27/02/2012 Inside Out East

Hello, this week I'm in Bungay in Suffolk, and this is what we got

coming up on tonight's Inside Out. We reveal the research that could

help one of Britain's rarest mammals to avoid extinction.

If they have come from the reintroduction programme, then

that's really exciting because it's a measure of the success of the

programme. Despite promises that banks will

lend billions to small businesses, we investigate why companies are

still being let down by their banks. And the man who is still making

masterpieces, despite being blind. They're our three surprising

stories from where we live, on Hello, welcome to Bungay in Suffolk.

Later in the programme I'm going to be meeting an incredible man, who

despite losing his sight, has made some amazing works of art. But

first, we're looking into new research which could help save one

of our rarest mammals - the dormouse. It only grows to about

two inches long, it sleeps all day, and it can weigh as little as two

pound coins. And over recent years, it has been under threat - but new

research being carried out right here in Suffolk means the species

could now survive. Richard Daniel explains.

If you go down to the woods today you're probably more likely to see

a bear having a picnic than a dormouse.

And that's not just because they're so rare. It's also because during

the daytime they're usually tucked up in their nests, fast asleep.

But the dormouse is not sleeping easy these days. Once widespread

over much of Britain, its range has shrunk over the last century, and

is now mainly found in southern England and Wales. Fortunately,

here in Bonny Wood in Suffolk they are thriving - and if we can find

out why, it could help secure their survival.

So how many dormice do you reckon you've got in this wood?

Well, we really don't know, and it goes up and down. In spring we find

very few, maybe one or two animals. In the autumn, we sometimes get up

to about 30 animals. But actually what we have to do is take it on a

year on year process, and we believe the population here is

increasing. But the discovery of dormice in

Bonny Wood has caused confusion in wildlife circles, because no-one

knows how they got here. More than a decade ago, no dormice

were found here at all. Then a captive-bred population were

released into Priestley Wood a few hundred yards away. The question is,

have they now spread from Priestley to here in Bonny Wood?

We're going to lift it out Dormice like using nest boxes for

breeding, so the Suffolk Wildlife Trust put them up in Bonny Wood to

tempt them in. Shall we see if we've got one?

Right, we're going to lift the lid now What an enormous nest! Is that

typical? Yes, that's a beautiful dormouse nest. And the dome-shaped

bit there - is that grass? that's actually bark. It's stripped

from plants like honeysuckle. It's very distinctive, there's no other

small mammal that does that. So, is there a dormouse in here? Well -

let's have a look. Oh, there we are. Long, long tail, big, big eyes.

because they're nocturnal. And they've got lovely big whiskers as

well. I'm going to have a look now to see whether we've got anyone

else in there Oh, I can feel babies. Yep, so she's definitely a mum.

many babies do they typically have? About four or five.

Dormouse numbers have crashed nationally, partly due to

fragmentation of woodlands and loss of hedgerows. But here in Bonny

they are up - from about six animals in 2005, to around 30 today.

Nida Al-Fulaij is from the People's Trust for Endangered Species, which

re-introduced the dormice into Priestley Wood. She's come to Bonny

to help investigate the mystery of how they got here.

Right, so we're just coming out of Bonny Wood now and then here across

the is Priestley Wood. So you can see they're really close by but

they're two distinct woodlands, and they're just connected by this

hedgerow here that runs along that edge of the field. Now here's the

thing though - we know that there are dormice in Bonny Wood, so have

they made their way across from Priestley Wood along this hedgerow

into Bonny Wood? The key thing about a hedgerow is that it has to

be in good condition for a dormouse to use it, for a dormouse to travel

along it and use it as a highway between woodlands. So is this

hedgerow suitable for dormice? you can see honeysuckle here you

can see hawthorn, hazel, field maple - so there's a great variety

of food here for dormice to feed on throughout the year. So can we

definitely say that dormice are crossing from one wood to the other,

via this hedge? We can't say for sure conclusively - we know that we

put dormice in Priestley Wood and we know now there are dormice in

Bonny Wood, but we can't say for sure what the actual origin of

these animals are. If they can prove the dormice have

moved from one wood to the other, that could have major implications

on work being done to help dormice re-colonise our countryside.

