02/11/2011 Spotlight

The dangers of farming - deaths and injuries show it continues to be

one of the most hazardous occupations.

Good evening. We'll hear from a farmer who was seriously injured

and talk to the Health and Safety Executive.

Also tonight - big changes to the fishing industry, but there's

scepticism about plans to give fishermen greater control over what

they catch. And the bones which could prove

Torquay was one of the first places in Europe where modern humans

settled. New figures released today show

farming remains one of the most dangerous professions in the

country. The Health and Safety Executive says between 2005-2010,

there were 34 farm-related deaths across the greater South West.

Around a quarter of Britain's workplace fatalities happen on

farms - even though farmers only make up 1.5% of the working

population. In a moment we'll hear from the Health and Safety

Executive, but first this report from Janine Jansen.

In the past 18 months, there have been at least two farm-related

deaths in the region. A 16-year-old boy died after a tractor he was

driving fell into a slurry pit near Padstow in Cornwall. In North Devon,

near Bridgerule, a 40-year-old man died after a heavy hay bale fell on

top of him. Between 2005-2010, There were 34 farm-related

fatalities reported to the HSE across the greater South West

region. There were 390 major injuries and 573 injuries requiring

three days off work. Brian Trewin farms near Launceston. He had a

lucky escape when he was trampled by a cow. I was loading the couple

to take to market. I got it in the trailer and when to shut the gate

and it started, I wrote and push the Kate open and did pick me up

with its head and carried me out of the back of the trailer and threw

me against the gate which cut the top of my head open. As it went

through, it released me and put a horn through my Al boat and threw

me on the ground and stepped on my stomach. The Health and Safety

Executive says that the rate of accidents remains high by other

areas have made big progress in recent years. Farming is by far the

worst sector for under-reporting serious injury. It took Brian a

year to recover from his accident. He says because animals can be so

unpredictable, he never works on the farm alone.

Earlier, I spoke to Rob Pearce from the Health and Safety Executive. I

asked him what farmers could do to reduce the number of accidents.

They need to think about who is on the farm. They have children on

farms, can people, the need to make sure those people are safe. The

good weight of doing that is to send your answers to college to

learn about agriculture, then we have a basis on which to build for

the future. Once they had done that, once they are thinking about their

farm, then they can do the job safely. Over at the last 10 years

accidents in comparable industries have come down but not in farming.

Why is that? Been comparable industries, there are big employers.

A lot of farms in the south west are small employers, they do not

have the resources to get systems in place. That does not mean that

they don't know what the correct way of doing the job is and it

doesn't mean that they can't actually do the job safely. You can

have as many in pools and regulations as you want but farmers

are working and this huge pressures. How did get the message of safety

across? One of the major campaigns at the moment is asking farmers to

stop and think about what they are doing and to promise to their

families that they will come home safe. If you think nationally, with

the figures that we have got, it means that one person every week is

killed on a farm. Locally it means that every two months someone is

killed on a farm. I would like people could look around the group

they are sitting in, look at their loved ones, and realised that if

they do not do something than one of those people will not be here.

The economic downturn has left thousands of older people in the

South West struggling to get by, and in fear of the coming winter,

according to economists and lobby groups. Many pensioners are being

squeezed by the rapidly rising cost of living and a fall in the value

of their investments, as Simon Hall reports from Exeter.

These experienced eyes expected to see a more comfortable retirement.

Ken and Cyndy Jenkins have begun spending their savings to get by.

The bills keep growing, the income doesn't. And Mr Jenkins is now

considering a part time job - at 72 years of age. A don't think it is a

thing that should happen. It should never be allowed to happen way you

are literally counting your pennies. We have not had a holiday now for

four or five years, we simply cannot afford it. Very angry,

really. When you have worked and put something into the society, it

makes you feel very bitter. issue for many older people is

simple economics. Their costs have risen as inflation is high. Their

incomes have fallen. Returns on savings are scarce as interest

rates are low. Dividend payments suffer as the stock market

struggles. It is a particular problem in the south west because

the percentage of old people is higher than anywhere else, it is

22% in Devon and Cornwall and Denise Devon it is up to nearly 28%.

