11/12/2013 South Today

News at Six, so it's goodbye from me, and on BBC One we now join the

Hello, I'm Laura Trant. Welcome to South Today. In tonight's programme:

An increase in people being diagnosed with HIV ` especially

among older women. I was bedridden, fed with drip is, they were giving

me blood. I was totally reliant on staff for everything.

New evidence ` a fatal flat fire in Littlehampton is now being treated

as arson and murder. Cutting funds aimed at helping those

who are cut off ` the bus budgets being slashed.

And he stood against Napoleon, but now a tree planted by the Duke of

Wellington has finally fallen. It is actually an honour to be at

the top of those trees because the viewer is fantastic. It is a great

shame that the trees have to come down.

There has been an increase in the number of people diagnosed with HIV

across the South. Reading, Southampton, Bournemouth and

Portsmouth have all seen a rise in the number of those living with the

condition between 2011 and 2012. Figures from Public Health England

show that there was a 10% increase in people living with HIV in

Reading, to 325 people. Southampton saw an 8% rise to 310. In

Bournemouth, there was a 4% increase in those living with HIV, to 335.

The rise in Portsmouth was smaller, 2%, up to 215. One of the biggest

rises in those newly diagnosed was among older women. Tom Hepworth has

this exclusive report. Anna is 62. After her marriage broke

up she met a man on holiday in the Caribbean. She began a relationship.

On one visit her boyfriend collapsed. The doctor came to visit

and said, are we treating you for anything in this hospital? And then

I heard him say, they are treating me for aids. I cannot really

complain how I felt. It was like my stomach was going to fall out of me.

People with HIV are living longer thanks to advances in treatment.

But, increasingly, older people are being diagnosed, particularly women.

Ten years ago, just over 100 women over the age of 50 were diagnosed as

HIV positive in the South East. By 2011 that number had risen to over

500, an increase of 394%. And it's still going up. In 2012 more than

600 women over 50 were diagnosed with HIV, a rise of 19% in just 12

months. I just went into denial. And nursed her partner and how shortly

before she died `` he died. Once back home she became ill and spend

three months in hospital. I was bedridden, fed with drip, there are

giving me blood `` drip. If they had not caught you sooner? I would have

died. We can treat almost everything that a person with HIV can get, but

presenting late means that it is harder to treat. Often they do not

respond. Older people are also less likely to take her test. People over

the age of 50 are having sex and there is nothing wrong with that.

When the challenge comes up is when people are not having protected sex

or using condoms consistently. If you do not see yourself as at risk,

because there has in a focus on young people, people might not

understand that they are also at risk. Hannah's family has no idea

that she is HIV positive, but she has told her son. Are used to say to

myself, just let me see him go through school and become a man, he

will be OK then. That was all I wanted. Database to the generation

targeted by this government campaign in the 1980s remains the same.

Three months after a man died in a fire at a block of flats in

Littlehampton, detectives have said they are looking for his murderer.

When 24`year`old Terry Davies died in the blaze on September 12th it

was initially blamed on an electrical fault. But it has now

emerged that white spirit was used to start the fire at South Parade.

Sussex Police are appealing for help to find his killer. Katy Austin

reports. As the block of flats was wrecked by

flames, one man was tracked inside `` trapped. Terry Davies was found

in the morning of the 12th of September once all of the other

residents had been removed to safety. He died from the effects of

breathing in smoke. It was initially thought that night call fault blamed

the store caused the fire, but now they have found that white spirit

was used and it is therefore now a murder enquiry. Police are

struggling for Leeds. We have a lot of investigative lines of enquiry at

the moment and we're hopeful that all of them you something. At this

time we're keeping an open line, are keen for people to come and give us

information. It is an absolute tragedy that this young man has

died. I was speaking to his mother this morning, the family are

heartbroken. We need to hear from the local community, somebody know

something about this. This was not an accident, someone has

deliberately set fire to this building and killed this man.

Meanwhile, an internal investigation is being run into the Fire and

rescue service that night, and why it took so long to find Terry

Davies. The printout scene made the rescue operation, located and very

lengthy. `` don't doubt seen. There are now appealing for any witnesses

who might find the person responsible for the death of a

popular young man to justice. And people with information can

contact Sussex Police by telephoning 101 and quoting Operation Annexe.