So, how can we tell for sure where the dormice here in Bonny Wood came

from? Well, the team at the Suffolk Wildlife Trust are trying something

completely new. Right, what I'm going to do is just

take a little fur clip So Simone, what are you doing? It looks as if

you're about to give this little one a haircut. Well, we're going to

take the hair sample, and we're also going to take a cheek swab as

well From the dormouse? From the dormouse. And they are going to

analyse the DNA in this sample, and the other samples that we're

collecting, to see whether the DNA from this wood is very similar to

that from Priestley Wood. whether there's inter-breeding

going on. That's right - I mean, you'd expect the DNA to be quite

similar between the two populations, if in fact they are related. So why

is it so important to know this - to know where these dormice have

come from? Well, if they have come from the reintroduction programme,

and they've managed to come over several hundred metres into this

woodland, then that's really exciting because it's a measure of

the success of the programme. That dormice, once put into new

woodlands, have the ability to colonise out into new areas.

There we go, that worked beautifully - so into the tubeand

we've got the sample. In the last 20 years there have

been 17 reintroductions of dormice, with breeding centres using captive

animals to boost the wild population.

Well, these animals we are breeding for reintroduction back into the

wild. Oh, look, there's some of our babies For next year's release, and

we're hoping they're going to go back to a site in Warwickshire.

Preparing young dormice for the wild involves a huge amount of work

and patience. Which is why the more that can be found out about

reintroductions such as Priestley, the better chance they'll have.

the results of the DNA analysis will be really important, because

they'll show how far the dormice are spreading once they've been

reintroduced, and whether they're actually mixing with other wild

populations of dormice. It's time to get some answers.

Simone and I have come to Manchester Metropolitan University,

where scientists have been analysing the DNA taken from

animals in Bonny Wood, and comparing it to the DNA of the

reintroduced population in Priestley.

It's still early days on the results, but there's ecological

evidence that there's both breeding and movement between the two

populations, and essentially this confirms that individuals from one

population are moving and breeding with individuals in the other one,

making offspring. There's been interbreeding between the

population in Priestley Wood and Bonny Wood - they're mixing? Yes,

that's right, because they share genetic material - definitely the

evidence we have so far is consistent with that. So Ed, what

you can't say is that all the dormice in Bonny Wood came from

Priestley Wood? No, we can't say that, no definitely not. Now Simone,

what do you make of that? Well, it gives me the confidence to feel

that if you put animals back into the wild from a captive-bred

population, that they CAN move out from that site, and move across

hedgerows and get into new woodlands, and that is going to

make their whole population much more secure for the future.

hugely encouraging for you, this? Very exciting.

So, are dormice safe now? Well, I think in this group of woodlands

that we've been studying, that they do have a more secure future, I'm

really optimistic about that. But I am worried about some of the other

sites in Suffolk where the woodlands are very small, they're

very isolated - there's a lot more work that needs to be done to

understand those populations, and to make sure they're better

connected, so that the populations can meet up and there's an

interchange of genetic material. And it's great to know that there's

some work going on that could help save the dormouse. Now, if there's

something you think we should be doing a story about here on Inside

Out, you can send me an e-mail, [email protected], or you

can follow me on Twitter, @davidinsideout.

Later - making pictures, without being able to see.

Have you ever tried to get a bank loan? It's not straightforward. A

year ago this month, the government came to a deal with the country's

biggest banks, to lend small businesses more money. But

thousands of companies here in the East say they still feel let down

by their banks. Nick Conrad has been investigating.

Kiffy Stainer-Hutchins runs a business restoring fine paintings.

Based near King's Lynn, she has a world-renowned name recognised by

every museum, and her company may have just secured a major contract.

Despite being busy and successful, with a specialist trade, this

company is experiencing very real and difficult financing issues that

could jeopardise its survival. That's because it can't secure the

funding it needs from its bank. The most important thing really is

an overdraft facility on our business account. We have several

clients who like to pay us on a 45, 60 day basis, which if you're

invoicing somebody for �20,000 and you have to wait 60 days, for a

small company like this it's crippling. I mean, we could be put

out of business in a month if we didn't have some way of dealing

with that. Kiffy feels that she's not received

enough financial support from her bank, Barclays. In order to manage

the new contract, worth �100,000, she'll need an overdraft - but has

little faith her experience will be any different from a year ago.

Last year when we tried for another overdraft to help us with a

particular temporary shortfall, I was very angry then because we were

turning over around about a quarter of a million pounds - I just could

not understand why they were not willing to give us the money that

we were asking for. Today, Kiffy and her colleague

Cindy Pardoe are asking for �15,000 - and they need an answer urgently.

I'd asked for 15 - they've offered us 7 to 8, which is just not going

to do it cos our initial figures are going to be 16 grand. Despite

the fact it's a new contract, despite the fact I've have

explained - the client, they pay us on 60 days, this is our problem.