A particular worry for older people - winter looms large. Fuel bills

have been rising particularly fast. People are scared about being cut

off and not being out built to keep warm. In a statement, the

government said the government had taken a series of steps to protect

people. The state pension system had been reformed to encourage

saving and the automatic retirement age have been a polished to give

people more options. If Mr Jenkins does try to get a job, the state of

the economy won't help there either. A recent part time vacancy in

Exeter attracted almost 300 applicants.

Simon Hall reporting. As you heard there, the Government claims it's

taken steps to help older people. I asked Ross Altmann from Saga if she

agreed. I wouldn't agree. I think many of the measures the government

have adopted have damaged pensioners. The cut in the winter

fuel payment will be a tremendous problem for many pensioners. The

very low interest rates and high inflation is impacting pensioners

much more than other groups. What can be done? One thing the

government might consider is, for example, allowing pensioners to

earn whatever income they are getting on their pensions tax-free

and also I think it has been very cruel to cut the winter fuel

payments just at the time when it fuel prices have reached a record

high and we are just going into winter. It seems a very strange

thing to do. But we are all in this together, we all need fuel, we all

need heating, why should pensioners be protected? Pensioners spend a

lot more time at home and they spend a lot more of their income on

things like fuel and food and they are the things that have gone up

most in cost. It is a frightening situation and for anyone watching

this he may be in the Fifties, or can they do to protect the future?

I think people are going to need to think about working longer if they

do not have much savings and probably saving a lot more if they

can afford to do so, although not everybody can. Really, it is

praying that the economy will get better, thinking about being more

flexible and working part-time later in life if you want a better

income. The average cost of a home in the

South West is now 13 times the average salary, according to the

National Housing Federation. It's warning more young professionals as

well as middle income families are being priced out of the market. The

report says the average house in Cornwall now costs around �228,000.

In Devon, the South Hams is the most expensive area to live.

A charity concert is to be staged in Truro Cathedral for people

affected by last year's floods in mid-Cornwall. It'll be the first

anniversary of the floods later this month. All the money raised

will go to help people whose homes and businesses were damaged.

Fishermen in the South West are tonight sceptical about a new pilot

scheme which will give them more control over how much they catch.

The Government wants to see whether communities with boats under ten

metres long would be able to manage their own quotas and do more to

market their catches. Simon Alexander reports.

The fishing industry in the region has been in and out of troubled

waters over the years, with fish quotas being one the biggest

flashpoints. Today the Government unveiled plans for a pilot scheme

to encourage fishing communities to take more control over how many

fish they catch and still keep stocks sustainable. Some in the

industry say it won't suit everybody. There is a need to have

a critical mass or fish so that you can engage in trading swaps and you

will lose that if you go into small, isolated groups. The Government

wants to hear from fishermen of small boats under 10 metres long

and their quotas will be based on what they've landed collectively

over recent years. We have come up with some ideas, one of which is to

allow local committees to hold quota on behalf of the local

fishing fleet, which means that local communities that identify

with their fishing fleet can be part of supporting that business.

There is a great opportunity for the fishing industries to start

managing the fish docks, both for the sustainability of the future of

the industry but also for the good of the marine environment. I would

like to see Cornwall taking up one of the opportunity to become one of

the pilots. Fishermen who don't wish to take part in the initiative

will continue to access quota through a central pool. Critics say

any changes need to be better thought through. I don't think they

will be widely embraced by the under 10 fishermen. There is a risk

of further dilution of the quotas and that they will be fewer

opportunities unless the carrot is offered. One of the pilot schemes

is expected to be run in the South West, although no decision has yet

been made. How well fishermen support the project has yet to be

established. We'll be live at Kents Cavern later

in the programme. Also still to come. They're surrounded by water,

so why are the Channel Islands struggling with supplies? And

A woman from Cornwall with obsessive compulsive disorder says

there needs to be more support for people like her. The charity OCD

Action says there are currently not enough OCD treatment centres.

