29/11/2011 North West Tonight

Good evening and welcome to the programme. Our top story: Tornado

trouble - high winds hit the north- west, damaging houses, cars and

bringing down trees. We will be reporting live from for

one of the worst hit areas. The north-west prepares for a day

in which thousands of public sector workers are to strike.

School drop off as normal this morning but it will not be tomorrow.

We will have the very latest on the strike, what it means to those

taking part and what it will mean to you.

We go behind the scenes with the forensic scientists solving crimes

from the smallest clues. Coming to a community near you? How

fracking for natural gas might just change the face of where you live.

And real life for really desperate TV? What the Liverpudlian Women

think of the new TV show putting Cars smashed, roofs ripped off,

trees pulled out of the ground - parts of the region took a real

battering from freak tornadoes today. A woman was injured in

Stockport when a chimney collapsed in a high winds and crashed into a

busy road. The main road between Darwen and Blackburn was closed

after part of a roof blew off a house. The Isle of Man was hammered

by 70 mph winds. One car there was blown into a river. Our reporter is

in Heaton Moor. It seems quiet now but what is the latest?

Yes, this road has only just reopened after firefighters had to

close it for several hours while they dealt with a series of

incidents along the street. Chimney pots came crashing down from the

roof of the houses behind me. A woman was hit and was taking to

step -- taken to Stepping Hill hospital. The 30 feet section of

tree was left hanging precariously over the main road. Round the

corner another huge tree came crashing down on a terrace of

houses. Luckily no-one was home at the time. They will get a shock

when they get home tonight! This is what people in the area have had to

save. Some people have said it is like Armageddon at the moment.

There is so much debris at the moment. I saw the furniture from

the coffee shop flying past the window. Pieces of carpet from a

carpet shop were flying past. People have compared it to the

Wizard of Oz. Not just Heaton Moor that has been

affected, many other parts of the region, too. Yes, it first hit the

Isle of Man at around 11am today. 75 mph gusts of wind were

registered across the island. That has cost a number of problems. Many

trees have fallen down and blocked roads, a car was even born into a

river at one point. And another motorist had a lucky escape after a

tree came down on their vehicle. In Lancashire there have been problems,

too. Strong winds have ripped part of the roof off of a pub this

afternoon. Other houses nearby were damaged and we hear that one person

was injured and taken to hospital. Tonight the clear-up begins across

the region. Thank you very much. Diane will be

here later in the programme with a full weather forecast.

From midnight tonight across the north-west hundreds of thousands of

public sector staff are expected to strike at -- in protest at changes

to public sector spend -- pensions. Many public services will remain

close to and others will offer a reduced service tomorrow. Annabel

has all the details. Health care is one of their areas

most affected. The union Unison says it expects over 24,000 of its

members in the north-west to go on strike. Our hospitals say emergency

surgery will go ahead and A&E departments will be open as usual.

But many non-emergency operations and out-patient appointments have

been cancelled. For example, at Blackpool Victoria, of the 99 non-

urgent surgeries scheduled for tomorrow, nearly half won't be

going ahead. Central Manchester Universities NHS Foundation Trust,

which runs hospitals including the Manchester Royal Infirmary, say

that two thirds of all non- emergency surgery has been

cancelled. GPs surgeries are due to open as normal but many paramedics

are on strike, so there will be fewer ambulances on the road, and

they will be sent to those who need them most. NHS Northwest says if

your appointment has been cancelled you should have already been told.

We do not know the number of staff who will come in tomorrow. It might

mean fewer ambulances, it might mean delays in getting to 999 cases.

We will always be here and we will try to get a patients as quickly as

we can, but think before you ring 999.

And if you're using hospital services tomorrow there may be some

longer waiting times. The overwhelming majority of north-west

schools are shut tomorrow. Jayne Barrett has been looking at the

impact on a school in Northwich in Cheshire and the fall-out on

parents. The normal school run in Moulton

this morning. Not so tomorrow. an IT manager and we have to

arrange for home care for our children tomorrow. I work for the

bank. It is going to be difficult because I have to get childcare.

But I fully support the strike. For the vast majority of parentss

it is an imposed inconvenience, but one that they understand. For Jayne

it is a choice, but, she says, not an easy one. What do you think of

the Government's argument that we are all in this together and you

are expecting more than other people have? As far as I am

concerned, we already took a hit when our payee was frozen. This is

about our futures and this is about, in 20 years' time for me, the fact

that my pension will not be the pension that I signed up for.

at this late stage there are hopes that the Government and unions

could reach a compromise and call off the strike, not least from

fairly's mother. Tomorrow, Heather Wilde will have to pay �45 for

childcare so that she and her husband can still get to work.

not have a guaranteed pension at the end of my career. And I just

find, you know, I feel quite angry that I have to pay out tomorrow on

the back of this. For there must -- the vast majority of parents,

tomorrow will be a bit of a juggle. An opinion poll has shown that the

majority Arabs abroad. What you think of the strike? I think it is

quite justified, actually. Pensions are a difficult issue that needs

resolving. With few schools remaining open,

very few people will be unaffected by the strike.

