:06:33. > :06:37.The average the average council tax payer would be horrified at the
:06:37. > :06:40.cost of it all. If he lives in a house which currently has the
:06:40. > :06:46.benefit of the perspective of village green he would be delighted
:06:46. > :06:49.at everyone else in the county is paying for been getting an open
:06:49. > :06:54.space. If you think this is not a village green should look like, you
:06:54. > :06:58.will be surprised what the money is being spent on. A failed
:06:58. > :07:04.application to have this lake declared a village green cost more
:07:04. > :07:08.than �20,000. They rejected attempts to protect part of this
:07:08. > :07:12.former airfield in Weston-super- Mare cost taxpayers more than
:07:12. > :07:16.�12,000. Somerset County Council is dealing for an application to have
:07:16. > :07:20.these seafront gardens made a village green and the one that has
:07:20. > :07:23.caused the most controversy is the attempt to protect this land from
:07:23. > :07:30.development by Bristol City football club which has cost the
:07:30. > :07:33.taxpayer more than �123,000. That case is set to go to a judicial
:07:33. > :07:39.review after a public inquiry had to be held and it is those
:07:39. > :07:42.inquiries that caused costs to escalate. Where does the money go?
:07:42. > :07:46.A small amount goes to the local authority but most of the goes to
:07:47. > :07:52.the lawyer's and professionals involved. It is good news for
:07:52. > :07:56.barristers but not such good news for council tax payers. Yes, it is
:07:56. > :08:00.good news for barristers and that is bad for the public interest.
:08:00. > :08:06.one of those public inquiries involve this piece of land in
:08:06. > :08:10.Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire. Pauline Radley applied for village
:08:10. > :08:16.green status with the support of the neighbours and they are using
:08:16. > :08:20.the law to stop a housing development. Is there an element of
:08:20. > :08:26.Not In My backyard about this? You want the house is built somewhere
:08:27. > :08:34.but not here? Yes, there probably is. That is in most cases, not many
:08:34. > :08:38.people want people on their back doorstep. This is the only area
:08:38. > :08:43.left. If the application succeed it will not be a private developer
:08:43. > :08:48.that loses out but a social housing provider. Bristol-based planning
:08:48. > :08:52.consultant believes this is where campaigners using the law are
:08:52. > :08:59.causing the biggest problem. weird by the large number of
:08:59. > :09:04.housing associations -- we advise a large number of local housing
:09:04. > :09:09.associations and this stops a lot of homes for people who cannot
:09:09. > :09:12.afford them. This could be landed has not been used for 20 or 30
:09:12. > :09:17.years that are owned by Central Government and could be used for
:09:17. > :09:22.projects like hospices or two at infrastructure ought to be sold on
:09:22. > :09:26.to raise money for other projects in the area. It is no surprise that
:09:26. > :09:34.developers are calling for the Government to change the law so it
:09:34. > :09:37.is more difficult to use against them. The minimum criteria for open
:09:37. > :09:41.spaces being designated as village greens needs to be brought up
:09:41. > :09:46.higher and shown that these areas of land are of high higher quality
:09:46. > :09:51.and that they are used by a very broad and wide selection of people
:09:51. > :09:54.from the local community. Government has suggested
:09:54. > :09:58.introducing a character test to define what a village green should
:09:58. > :10:01.look like. It sounds like a nice idea which would protect places
:10:02. > :10:06.like we are standing on but not scrubby wasteland. The problem is
:10:06. > :10:10.in practice it would be difficult to administer and it would keep my
:10:10. > :10:16.bank manager happy because I suspect we would have a lot of egg
:10:16. > :10:19.-- arguments. A test you can think of, I do nothing would working
:10:19. > :10:24.practice. Concrete proposals will not be made until later this year.
:10:24. > :10:29.It looks highly unlikely that the sun will set on this particular
:10:29. > :10:33.land were bought any time soon. These are yet another tactic used
:10:33. > :10:41.by developers and local people to further their respective interests.
:10:41. > :10:44.It is not surprising but it does not seem to be very fair. Our worst
:10:44. > :10:47.fears that government decides to do away with the system for
:10:47. > :10:56.registering and as Greens ought to severely restricted. We would fight
:10:56. > :11:06.that all the way. If there is something you would
:11:06. > :11:09.