Johnny Rutherford reports. When Joyce salto was pregnant with

her son she noted she developed obsessive compulsive disorder. 40

years on and she still suffers from OCD, though importantly treatment

in recent years allows her to control its level. I became more

and more worried about, I don't even know whether it was germs,

dirt or what it was, but it was something I conceived of as

contamination. Whatever that contamination was, it was so

terrifying that it was stronger than your fear of death. Washing

hands repeatedly, cleaning constantly and not touching things

became the norm. She claims OCD has been passed down her family line.

was too ill to bring my son up. After the age of four he was

brought up by his father and his grandmother. And yet, at the same

age as me, at 22, he developed it to himself. I just feel there has

to be a hereditary link there. what happened to him? He struggled

with it for 15 years and I am afraid eventually it became too

much for him and he took his own life. He poisoned himself. Joyce

spent a lot of time writing on forums on the OCD Action website.

She believes the quality of therapy can be variable. In Cornwall, the

NHS say a number of treatments are available and there are presently

working on this individual support packages. OCD is increasingly

recognised and it is treatable. The sooner you get treatment, the

better the chance of recovery. Joyce says that with the right

treatment you can still have quality of life.

For for the last of his series on water supplies, David has been a

care worker will come from in the future., for the first time in five

years, the desalination plant on Jersey has started to produce fresh

water. Could this be a sign of things to come, and where will our

water come from in 50 or 100 years time? David has been trying to find

out. Population increases as well as

climate change could other Pink had packed. Could we have enough water

all for the water than we do have, could it be very important? Because

of the geography of south-west England, we get our fair share of

rain, most of which runs backache to see, but could we seller to base

he needed? If the predictions of climate change are right there are

going to be part of the world quite close to was that are going to be

in demand of more water than they do not have. Is their business to

export up water? It is very expensive moving water around.

Typically, a family of four uses a ton of water each day. When people

talk about a national water grid they tend to forget that things

like gas and electricity are much easier to move around them water.

It will be a long time before were able to export large amounts of

water out of the country. Climate change as well as population

increase and into a van effect on the demand for water. The climate

model shows that parts of the country will experience more severe

effects than others and in the south-west of England we are

expecting quite severe effects over the longer term. We build that into

one models both on the supply side and the demand side, because we

expect customers using more water excite in the garden and more for

personal washing and clothes washing. We also need to take into

account rising sea levels and they can impact on the ground water that

we take. The estimation in 2007 bus just under 1.7 million. By 2035,

the estimate is 2 million. With climate change and the warm air

that we are likely to see, people could use for 0.3% or and household

could be 2.2% more. We rely on water companies to supply our fresh

water. We don't have much choice, or do we? Business is booming for

companies that drill for and supply water cisterns. We have seen an

increase mainly due to people wanting to get away from the

utilities companies. Leaky pipelines that a costly to improve.

And there rise in popularity of crane source heating. We climate

change we may get less rainfall when we needed the most and

expensive desalination plants may need to be used more often. Being

more efficient and clicking our own reporter made in the future be the

only option. Ironically, there is some heavy

rain in the forecast later! Research out today suggests some of

the first modern humans lived in Torquay. We know all this thanks to

new carbon dating of a jawbone found in Kent's Cavern. John

Henderson is deep inside the caves and joins us now.

These press turret caves have been giving up their secrets for

hundreds of years -- prehistoric. The latest research to come from

here is all about the origins of us. Torbay. Fit for human habitation.

It's got beaches. It's got shops. It's got a football team. It's got

attractions galore. Hardly surprising then, that the first

modern humans in Europe lived in the Bay.

It is lovely, Torquay, a good area to live in. Is it good for Torbay?

It is but was on the map! How do we know? More advanced dating of this

jaw bone - found at Kents Cavern in 1927 - shows it's between 44,000

and 41,000 years old. Experts found that it is actually much older than

I thought. Ball bait may have had a particularly nice environment. It

may have been rich in the game and the findings in the case showed

that there were a lot of large animals here and it would have been

kept Perhaps the very nice spot for people to gather in and hunt as it

is still today. The origins of humankind in Torbay had to contend

with a lot. Woolly mammoths, hyenas, woolly rhinos, giant deer, bears

and scimitar cats. Thankfully, some things have changed for the better.

