06/03/2017 South Today - Oxford

The dangers of air pollution to your health and what authorities

A dark day at Didcot as a non-league football match

And the latest on Oxford's bus strike as passengers again are hit

by industrial action, with drivers putting two more strike

First tonight, the head of the World Health Organisation

says more than 90% of the world's population breathe poor quality air,

presenting a greater health problem than HIV or Ebola.

But this isn't only a problem for Beijing,

Cherwell District Council has estimated as many as 10% of adult

deaths in Oxfordshire may be due to air pollution.

Toxic pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, particularly

from diesel vehicles, are at dangerously high levels

Oxfordshire's lead GP for respiratory conditions thinks

air pollution is having a direct impact on some of his patients.

When people come and see me, they say they have been much better

until they came to Oxford city, whereupon they got all

Equally, you will find people who have struggled

to control their asthma and then they move back home or go away

from the Thames Valley only to discover their symptoms get better.

Pollution levels in Oxford have been cut by a third over the past decade

but the city and county councils want to do more.

One idea is to create a zero emission zone,

only accessible to electric vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians.

It has to go in those streets where pollution is dangerously high.

It's worked very successfully in the high street where we see only

buses during the daytime, so it is a similar sort of thing.

People are used to not bringing their cars into Oxford

Pollution targets are being breached in 11 areas across Oxfordshire,

including the market town of Wallingford.

Here, there are proposals to close the main bridge to try to reduce

the amount of vehicles travelling through the town but the idea

I think closing it will be really difficult for

It will certainly make it more pleasant walking across the bridge

It is a possibility if it helps but I am not sure it will be

Environmental campaigners say lives are at risk if more action is not

We are specifically talking about the air quality management

action zone in the centre of town which has had illegally toxic

limits that break the EU directives for 12 years.

And it's that that will be stopped by doing this.

Back in Oxford, councillors say attitudes to how we get

It's investing in electric charging points and hopes a zero emission

So, what does all this pollution do to us?

Earlier, I spoke to Dr Matt Loxham, who studies airborne pollution

at Southampton University and asked him how air pollution

People who are otherwise healthy, they might just get

a cough or a sore throat, but in people who are at risk,

and this can be asthmatics, it can be very young people,

very old people, we see a whole range of health effects

that we wouldn't see if they weren't in polluted environments,

things like asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes,

they are all linked to exposure to air pollution, and right

across the life course, from very young children to elderly

people, you see these effects of air pollution that you wouldn't see

When we cover stories like this, we often bombard

Is there really a safe level of pollution?

That is one of the things we are pretty sure about,

there is no safe limit, so however low it goes,

as long as there is pollution there, it's still damaging your health.

The good news is that if you make any reduction, it will result in

an improvement to health, so any reduction is better

than nothing but there's always further we can go.

So, in brief there is no straightforward one bullet

It's got to involve a lot of joined-up thinking,

a lot of activity from a wide range of contributors, whether this is

big companies and big organisations or people at the individual level

as well, and it's got to involve commitment from all of those

groups of society as well, and it's only then, with all this

joined-up work, will we really see a major impact on air quality

Other news now and officials at Didcot Town Football Club

are counting the cost after a pitch invasion by away supporters

saw their stadium vandalised and players abused.

Hereford fans invaded the patch and match officials

Fans and stewards spill from the terraces and onto the turf,

in a scene more resembling of a bar-room brawl

Today, staff at Didcot Town FC were assessing the damage,

after their home game with Hereford turned into chaos.

We were being battered at that time so we knew we weren't

And then all of a sudden we saw a ruckus on the pitch,

our goalkeeper was surrounded by a few supporters

and our own players trying to protect him, and,

yeah, it sort of kicked off from there.

This stadium has a capacity of more than 3,000 people

but for Saturday's visit of Hereford there was a gate of 796.

Now, 700 of those were away supporters, and all was fine,

until the 87th minute, when Hereford took the lead.

Luckily, we had TV footage available to us, we had a company

which was filming this game, so we've got everything, in HD,

wonderfully, so, yeah, we'll be presenting that

to the Southern League and the FA when we're called upon to do that,

and they hopefully have captured everything that went on.