Many people planning to travel tomorrow will also feel the effects

of the strike. Immigration staff at the region's airports are taking

part in the industrial action. The union representing many of them,

PCS, expect about 3,200 staff to strike. That is about 80% of those

who should be at work. It means arriving passengers could face a

long wait at passport control. One of the places where travellers will

be most affected his Merseyside, as Andy Gill explains.

Both Mersey road tunnels will be closed tomorrow, except for a lane

of the Wallasey Tunnel open for emergency vehicles only. Normally

drivers make 88,000 journeys a day through the tunnels. Those who

would normally use it will have to find alternative means to get

across the river. That will a perfect bus services across the

river as well, of course. There are no ferries across the Mersey

tomorrow either. That means Mersey Rail's services between Wirral and

Liverpool will be extremely busy. Mersey Rail says it will put on

extra coaches. But it is also advising passengers to book tickets

in advance and avoid the rush hour to prevent severe overcrowding.

Buses and other rail services on Merseyside and elsewhere should run

as normal. The traffic will be affected by marches in Liverpool,

Manchester, Crewe, Blackpool, Preston and Lancaster. Local

government workers will also be on strike.

Normally those who go out on strike would lose out on an attendance

bonus, but the Labour leader of the council has said that workers

should not be punished for going on strike. This is a legitimate strike

being taken by the workforce in a legitimate fashion. I do not think

that people should be punished for that.

The government says that union leaders want to wreck economic

recovery as well as causing misery for millions of ordinary people.

Joining me now is Alan Manning, regional secretary for the Trades

Union Congress. Thank you for coming in. We heard

him one of the report's there that there is public support for what is

happening tomorrow. Not withstanding that, there are still

many people who will say that what the unions are striking over

tomorrow is pensions and actually the deal on the table is better

than many private sector workers get. I think that what you have to

understand is that what public service -- sector workers are

facing is injustice. We have seen pay freezes, cuts in services, and

then, on top of that, public service workers are being asked to

pay an additional 3% in contributions. None of that will go

into their pension schemes. It is all about money to the Treasury. If

it were about pensions, we should have had a negotiated settlement by

now. Notwithstanding that the Government

has to make savings and still the employer's contributions into

public sector pensions, some people do not get any in a private pension.

Let us put it in context. The money that the government might want to

raise from nurses and teachers is almost equivalent to the amount of

money the Treasury decided it didn't need when it cancelled the

bankers bonus tax. These are political choices, it is not about

the sustainability of the pension scheme. It is the Government saying

to public sector workers that they have to make sacrifices when other

sectors of society are not. What would you say to private sector

people to more who have nowhere to take their children because their

school is close than they have to pay out money out of their pocket

in order to go to their own work. What I would say to them and the

parents who are public sector workers who will find inconvenience

that we very much regret all of that. This is not something that

unions want to see. Strikes and industrial action are absolutely

the last resort. We have been trying for months and months to

negotiate a settlement. It has proved impossible and this is the

only route that workers have to go down. It takes two sites to make a

bargain, so the responsibility by the disruption tomorrow is on the

Government's failure to negotiate. The Government has made a

concession. Clearly the strike will go ahead tomorrow but are the

unions prepared to come back in Nicosia? Be Government only started

to make new offers when we balloted for industrial action. We want them

to sit down with us to reach a proper settlement. That can

happen.... More strikes? If the government might does not come to

the table with real proposals them for the action is possible.

Now more of the day's news. Wythenshawe Hospital have

apologised to the family of an 82- year-old woman who went into

hospital for a routine operation and came out with serious burns. A

year later, Joyce Hardingham's family say she is still struggling

to recover from the trauma of being accidentally set alight. The

hospital has admitted liability and says it was an isolated incident.

Joyce's burns are Severe and you may find some of the images in it

Nina Warhurst's report upsetting. Joyce Hardingham was an active and

healthy 81-year-old. She enjoyed taking her car to the garden centre

and visiting friends. Two months after this family gathering choice

became a different woman. Most photographs of Joyce after being

burned at Wythenshawe Hospital are too distressing to show, but these

pictures tell a small part of the story. Last November she had gone

in for a routine operation to change the battery on her pacemaker,

but suddenly the alcohol-based gel which had been used as an

antiseptic caught fire from a spark on the hospital equipment.