They're meant to reach cut`off communities, providing vital

transport to hospitals and shops. But now subsidised bus routes are

losing the council support they depend on. That's the claim of a

report released today by the Campaign for Better Transport, which

has singled out the South as an area where bus budgets are being trimmed

the most. Rob Powell reports. David and Gwynne Wallace depend on

the number ten bus to get from their home in Totton to Southampton

General Hospital. But now the firm that runs it wants to cancel the

route. There is no point having a bus pass if there are no buses to

use it on. But it is only the one route that we are campaigning about,

and our opinion that is the most important route. I am not driving at

the moment and don't have to ask other people to take me to the

hospital for my appointment. First Hampshire says the number ten only

has ten passengers on board at any one time, meaning it loses money on

the route. And this is where local authorities often come in. Supported

buses are subsidised by councils and go to the unprofitable areas

generally avoided by bus companies. But new research suggests these

services are having their funding cut. Something the report's authors

have said is pushing the nation's bus network into crisis. Without

these bus services it will be much more difficult for the government to

get people off welfare and into work, they will be paying more right

in terms of social services, visiting old people. It will be more

difficult to get young people access to training, colleges, education,

and so on. In rural Dorset, around a third needs to be saved from the

?2.8 million bus`subsidy pot by April next year. The County Council

said some routes will have to go, but only ones that are not heavily

used. Similar cuts here in urban Southampton, but a different result.

42% came off the bus budget going into April this year. But next to no

routes have been affected as the bus companies are picking up the slack.

It works first Southampton because we are dense urban area with a dense

population which means that we can support bus networks quite well,

while in your `` whilst in rural areas it will have a much more

catastrophic effect. Back in Totton, David and Gwynne are left waiting.

Hampshire County Council is looking at alternatives to the seemingly

doomed number ten bus route and has until January fourth to save it. Rob

Powell, BBC South Today. A man has been sentenced to life in

prison for killing a pensioner in Portsmouth. 87`year`old Stanley

Carter was found dead at his home in Wimmering in September. The

prosecution said a thief had duped his way in by pretending to be

examining leaking pipes. Mr Carter was attacked after he became

suspicious of the man. Today at Winchester Crown Court, 49`year`old

Stephen Cowdrey pleaded guilty to murder.

A group of residents have walked all the way from Surrey to personally

hand in a petition to The Queen, asking for her help. Campaigners

from Farnham want to remove the town from Waverley Borough Council's

area. Instead Farnham would become a unitary authority, which will let

them run their own affairs, as they did until 40 years ago. More than

10,000 signatures have been collected.

We have a compelling case for unitary authority status in order to

unite the geographical community around Farnham, which is very clear

from the addresses and locations in which people have supported and

signed our petition. Still to come in this evening's

South Today: Felling a piece of history ` the end of an ancient tree

planted by the Duke of Wellington is brought down, branch by branch.

Work is under way to build a flyover for trains in Reading to ease the

region's biggest rail bottleneck. It's more than a mile long, and it's

a key element of the ?950 million project to transform the Great

Western Main Line. The route is currently suffering from poor train

performance. Our transport correspondent Paul Clifton has been

to see the work in progress. The notorious Reading bottleneck.

These trains are stuck, because in the distance a slow freight train is

crossing the tracks in front of them. Delays here ` and they are

frequent ` have knock`on effects as far afield as Bournemouth,

Birmingham and Bristol. The solution is this... Work is well under way on

a two kilometre long viaduct just west of Reading station. Today,

drilling for the last few sections is being finished. The flyover is

taking shape. From the top of the new viaduct you can see the existing

railway and just say that here, where the new line is being built,

trains will be running across here in just over a one`year's times.

This is what it will look like, beside the Reading Festival site and

with new links connecting the line to Basingstoke at the bottom of the

picture. 250 people are working on this project. Over Christmas, that

number will increase to 1,000. This will make an enormous difference. We

are standing on the bottleneck to the west of Reading which causes

considerable difficulties at the moment and we're going to end at

separating our mainline trains from freight trains and from those trains

running from the north to south. That gives us the chance to run were

trained and reduce disruption. Train punctuality in the Thames Valley is

currently the worst it has been for years, because Network Rail has

missed every performance target. This should make a big difference.

Hundreds of jobs could be created in Worthing after a global

pharmaceutical company announced it is investing ?200 million to advance

its manufacturing and science sectors.

Glaxo Smith Kline says some of the money will go towards upgrading

several sites across the country, including this one in Worthing.

1,000 people currently work here, making ingredients for medicines

which are supplied to more than 150 countries.

Students are being warned to avoid signing contracts in a hurry during

the annual rush to secure private housing. Some students begin looking

for accommodation in November for the following October. Southampton

University's Student Union says many feel pressured by letting agents to

make decisions quickly, which can leave them with poor accommodation

and high fees. Agents are being asked to change their approach, but

as Chrissy Sturt reports, they say they're simply meeting demand.

Picking up the keys to your student pad should be an exciting moment,

but not for Eva. She felt pressured by a letting agent into making a

decision, and was stung for a high fee. I wouldn't one anyone to go

through that, really, I do not think it is rate for students. People talk

about the hosting lifestyle but you have got enough going on with your

degree. You already have to choose your housemates that you want to

live with for a year and actors quite a difficult decision. If

everyone is pressuring you to do that by November, it is ridiculous.