Men! They are more sympathetic than their work and pinkly they don't be

too about the head any more! wait until you get home!

excited I do about this latest research? It is really excited. We

have always known this jawbone was important but now it brings out so

many more important facts about the people that lived here. I am

wearing a shirt and it is run as it league form down here. That is the

whole point of working down here. Yes, it will stay the same

temperature or years. Back in the Ice Age it was probably a little

chilly up but it was certain be nice and stale and it was a great

place to live. And you had animals outside. And Torquay was very

different, there was no see out there that we can see now. They

would have been a land bridge right across to continental Europe and

this is how these people came here. They were very nomadic in their

lifestyle, following the food source. They probably came back

here every year, to a place that is such a fantastic sight, elevated up

and able to command a great defensive position. It is quite

warm in here tonight but I am certainly not going to be staying

overnight. 14 degrees, that is warmer than my

house! A Victorian garden, which over looks Falmouth Bay, has been

re-opened to the public after a year-long restoration project.

Gyllngdune Gardens, on the town's seafront, features a rare shell

grotto thought to have been built over 150 years ago. David George

has been for a visit. Falmouth's Princess Pavillion and

Gyllyndune Gardens are now looking a little more like their grand

former selves. Here's the bandstand and Edwardian veranda. And this is

the rose garden and greenhouse. The old photographs are from the

collection of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. The

restoration project - included rebuilding these shell seats - cost

�2.4 million of Lottery and Cornwall Council money. The project

just avoided the councils' hard hitting cutbacks. The gardens were

originally laid out by the owner of the nearby Gyllngdune Manor, the

Reverend William-John Coope, in the 1850s. He turned the quarry which

supplied the stone for the house into a fern garden. The land was

bought by the council in 1903 so that a new coast road could be

built and public winter gardens created. They had the advantage of

the vicar's unusual quarry garden complete with a secret shell grotto.

We think they are follies that were put together in Victorian times.

Normally by the young ladies of the house and they used the shells that

were brought home on the tea clippers to Falmouth, to decorate

the sides of the cave. It was so overgrown and nobody Harby went

into it so it is fantastic to see it opened up. It is one of the main

reasons that we were able to get the award from the National Lottery

because they are of national importance. This is the Fernery,

just outside the shell grotto, photographed in the 1920s. Close by

is the refurbished tunnel which leads from the gardens to what was

then a private beach. Once here, the ladies of the house had the use

of this rather elaborate beach hut so that they could get changed in

private before descending to the beach below. Let us hope they had

better weather than today it! That Shell grotto was stunning! It

must have taking ages to put that It is ironic that Jersey have

turned on the desalination plant and we have a whole lot of wet-

weather coming away. For the rest of the week we are expecting some

more persistent rain. And then some showers, persistent in the morning

and perhaps easing in the afternoon. A big lump of cloud now covering

most of United Kingdom. They Iraq two close there but it is one main

system stretching from Spain and caught -- Portugal up to England.

And mild by to come but also some wet weather coming in. -- a mild

night to come. By the time we get to the weekend we have a change in

the wind direction, with East League wins and setting in. --

easterly. Where we have the brighter colours, that is the

heavier rain which will continue overnight. It will peter out

towards dawn but in the far west of Cornwall for a clutch of showers

will arrive and they look quite angry. Overnight temperatures are

unusually mild for a night in November. No lower than 13 or 14

for most of us. Tomorrow morning, we have a yellow alert of the

potential for some heavy rain, mainly in the form of some hefty

showers in the morning. By the afternoon it becomes a lot drier

and brighter. Warmer tomorrow with 16 degrees the top temperature.

Less windy as well. All the Isles of Scilly some early rain will

The north coast will have the cleanest surf but still on the trot

beside. The South Coast very messy Some of the showers at risk of

having some thunder in then. We will see more showers on Friday.

Again there is the risk of one or two of those becoming quite heavy.

As we moved into the weekend, an area of low pressure news up the

eastern side of Britain giving us Eastbourne north easterly winds,

scoring in slightly colder air. By Sunday, 12 or 13 will be the