It could so easily have been no fatalities. And 81-year-old lady

does not recover well from a significant fire trauma whilst in

the hair of a hospital. It has taken her a year. We are pleased to

say she will be joining us for Christmas dinner this year. But she

is not the lady who was around prior to the incident.

We're very sorry that this has happened. We do around 5,500

procedures each year. But we use this solution routinely and this

has never happened before. We're sorry we about what has happened in

Joyce's family joys's family say that she will live with the scars

from her injuries. They are seeking compensation. An

inquest has heard that the former Bolton and Everton midfielder Gary

Speed died from hanging. His body was discovered by his wife at his

home in Huntington near Chester early on Sunday morning. The

inquest has been adjourned until the end of January. Meanwhile, fans

have continued to pay tribute to the 42-year-old father of two.

Books of condolence have been opened by the Everton Football Club.

George Osborne has confirmed he is setting up a new enterprise on in

Lancashire. It will cover the area around the two BAE Systems plants

at Warton and Samlesbury. The Chancellor has also approved a �54

million investment in Manchester's bus network. It will be spent on

changing the road layout on the East Lancs, on Rochdale Road and in

Manchester city centre. It will also see Oxford Road closed to cars

between the Aquatics Centre and Manchester Royal Infirmary.

The Merseyside author Helen Forrester has died at the age of 92.

The Wirral-born writer was behind the best seller Twopence To Cross

The Mersey, which told the tale of her poverty-stricken early life. It

was later turned into a successful musical. We have heard much about

the controversy surrounding drilling for shale gas deep beneath

Lancashire. Fracking is linked to earth tremors and there are fears

for the environment. But there are two sides to every story. In the

second of his reports from Bradford County Pennsylvania, a place that

has seen massive amount of drilling, Peter Marshall looks at the

economic implications of living with fracking.

The dash for gas is making its mark on Bradford County. In its endless

mountains, seemingly endless pipelines. But the mark is far from

just cosmetic. We built this simply because we saw the gas industry

here, we saw what was going to continue, and we would not have

built this hotel of it was not for the industry coming to this area.

Let them come to your area because it will be a great experience. It

is like Christmas every day, every day. So we have been extremely

fortunate. It does help this community wonderfully, it has

helped our business, surrounding businesses. We have not seen

anything that resembles a recession whatsoever. Hit Main Street Towanda

and you get a sense of how the gas industry workers have boosted the

local economy. These are miniatures of the drill bits that they use. We

started staying open and hour later on Friday so that we could

accommodate them, which makes it nice for them and for us. So your

business and the gas industry work well together? Are very well

together. Absolutely, yes. Indeed, a survey of local businesses

concluded early effects of the gas rush have been positive. 32% of

respondents said sales were up, while 3% were down. Who is

benefiting most? Well, 100% of hotels and camp grounds said sales

had increased, as did almost half of retail outlets, 30% of bars and

restaurants and 29% of tourist destinations. Bradford County also

has the lowest unemployment rate in These jobs that are here now were

high-paid jobs. You could see a high-school graduate leave school

and they could see a salary of 60 sit -- 60,070 $1,000 per year. It

is very substantial. There are is no doubting that the rush for gas

brings economic benefits, but people who live with that in their

community say that the most important thing is to make sure

that proper does not ride roughshod over environmental concerns.

-- profit. Tomorrow we will meet the people

who believe the dollars don't make up for all the disruption.

We often see them on the television at crime scenes - mysterious

figures clad head-to-toe in white. At team in Lancashire have allowed

our chief reporter Dave Guest rare and exclusive access to see what

they do close-up. He joins them on to my very different investigations.

They are not police officers but they are on the front line of

solving crime. And the other men and women of Lancashire's crime

scene investigation team. Crime scenes come in all shapes, sizes

and locations. This white van is one. It has been seized by police

investigating the theft of cash dispensers. We never know until we

open the doors. We would be expecting some tools that have been

used in the burglaries. We will open it up, see what we get and

take some observations first. Preston, Glen is on the scene of a

burglary. This elderly woman was shocked to find a thief coming out

of her bedroom. He escaped with a ring that belonged to her mother.

The thief ran down the stairs so Glenn is dusting it for

fingerprints. Back at the vehicle Recovery Centre, John and Jessica

begin their search for evidence which could link the tools in his

van to a series of robbery at -- robberies where cash machines have

been cut from their concrete mountains. They wear these suits to

prevent cross-contamination at the scene. I also have to get suited up.

