary sector,

was a favourite theme of the last Prime Minister, David Cameron.

But researchers say charities are more important than ever.

The Big Society rhetoric never caught on as well as

I think we are very lucky in this country to have an extremely

strong civil society, but it can't work entirely

on its own mettle, it needs support from the government,

it needs support from foundations to keep it going.

Their help and their handiwork is vital to some of the most

But charities will need more of our backing too if that

Luke, just how serious is the pressure on our charities?

But these findings also show a mixed picture, with many charities

The research says the sector as a whole has been very resilient

and that it continues to make a huge contribution.

For example, charities employ more than 37,000 people

But clearly there are a significant number that are struggling,

and some charities complain they spend so much time

fundraising that it leaves less time to do good work.

This squeeze comes at a time when charities are being asked

We see more cases of local authorities saying they can't afford

to run services like libraries and leisure centres,

and giving volunteers the chance to take them over.

We've reported in the last few weeks that Newcastle council

is considering transferring all its parks and allotments

The worry is that this only increases competition

between charities for a limited pot of charitable money and that

will make these funding pressures even more intense.

It was announced in a blaze of publicity four years ago.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron stood by the side of the A1

in Northumberland and announced the road would be dualled.

Communities have waited for decades for that work to start,

but tonight there are new questions over the scheme.

A Government report says 16 road projects announced in 2014 should be

But officials won't say if the A1 upgrade is one

Well, our News Correspondent joins us live beside the A1

We are on a bridge over the road and somewhere 40 miles in that direction

is Morpeth. The scheme would see a dual carriageway A1 southbound from

here and 17 miles in the opposite direction. There was a blaze of

publicity in December 2014 and the then Prime Minister, David Cameron,

with the obligatory high vis jacket just a few miles from here came to

see what was happening and also to launch those plans. Very exciting at

the time but it is fair to say also that there was an element in local

communities that they would believe it when they saw it and I met up

with David Cameron four years ago and I have this question for them.

This is not, to be clear, unpickable, there's no way this can

I think it would be very difficult for anyone to stop this.

The green light has been given, the money has been made available,

It is there for many years to come and woe betide any politician trying

to stop the great green light that has been given today.

That is a pretty strong reassurance. Why does it now seem in doubt?

This is because of a report that came out today from the National

Audit Office which is the government 's spending watchdog. The report

says that highways England had recommended that 16 of those schemes

that were announced in 2014 should be cancelled or delayed, or they

should be reviewed. Here is the problem. Not the National Audit

Office, or the Department for Transport or highways England, none

of those organisations will tell us which of those 16 schemes are

actually under threat. The Department for Transport have told

me today that highways England will be reviewing the schemes and

reviewing them for cost and effectiveness and there is no plan

to actually scrapped a complete scheme. The reality is we will not

know fully until June when highways England produced a detailed plan of

what is actually happening. Decades of uncertainty and it looks like

more to come. Thank you. Northumbria Police say a man

and a woman have been arrested after two young children were taken

from outside a Newcastle school. The five-year-old girl

and a two-year-old boy were picked-up by a female relative

outside a school in West Denton After an investigation the children

were found at a house later in the afternoon,

safe and well. They're now being returned

to their foster parents. The owners of a North Yorkshire care

home where an elderly resident died after jumping from a second floor

window have said there were no Dora Strickland, who was 90,

jumped from the window at Red Lodge At York Crown Court today

the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust said assessments by a doctor gave no