Now estate agents are being asked by Southampton University Student Union

to sign up to pledges to make the letting experience a good one. They

include promises not to rush students into signing up, to be

upfront about charges, not to hand out leaflets on campus. In a lot of

other markets and places where people are letting housing this

would not be acceptable. Letting agents are taking advantage of the

fact that students will have never signed for a house before. If we can

educate students to understand what their rights are then this would not

be acceptable. They would not be paying this much money for the kind

of quality of housing they are getting. But some lettings agencies

say commercial realities lie behind the current scramble for property.

At the end of November we have had to students coming in for our

property west. As a free`market agent then we are just responding to

the demand. Of the customer comes in and wants to see what properties we

have we are not going to say no. Eva happily settled now, but doesn't

want others to go through what she did. Chrissy Sturt, BBC South Today.

With A departments facing the annual winter surge, Reading has

become the latest community here in the South to try to intercept some

of those who end up there after overindulging at the weekend. It's

launching a bus`based treatment centre backed by a range of

organisations including the Council, NHS and police. Joe Campbell

reports. Many weekend revellers are familiar

with the Knight bus. This one will not get you home after an evening of

excess in Reading, but for some it could be an equally welcome sight.

The pilot scheme won with St John's ambulance last year saw 26 patients

who would otherwise have gone to AMD treated on board `` onto A It is

no surprise that the new vehicle on display today will be staffed in

part by South Central ambulance service. Having this resource in the

tents... Town centre, which is obviously a peak area, it enables

the team here to decide if the patient's need help and then it

allows us to treat the patients that need help the first time at the

right time. Reading is not the first place to implement town centre care.

It is not just the health service that sees their value in dealing

with rather different crowds on the streets at night. If we have

somebody that we arrested then we normally have to take them to

hospital. We can take them to the bus and they can be treated there.

On Friday Saturday night, they can be treated faster than a four hour

wait. This bus will be out on the streets of Reading in the next few

weekends. From 2014, it will become a regular feature every Friday and

Saturday night. On to sport, and we've got lots of

news. Kris, interesting developments in

the future of London Irish? London Irish have called a press

conference for tomorrow morning, where they'll announce that the club

have been taken over by a group of Irish businessmen. One of the key

decisions for the new owners will be whether to move away from their

current home at Reading's Madejski Stadium. The Exiles have shared the

venue with Reading Football Club since 2000, and have an agreement in

place to play there until 2026. In football, Swindon Town are just one

round from a return to Wembley in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. The

Robins drew their southern semifinal with Stevenage, after Nicky Ajose

had put the Wiltshire side in front. Stevenage levelled eight minutes

from time, when young keeper Tyrell Belford allowed the ball to squeeze

through. But he redeemed himself in the shoot`out. Mark Cooper's side

now face Peterborough over two legs for a place in the final.

Sussex and England wicketkeeper Matt Prior says England can't "sulk, moan

or whinge" about the situation they find themselves in, in the current

Ashes series. England have been comprehensively outplayed in the

first two Tests by Australia. The next match starts on Friday morning,

where England will be aiming to win in Perth for the first time in 35

years. We know we have to turn things round

in turn things round quickly. We have to start again, we have to

start this test series game, clean slate, come here firing on all

cylinders. We have to get a result. Five players from the South will be

part of the England Women's cricket squad, who will attempt to retain

the Ashes in Australia in the New Year. Berkshire's Heather Knight

returns from injury, and Surrey's Natalie Sciver is also included,

along with the Sussex trio Sarah Taylor, Arran Brindle and Georgia

Elwiss. They'll be hoping to fare a good deal better than the men's team

are managing at present! Dorset taekwondo star Aaron Cook is

preparing for a potential encounter, against the man who denied him a

place at the London Olympics last year. Dorchester's Cook could face

Lutaylo Muhammed, in this weekend's inaugural World Grand Prix event in

Manchester. The pair haven't spoken since Muhammed was chosen for the

Olympic team ahead of Cook, who then ditched his GB funding and chose to

compete for the Isle of Man instead. Here's Ed Sherry.

For Aaron Cook it is a shot at redemption. Legal challenges cost

him and his parents over ?100,000. I love the sport and I keep trying.

Eventually it will come with me. I know that. Earlier this year he

suffered a disappointing first`round exit at the World Championships.

Going into the World Championships I was perhaps a little overconfident.

But that was a big sobering experience. It is something I am

definitely going to learn from. Great Britain's Lutaylo Muhammed won

bronze in London. He is not seeded at this event and the pair avoided

each other. Whether they meet on the maps now depends on Saturday's

results. It was not Lutaylo Muhammed's fault, it was everyone

behind the scenes, I have nothing against him. If that fight happens,

it happens. There will only be one winner and it will be me. Georgia

Barnes is also competing. I am also very excited to get the wild card.