We have to recover anything that may be relevant to the

investigation. Glenn does not wear a protective suit here because

cross-contamination is not an issue. However, the issue of collecting

useful fingerprints is proving difficult. There is a pattern of

ridges and the pattern of ridges here takes up the pattern of ridges

in the fingers. Not any good? Unfortunately not. There is not

enough detail. For John and Jessica even the

tiniest scrap of potential evidence must be collected. Fragments of

concrete dust could link this vehicle to the scene of a robbery.

DNA on a drinks container could incriminate a suspect. Ultimately

it is for others to decide how relevant or otherwise the material

they have picked up today is going to be in the case. But they know

they cannot afford to look -- overlooked any potential clue, no

matter how small. Tomorrow we will discover how the

team search of clues from this scene of devastation in a burgled

home. We knew he would not resist getting

into one of those suits, didn't we?! They cost �85 million and have

scored just six goals between them since January. Liverpool replaced

Fernando Torres with Andy Carroll and seem to have swapped one

underperforming striker for another. Tonight they are likely to come

face-to-face as Liverpool takes on Torres' current club, Chelsea, in

the Carling Cup. Blackburn and Manchester City are in the quarter-

finals, too, as Stuart Flinders reports.

He shoots, he misses. Liverpool offloaded him to Chelsea in January

and spent much of the fee on finding someone more reliable. Only

he wasn't. Andy Carroll cost Liverpool �35 million. Chelsea paid

50 for Torres. Caroll's played 15 times in the Premier League since

then, Torres 20. The goals tally? Three each, meaning Andy Carroll's

goals cost nearly �12 million apiece, Torres' nearly �17 million.

Suarez scored both of Liverpool's goals to get them to the quarter-

finals. Kenny Dalglish is complaining about fixture

congestion. Roberto Mancini agrees with Kenny Dalglish. He says it is

a problem not just for the clubs but undermines England's chances of

winning City are at Hartnell tonight after hammering Wolves in

the previous round 5-2. Blackburn scored four against Andy Carroll's

old club Newcastle to reach the quarter-finals. They travel to

Cardiff. They are not the wrong way things

linking Liverpool and Chelsea. There has been Made In Chelsea and

are The Only Way Is Essex. Now dramatised reality TV has turned

its spotlight on Liverpool with Desperate Scousewives. Described by

its producers as Brookside with glitter balls, it has prompted a

Liverpool MP to call it regional racism. Mark Edwardson reports.

It is reality TV with scripts and storylines. Glamourous Scouse women

hitching up with Liverpool's eligible men. Jessica Shanelle and

Amie settling down to watch it in West Derby. I hate the Scouse

accent on the telly. I have got a really good feeling about this.

They are proper common. She sounds like she is from Birkenhead.

think since the on the way is Essex it is about that style of things.

It is realistic, but is just what they're saying, it is too much like,

you say you bet, I will say my bet. The producers say: Walton MP Steve

Rotherham thinks otherwise. It will play right into the hands

of those people who unfortunately still have negative stereotypes

about our city and its citizens. You can see on a Saturday afternoon

that there are girls walking around with their rollers in. So they have

got it pretty much right. Liverpool is really not like that. With it

being Desperate Scousewives I think it should have been more of an

everyday thing rather than going out every night. Will you be

watching next week? Yes. I debt that we will have to watch

now. -- I definitely will have to watch now.

The weather is the big story today. We will not talk to you about

reality TV shows, it is serious It has been dramatic enough through

the day. We have had all sorts of problems. Our lives shot from

Salford shows the come after the storm. It has been an incredibly

difficult today. There were tornadoes in the north-west. The

rain hit the Isle of Man first, as Barbara's photograph shows. The

wins were up to 50 vied mph at times. -- winds. We have had one or

two tornadoes reported through the day to day. The we have to go back

to November 1981 when there were 105 in one day as a cold front

whipped its way across the UK. It is this cold front that has caused

the problems today. This is our latest picture. The rain is a thing

of the past. It is out in the North Sea, moving away now. Behind that

there are some showers, some of some of them heavy. There could be

some snow on the Pennines. In the early hours of the morning a lot of

the showers will die away for an hour or two. The overnight

temperatures could be as low as two Celsius in parts. The showers will

start as the sun is coming up. Once again, I think they will be fairly

lively through the morning. Sunshine will be in short supply.

There is another feature coming towards us at the end of the day

tomorrow. It looks like it will affect the course and then run up

to parts of Cumbria and Lancashire. It could move anywhere, though. The

wind could be up to 50 mph. A lively one again.

I think I got caught up in that because I live quite near Stockport.

As I was driving in today it was horrendous. Luckily very short

lived. Yes. But very dynamic. It caused a lot of damage as well,