indication Mrs Strickland was suicidal and there was no

evidence to change her care. In Cumbria three recommendations

have been made by county councillors With the lambing season underway,

North Yorkshire Police are leading a national initiative that

could lead to a tightening up of the law against dog

attacks on livestock. Since September 2013 there have been

325 such attacks in the county, with around 30 sheep killed

in a single incident just last week. Now the police force want

to modernise the law on dog attacks, Attacks on livestock can be

devastating and costly North Yorkshire Police have joined

up with Sheep Watch UK and the Animal Health And Welfare

Board to investigate They will then present a report

to the government in the shape of the all-party parliamentary group

for animal welfare The powers of seizure,

the powers of entry, the way that we deal with people,

they are reflected in the Acts that came about in 1953

and we are looking for In relationship to the penalties

that the act concerns as well, it doesn't reflect

the type of livestock. We have some quite expensive

livestock and the penalties, the maximum fine for it would be

?1,000 which in some respects doesn't reflect the value

of the livestock. What we're asking is for people

to report, have the trust in us to report these matters

to North Yorkshire Police and other surrounding police forces

because it is important that we get a national collation in relation

to incidents so we can report that Judith Skilbeck Farms near Thirsk

and she says there have been horrendous attacks just

in her immediate area. This valley has been quite badly

hit one way or another. We have the Cleveland Way walks

right up through the valley and so you get a lot of people

coming through with dogs and not everybody respects the fact

that there is stock in the fields and when they go through

the fields they can just be It may just be one that they pull

down, but then I've also seen cases where they've chased them

into a corner and they've maybe only pulled one down but, in fact,

I know of a case locally where just this week there was about 30

of them suffocated. If they all get huddled

into a corner they just pile on top of each other and they actually

suffocate each other because they are just

panicking so much. This initiative is expected

to last around six months, with an initial report going back

to MPs in September. Still to come on Wednesday's

Look North: Dawn Thewlis joins me with Wednesday's

sports news shortly. Also why there's a move to green

up our grey gardens. There is some good news for

gardeners as things turned drier and brighter over the next few days but

you have to be prepared for some chilly nights. Join me later for the

full forecast. Winter returned with a vengeance

this morning, at least in some In Cumbria, County Durham

and the North Pennines especially roads were closed and journeys

disrupted by some of the most If it came as a shock to you,

how do you think they felt? On the higher ground

across the region, Parts of the M6 were amongst

the worst affected routes, with long The A66 was closed between Brough

and Bowes, and further East, as was the Kirkstone Pass and Corney

Fell. The A68 here at Castleside

in County Durham was cordoned off. At Blanchland and Slaley

in Northumberland, school buses For many it was a morning

of disruption and Well, we were going to Otterburn

but we have had to cancel that. As you can see from our ages,

in our youth we experienced Do you think we make too

much of the odd inch? It was a bit snowy, the village

was completely white when I got up at 6:30am,

but it seems to be We had a couple of staff

who couldn't get through this morning, but everyone is clearing up

and getting on with it. We live out here, work out here,

we just get on with it. Well, it's been six years

since we had anything like a severe winter and you might have thought

you'd seen the back of this one but, as any of the farmers around

here could tell you, some of the harshest conditions,

including snow, can But from those who remember many

a worse day than this, So, the days are getting longer

again and at the weekend we'll be No excuse then to ignore

the garden any more. And in North Yorkshire a timely

campaign has been launched By that, they mean putting

plants wherever you can, With more cars on the road

there is pressure on parking, but paving front gardens can

contribute to flooding and pollution, so a campaign has been

launched to do things differently. Here is a possible solution,

laid out by the Royal Horticultural Society

at Harlow Carr Gardens in Harrogate. Over the last ten years more

and more people have been paving over their front gardens

and in Yorkshire and Humber we know that 19% more front gardens

are now being paved over As well as looking more grey

it is actually not a great space for natural habitats and also

was not very good in terms of creating flooding issues

and water management. The first thing is to know

that there is paving and paving. This limestone aggregate is sitting

on a porous membrane underneath so water can drain

through it into the soil beneath. Not into drains

are causing flooding. This gutter shield still does

the job, but it helps the whole place look like a garden rather

than a car park. Other tips include planting

in the awkward corners. They provide somewhere

for the birds. We are looking at how we can add

more containers to every garden, window boxes, containers,

and then keep changing the displays. It adds interest to all of our lives

walking through a street Green space is proven

to reduce pollution, improve air quality,

so every little bit helps. A pretty front garden adds kerb

appeal and value to houses, but then so does a parking space,

so a garden combining the two really County Durham schoolchildren

are being encouraged to get their families involved

in an exercise programme which offers rewards

for exploring their home towns Beat the Street is an activity

using smart cards which are swiped against electronic boxes installed

on lamp-posts at various locations. This week the activity

is centred on Ferryhill, where local children have been

practising at school. The way it works is that we will be

giving cards to adults in the community as well as fobs

to children in schools, who are then encouraged to use those fobs

and cards to tap on boxes When they tap the lamp post they get

ten points and points make prizes so the more boxes they tap,

the more travelling they do We only had skipping ropes and

roller-skates! Shall be stop there? Shoving our age!

Gateshead remain in the National League play-off zone

after extending their unbeaten run to nine games last night,

And in the basement battle an impressive comeback

from York City saw them pull off a dramatic victory against bottom

club Southport, in an eight goal thriller at Bootham Crescent.

York hoping their FA Trophy success could be the catalyst

And it was the Minstermen who took the lead after just four minutes,

But Southport responded with two goals in the space of a minute.

Louis Almond curling in the equaliser before Rory McKeown

fired in from 30 yards to give the visitors the advantage.

When Almond's second of the night took the score to 3-1,

it looked like it might be game over for York, but in first-half injury

time Vadaine Oliver's header gave them renewed hope.