It is an honour, a great opportunity. Georgia Barnes content

two share the common goal of the 2016 Olympics. The challenges they

face to get there are very different.

Round`the`world sailor Mike Golding heads the nominations for this

year's prestigious Yachtsman of the Year Award, awarded by the Yachting

Journalists Association The Warsash sailor became the first person ever

to complete three Vendee Globes, when he finished sixth this year.

70`year`old Jean Socrates from Hampshire also made the short list.

Meanwhile, Isle of Wight teenager Natasha Lambert is on the short list

for Young Sailor of the Year, after her cross`Channel charity trip.

Ringwood's Milo Gill Taylor is also nominated.

Great Britain's top rowers are preparing to head north for their

gruelling winter fitness trials, ahead of a busy 2014 season. This

was the scene this morning in the freezing fog at the Redgrave`Pinsent

Lake in Caversham, the base for the GB team. The whole squad will

undergo testing in Lincolnshire at the weekend, rowing both against

team`mates and against the clock. It is just a way of seeing how

things are going. Realistically we will all is quiet there and see how

we are travelling, how we are feeling, how we're going. It is when

we go into peers, that is when it gets faster. Gruelling winter

fitness trials, the least of my priority.

For almost 200 years it has provided one of Dorset's stately homes with

the historic link to the victor of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. But

then a cedar tree planted by the first YouGov Wellington on the

grounds of Kingston Lacy is being felled. Lott has set into the tree

and the National Trust says that the work that was begun today is sad but

necessary. It is a view that has changed very

little in 200 years, a view that the Duke of Wellington knew very well.

William Banks honoured the iron Duke five planting a cedar tree on the

grounds. A rule which was usually reserved for royalty. He had saved

us from Napoleon, rescued Europe from the hell of republicanism. It

is difficult to appreciate how deeply Wellington, like Nelson, was

held in the highest esteem as a hero of England. Nearly two centuries on,

Wellington's cedar stands tall. Today the Duke's tree and two others

surrendered, at the hands of the team sent into felled these noble

trees. You can see the problem, the cedar, which should be this pale

colour, the dark area is diseased wood and the problem is that that

will only spread and make the trees really unstable. Felling these fast

trees in one goal would be too damaging for the parkland. Instead,

the tree surgeons go slowly, branch by brand. Normally you would only do

one or two big trees a week, you would mix it in with some smaller

jobs on the domestic side of things. But obviously with this job, you are

here until it is done. It is an honour to be at the top of those

trees because the view is fantastic. It is a great shame that the trees

have to come down, but they have had their time, unfortunately. Though

this is the end for the Duke's cedar, the link will survive.

Saplings taken from seeds will soon be planted.

Onto the weather forecast now. Many people had to scrape their

windscreens this morning, much colder than it has been of late. And

foggy, which has caused major problems.

And as you know, the air cools and water droplets form. One way to get

rid of August increase the temperature, with freezing fog to

day that did not happen. We did not have the dry air we expected from

France. The third one is the wind increasing, the winds were very

late, so it lingered for much of the day. Rob Kent captured the sun

rising through the mist at Thorney Island this morning. Salisbury

Cathedral was just visible through the fog from Old Sarum Airfield

photographed by Cliff Sims. And the sun did come out today in some

places, this is Barton on Sea by Joe McCarthy.

The fog will make a return with a vengeance in some areas through the

course of the night. Could be quite dense in a few

places, pockets of frost is well in the clearing skies. Mist and fog

feature of tonight's weather. Parts of Berkshire, eastern parts of

Berkshire, Surrey, , `` west Sussex, Buckinghamshire. During the early

hours we are expecting the winds to increase. That will help to lift the

fog into will `` into low cloud and areas. Tomorrow morning the fog may

linger first thing and the list will be slow to clear. Ltd brightness

tomorrow, not as much sunshine as we saw a and the risk of the odd spot

of rain for northern and western areas. Most places will stay dry but

rarely warm temperatures for the time of year, highs of 10`11

Celsius. That trees should help to shift the cloud and left the nest

into low cloud. Tomorrow night we will have further cloud increasing

and outbreaks of rain edging their way in from the west through the

early hours of the morning. Some heavy burst with that rain, kept

Justine Mal, similar to what we have in daytime values. `` temperatures

staying mild. You can see the weather front, some heavy bursts on

the second front that is coming through in the afternoon. That is

living in from the west. There will be some drier periods in between

those rain bands. The rains will increase as well . Perhaps 30 mph

winds along the coast on Sunday. Through the next few days, mist and

fog to start the day tomorrow, rain bands on Friday, drier Saturday but

further rain on Sunday. Some more of that fog on the way, I

would rather that it was crisp and dry. That is all from us.

There will be in news summary at eight o'clock and a bulletin at

10:25pm. Have a very good night.