Two men have been arrested following the incident,

and in a statement a spokesperson for Hereford FC said...

It's yet to be decided if Saturday's result will stand,

or whether any potential rematch will be played behind closed doors.

Bus drivers in Oxford have gone on strike for a second day.

Unite union members at the Oxford Bus Company

are demanding payment for working five holiday days over Christmas.

For the latest, our spoke to our reporter David Lumb.

If you ever wanted an indication of the strength of feeling around

this, you could see it quite clearly today.

There were more than 100 workers on the picket line -

many of them with placards, flags, vuvuzelas.

It was really, really emotional and strong.

A number of services have been disrupted.

They include the X90 bus service between London and Oxford.

The Unite union, which has been backing these workers,

says it wasn't a decision that was taken lightly.

However, the passengers and the public have been really

We humbly apologise for the disruption but at the end

of the day you have to make a stand and the only way you can make

a stand is to do what the guys and gals are doing behind me.

On the face of this it's a dispute about how much workers should get

In practice, though, the union says that that is just

the straw that broke the camel's back.

It says workers have deep-rooted frustrations about the pay

and working conditions they are having to deal with.

I did speak to Phil Southall from the Oxford Bus Company.

He says that he's made a number of offers,

Well, today we've managed to get around 90% of the service out.

We are focusing on minimising the inconvenience to our customers,

so we've got a really good level of service out, we've had more

people coming to work than we were expecting and therefore

we have tried to minimise the impact in what was very difficult

Two more days of strike action have been scheduled for next Friday

Both sides say they hope an agreement can be

More than 100 people have taken part in a women's

The event in Cowley over the weekend included practical workshops

about improving strength and flexibility,

There were also talks from female champions and local cycling clubs.

We're back in BBC Breakfast tomorrow morning, but for now goodnight

and with the weather here's Alexis Green.

We've had a lot of dry weather today but through the course of this week

There will also be some dry interludes and some sunny

It will turn milder, especially from Thursday onwards.

Under the clear skies tonight, there may be a frost

There, temperatures could fall to around one Celsius.

These are temperatures in our towns and cities.

The winds will be fairly light to start the day tomorrow

but through the course of the morning, after blue skies

initially, the sunshine will turn hazy and we will see increasing

cloud during the latter part of the afternoon.

Through daylight hours, it should stay mainly dry tomorrow,

with some decent amounts of sunshine, and temperatures

It is tomorrow evening and overnight tomorrow night the cloud

will thicken even further and we will see some outbreaks

of rain, which could be heavy at times during the early hours

So, a soggy start to Wednesday, some torrential downpours in places.

Temperatures tomorrow night will drop to around 5-6dC.

So, a wet start in places on Wednesday.

Slowly but surely things will start to dry out during the course

of the day but it may take some time in a few places with a few brighter

spells through the afternoon, and a milder temperature.

The winds coming in on the south-west, drawing in that

Atlantic mild air and, with it, a weather front

which will bring a change in the air coming in from the Atlantic

So on Thursday we could see highs of 14, even 15.

And a similar scenario also on Friday.

Both Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will be very similar days.

Good deal of cloud, one or two brighter spells,

and the chance of outbreaks of rain at times.

But there will be some dry interludes between the rain,

and on Friday we're looking at highs of 12-13.

Now, looking ahead to the weekend, it is a few days away

so things can change but, at the moment, there will be some

Showers as well, and windy, and feeling a little less mild

cool, it will be windy at times as well and still rather unsettled with

some blustery showers around. That's the London forecast and now for the

National forecast, over to Nick Miller.

North-west France and Plymouth were miles apart weather-wise. This

southern flank in north-west France there was a wind gusts of 120 mph

which we just dodged. That area of low pressure continues to move

quickly south-eastwards so that by tomorrow it is in Italy on its

southern flank, stormy in Sardinia and around it strong winds blowing

through south-east France. We've got a little bump in the ice bars with

lighter winds, a brief ridge of high pressure, things briefly settled

going into tomorrow, overnight there are some showers around moving

through western Scotland and north-west England and the Midlands,

clearing Wales, one or two in the east, the North Sea tip of high

pressure, things briefly settled going into tomorrow, overnight there

are some showers around moving through western Scotland