And he's just Anyway, he's going to talk to the bank manager and

possibly come back but that was two hours ago soI don't know. And

that's actually going to cost us between 14 and 19 per cent in

interest. They're not looking at new tender, so I've said it's 100

grand - and I did explain if we don't get this, we can't actually

go ahead with this tender. Because we can't afford it. These are our

initial costs. So what did he say then? There's nothing he can do,

but he's going to go back to Ian and then they'll go I guess to the

credit rating people and check whether we can Well, also if we

don't get this tender we're going to have to lay people off. Maybe

they should know that as well. it's a bit depressing.

Kiffy is not alone. Other small firms that want to grow are also

struggling. A year ago the government struck a

deal with the country's biggest banks to lend more money to small

businesses. But 12 months on, thousands of businesses across the

East feel they've been let down. Even those in a position to expand,

are finding it tough to get the finance they need.

Tracel, a family firm in Bedfordshire, specialises in

engineering parts for the gas and aerospace industries. It also makes

components for prosthetics. What's it like having a family

business? Well, for the last 50 years my father has owned and run

this business, and you have to be very passionate about it. All of

your workers basically end up as part of the family. So it's a very

good thing to be involved in - but also you've got a massive amount of

commitment to everybody. But how have things changed since your dad

was boss here? Well, from the point of view of the relationship with

the bank, that has changed completely. In the past my father

had a very, very close relationship with the bank manager. It was the

local bank. Now, that's all changed - we basically don't have any

Stephen says HSBC cut the amount of money it was prepared to lend and

things started to go wrong. Basically we were using a fund that

enabled us to finance are invoices and they changed the criteria in

other words they changed the risk they were prepared to take against

are customers. It was reduced about �80,000 just overnight. And what

did that mean for business. It was just a massive problem. We had

materials to pay for we had wages to pay. All it did was meant that

we could not start new jobs. We could not get on with new orders.

Steven left HSBC and thought he would try another bank, but got

nowhere. His experience was not an isolated case. Inside Out has

discovered that banks have contacted thousands of small

businesses to renegotiate or cancel existing loans and overdrafts. Over

200,000 in one year alone. Federation Of Small Businesses

figures show that a third of its members looking for new loans are

not securing them. Some companies like this one in Lowestoft are

turning to alternative sources of finance. Based in Suffolk,

Foundation East is a not for profit organisation. It can step in and

lend to companies if they have been turned down by their bank. We visit

the client when they apply to us. It is about looking at the business

to see if it is viable. We look at how we can also help them

potentially you adjust their business and good coaching, that

kind of thing. We are very interested in not just lending to

them but lending to them with support and making sure they have

the right amount of money to help them start or grow their business.

Today Valerie who looks after a number of businesses, is visiting

this snooker club. Obviously, there have been some changes...

Foundation East has been able to finance hundreds of thousands of

pounds in loans over the last year. It was also able to offer a �50,000

loan to Steven. What would have happened if you had not been able

to get finance? Well, we would never have increased our turnover.

We would never have invested or employ an extra 30 people. So yes,

the business would have just struggled at the that current size.

But Foundation East's resources can only stretch so far and ultimately

lending by the banks remains crucial. Would you accept that

banks have become more edgy about what they throw their money behind?

The banks have lent more this year than last by significant billions.

They are encouraging businesses to come... They have to lend

responsibly at the same time and be sure those businesses can afford to

repay the loan. Overall though the banks failed to meet the

government's target to small businesses and net lending has

fallen. In Kiffy's case she just wanted a fair deal. I do not see

how they cannot give us an overdraft facility at a decent rate,

to help us operate in a smooth away without having to jump from one

month to win next -- to the next with constant anxiety. Since we

have filmed, Barclay's has told the company that there will be able to

end -- lend more money. Berkeley's told Inside Out that the manager

would have a deeper knowledge. Berkeley's have also said they

approve four out of five business applications. For Steven, he has

paid his loan off to Foundation East in full. This sounds like a

real missed opportunity for the banks, seeing as though your

turnover has gone up. I think it is a huge missed opportunity for the

banks. Our turnover has gone from �250,000 a month to �460,000 a

month. HSBC told Inside Out that it tried to help Tracel through what

was a difficult time for the business and the manufacturing

industry and are delighted hear that the company has grown over the

past two years. HSBC told us they increased their lending to UK

If you are an artist or painter, one of the most important things

for you is to be able to see your work. Imagine being an artist and

Sargy Mann's paintings are highly prized by both critics and

collectors. They can fetch tens of thousands of pounds. Fans of his

work include the actor Daniel Day- Lewis. It's a remarkable

achievement for a man who has spent much of his life struggling with

How do you continue to paint when you cannot see? I imagine it's a

simple question but I cannot imagine it's a simple answer.

really, no. I've had to develop a way of doing it really. That is the

picture I've just finished which has taken me about five months.