John Parkin's deserved equaliser provided a platform for Gary Mills

side to step up a gear and Parkin turned provider for Amari Morgan

And Parkin wasn't finished, heading in Sam Muggleton's long

throw to bag all three points and close the gap on Torquay who're

With a game in hand Gary Mills could have the momentum he now needs

At the other end of the table Gateshead remain in the play-off

positions after picking up a point against Guiseley.

Against the run of play the West Yorkshire side took

the lead courtesy of Jake Lawlor, but after the break break

Wesley York made the most of a mistake from former Carlisle

man Derek Asamoah to send the equaliser into the top corner

The new speedway season is already underway,

with Berwick Bandits the first of the region's four teams

to take to the track for what is, remarkably,

The Bandits, along with Newcastle Diamonds,

Redcar Bears and Workington Comets, will race in the renamed Speedway GB

And for two of our clubs it's been a winter of change,

The bikes are turning over once again, as they tend

But more than a decade after bringing the sport

back to his local track, a familiar name is

He did a sterling job in Redcar in the last few years and kept us in

the league and kept it running but he has decided to step down in the

director has asked me to get involved and I have been running the

junior side speedway and the directors think I can do a great job

and hopefully I will them right. Back in 1992, Brian Havelock's son,

Gary, was crowned World Champion. His career cut short

by this dreadful crash Now Gary, from Yarm,

is back in the region, but as team manager of the new-look

Berwick Bandits. Speedway clubs come and go and yet

Berwick have been going for 50 years. What is it about speedway

here? We don't have big shopping complexes and cinemas and things

like that, our primary form of entertainment on Saturday night is

speedway. We have a lot of areas around us in the Borders where

people travel from and we're lucky to have a lot of those towns that

are very enthusiastic about the speedway.

Workington look to have pulled-off one of the best signings

of the close season, bringing Whitehaven-born Craig Cook,

a former National League and Premier League Riders' Champion,

back home to West Cumbria after eight years away.

It has been a long time coming to come back and work here. It is a

fantastic track and a track I love to ride and nobody ever wants to be

away from their home club and to be back and Captain and leading them in

the backlit is really exciting times for me.

And if the Comets think they can challenge for honours this season

We have got two of Britain's most exciting and best young riders and

to keep both of them was a tremendous achievement really. We

had those two top British riders to lead the way back to a very good

squad. For all of our clubs, let us hope for a productive and injury

free season. Teesside's Paul Drinkhall has been

named in the England squad for the World Championships

in Dusseldorf at the end of May. Drinkhall and two other members

of the squad won team bronze last year and reached the Olympic

quarterfinal of the team Now it is time for the weather.

Our weekly of the snow now, do we think? It is getting better. And

improving situation. It couldn't be much worse after this morning! It

was a fairly miserable day to day. With the rain and the sleek and the

snow earlier on today at to rain for most places as the day went on and

we have gradually seen an improvement over the next day or so.

There is still plenty of rain around tonight but the next few days will

see things drying up nicely and we see some good sunny spells by day.

It is still cold enough for a touch of frost overnight, even as we had

through the weekend and next week. This evening a lot of cloud and

still outbreaks of rain and a bit of hill snow around it. It is mostly on

the very tops of the hills this evening and overnight. The rain

tends to be a bit more intermittent but it will not die away completely

as we head into tomorrow morning. Temperatures drop down to three or

four and it will feel cold wet you are exposed to the wind. Not the

most promising start tomorrow with a lot of cloud around and some rain

but the ranger Peter out fairly quickly through the morning and the

cloud will lift them break and essentially by lunchtime there is a

nice and sunny picture across the region with quite a change. With the

sunshine temperatures will lift just about into double figures and in the

west we see 11 degrees. It will feel a bit cooler, especially in the

east, as we still have quite a brisk and fresh wind coming off the North

Sea. It will be eight or nine near the north-east coast and it will

feel fresher. A much quieter spell of weather as we head towards the

weekend. I pressure builds and it quiet and is the weather down. The

ridge of high pressure stays over the top of us as we had through the

weekend and probably into the next working week as well. It will keep

us mostly dry as we had through Friday. Still an easterly breeze

there and not feeling tropically warm, I don't think, but when you

get a bit of brightness it should feel quite pleasant with

temperatures up to 11 or 12. That is 54 Fahrenheit. This weekend more the

same and the winds are light on Saturday with not a lot of cloud

around at all underneath the high pressure. Plenty of blue sky,

sunshine and highs of 14. It is another fine and dry day for most of

us on Sunday. Perhaps a bit more clout than similar temperatures and

light winds but in between times cold enough for maybe a touch of

Frost through the weekend at night. That is a nice looking weekend.

Thank you very much. I should have checked this of course, but I think

it is Steph with us tonight. I believe it is, yes. That is it

from us tonight. Goodbye.