What are all these bumps on it? When I started doing it, the bigger

problem was the drawing because I needed to come back to the same

place. Are they like a physical caught in it for you? Are they

something you can touch and work out where you are the, this?

Exactly so. Sargy who lives in Bungay in Suffolk has been a

professional artist for 50 years. He also taught at the Camberwell

School of Art in London. But when he was 36, he started getting

problems with his sight. He developed cataracts in both eyes.

Every time I went into the hospital, for some operation or other, headed

not know whether or not it would be the end of the line. There was one

time when I was in Moorfields Eye Hospital for five weeks and they

did a number of operations. would be devastating for you to

think of yourself, as an artist, that you were losing your side when

that is what you love doing. Yes... Obviously, it wasn't ideal but I

was able... I carried on. What the world looked like was different and

therefore my subject changed and what I could see when I was

painting was a bit different and so my technique, or style, or whatever

you want to say, changed as well. Despite several operations though

Sargy's eyesight got progressively worse, until six years ago he

finally went completely blind. That might have been the end for most

people. But not for Sargy. I just thought, well, what if I do

something from memory? I thought about this for a while and I

thought, here goes. I put some blue one to my brush and then onto the

canvas. Had an extraordinary sensation. I saw in my head a

sensational Blue. I cannot... It was not what I would have seen if I

could see but it was definitely, just doing that on the canvas,

going like that, I saw a blue. It was completely weird. The same with

Can you take me to your studio? Sure. I'll let you lead on. How do

you navigate your way to the studio? Is it a well beaten path?

Yes. If I've gone to collect the post and I walked back, sometimes I

take the curve around wrong and headed towards the river! I have

actually fallen in the river -- I've not actually fallen in the

river but there is always a first time. Is this a new technique?

a refinement. Since becoming blind Sargy has

developed a complicated looking measuring system which he uses to

mark out the image he's going to paint. He often uses his wife

Francis as a model. You're not only measuring where the objects are but

where the light might be on the painting. On to the canvas, it's

not an object, it is a shape of cover. -- colour. And what -- and

measuring whether Aceh should be. After carrying out his measurements

Sargy uses blobs of blutack to mark out the outline of the picture. The

bluetack acts as a reference point. Sargy uses it to feel where the

paint should go. But it's not that easy and doesn't always work first

time. Now that was a mistake, you see. I've put you off. Does this

happen quite a bit? Is there a lot of trial and error? Yes, it happens

all the time. I don't mind because it bring use EU to the place where

you almost capable. It has been such a struggle to get to the point

way you can put paint on canvas. think that the Shia problems of

making the painting may mean that the tide arrive at something which

has more authority. But how does a blind artist choose the colours to

use? Well, Sargy keeps his paint set out in a strict colour order.

And then of course there's the problem of mixing paints together.

How does that work? Well, to start with I have a pretty good idea of

what happens. Later on, I start to need my wife to help me mix colours.

Despite the obvious difficulties in being a blind painter, Sargy has

found one unexpected benefit. been painting comers like I

remember them. -- colours. I knew what Brown was like, I had a sense

of what the garden looked like. Then I thought I don't want to

paint this brown chair again. The chair was fine but the brown was

not. I went to the cupboard to get a white dust sheet and I thought,

he cannot see it anyway, what are you putting that dust sheet on for?

You can paint the check any colour you like. Imagine it's a different

colour. That was a breakthrough and that was what led me to, in these

pictures, think of colour in a different way. The actual process

of painting obviously takes much longer when you can't see. It's not

unusual for Sargy to spend weeks or even months working on a project.

But it's obviously worth it as his work is highly regarded by critics.

I am what I am. I am a painter. I don't know if I'm any good. Time

will decide that. But it is what I And here it is, the finished

article. How long has it taken you to compete this painting?

probably worked on it over a period of six months. Are you pleased with

the outcome? I think I am, yes. I like the original idea. The yellow,

grey and white... It is absurd because I cannot see it but if it

is how I think it is, it has worked out well. Great to catch up with

you again and to see the painting finished. Thanks very much. If you

want to see more of his work, go to his website. That is it for this

week, I hope you can join us next week.

His England still a country of animal lovers? I get so upset at

the little I can do. I cannot save everything.