:11:09. > :11:12.like us to investigate then drop me Her later in the programme, we
:11:12. > :11:22.asked if Hinkley nuclear power station could withstand major
:11:22. > :11:24.flooding along the southern estuary. That is coming up on Inside Out
:11:24. > :11:30.West. This month the government is
:11:30. > :11:33.cutting the amount it pays out in housing benefit. Scott Ellis has
:11:33. > :11:42.been investigating what the impact of those changes will be here in
:11:42. > :11:49.the West of England. Owning a home is an aspiration for
:11:49. > :11:54.many. The reality in Bristol and Bath is that one quarter of people
:11:54. > :11:57.are now renting. One third of those receive some kind of housing
:11:57. > :12:03.benefit. It is a bill the Government has long promised to
:12:03. > :12:09.rein in. Are we happy to go on paying housing benefit of �30,000,
:12:09. > :12:13.�40,000, �50,000? Are constituents working hard to give benefit so
:12:13. > :12:20.that people can live in homes that other people could not even dream
:12:20. > :12:24.of? I am going to meet those that are now losing out. A lot of people
:12:24. > :12:27.will find themselves homeless. There does not seem to be any two-
:12:27. > :12:31.bedroom properties in the area but I do not see why I should move away
:12:31. > :12:35.from the area where all of my family are. I will meet a man who
:12:35. > :12:39.is police that �2 billion is being cut from the benefits system.
:12:39. > :12:45.People should move out from the centre, it is very set expensive,
:12:45. > :12:51.that is what I did. One of big cut has come in this year. It affect
:12:51. > :12:57.those claiming local housing allowance. In Bristol it leads 900
:12:57. > :13:01.claimants at least �40,000 a week worst-off. Until recently if you
:13:01. > :13:06.were single and under 25 you got enough allowance to live in a one-
:13:06. > :13:11.bedroom flat of your own. That has now changed to people over the age
:13:11. > :13:17.of 35 only. If you're a single and 34 Don't go, you will only get
:13:17. > :13:27.enough money to pay for a single room in a shared house. It is a big
:13:27. > :13:33.
:13:33. > :13:39.drop in your rent and it could be a It may means Kate -- it may mean a
:13:39. > :13:46.cake has to move out. In the summer, my rent will be produced -- reduced
:13:46. > :13:53.to �71 a week. That will be a reduction of nearly �50 a week.
:13:53. > :13:57.That will force me to be in shared accommodation. I am 29. The idea of
:13:57. > :14:06.moving back into shared accommodation does make me feel
:14:06. > :14:10.like I am going backwards in life. It is something I have done in the
:14:10. > :14:14.past and I thought I had moved forward. Kate is in for another
:14:14. > :14:18.shock when she starts looking to move. There is a dire shortage of
:14:18. > :14:25.rooms for rent in Bristol for those on benefits. Right now, we have
:14:25. > :14:29.only one house that have a double room available. That is �280 per
:14:29. > :14:36.calendar month. If I put somebody and unemployed in there, he might
:14:36. > :14:41.only be eligible for �240. Where is he going to get the extra money?
:14:41. > :14:45.says landlords are not dropping rents as the Government had hoped.
:14:45. > :14:52.Instead, they are getting tough on tenants. I have not had a landlord
:14:52. > :14:57.walk in and say, if the housing benefit is reduced, I will accept
:14:57. > :15:02.this, whatever they pay. No. They say, my flat is worth so much and
:15:02. > :15:10.that is how much I want. If I cannot get that, please could you
:15:11. > :15:16.serve notice for the tenant to quit. Evict the tenant? Yes. Bristol's
:15:16. > :15:19.head of housing is also worried. He thinks the cuts will concentrate
:15:19. > :15:23.those on housing benefit into deprived areas. People may choose,
:15:23. > :15:28.if they're able to, to live further afield but then they have the cost
:15:28. > :15:33.of travel. It is more likely to spread into the suburbs of the city.
:15:33. > :15:39.A people talk about poverty ghettos, where people on benefits have to
:15:39. > :15:43.live in poorer areas -- area is out of the city centre. Is that a true
:15:43. > :15:49.reflection of what might happen? are already seeing it. What we know
:15:49. > :15:54.about this group of people is they are concentrated in the east, the
:15:54. > :15:58.low rent area. The likelihood is that there will be more renting in
:15:58. > :16:05.those areas. He in Bath, with cuts in housing benefits, there is a
:16:05. > :16:09.bigger impact. Bath is a very expensive city. There is a large
:16:09. > :16:16.student population. If this man from the Julian House charity is
:16:16. > :16:20.encouraging more landlords to rent rooms to benefit claimants. But he
:16:20. > :16:23.doubts there will ever be enough to go around. There will be more
:16:23. > :16:30.homelessness and overcrowding. People have to live together,
:16:30. > :16:33.perhaps with too few rooms, in order to meet -- make ends meet.
:16:33. > :16:38.The impact of local housing allowance is that people have to
:16:38. > :16:42.pay on top for their accommodation. Benefits are paid as a minimum
:16:42. > :16:50.which people need to survive each week. If you then have to take some
:16:50. > :16:54.housing costs out of that, people are below the poverty line. Tim is
:16:54. > :16:59.an author and a member of the TaxPayers' Alliance. It campaigns
:16:59. > :17:03.for lower taxes and supports the reduction in housing benefits.
:17:03. > :17:08.Government needs to make cutbacks and it is going to be a cutback of
:17:08. > :17:13.10%. They seems reasonable this should be shared by all people. We
:17:13. > :17:18.are all having a hard time. If 100,000 people are affected by
:17:18. > :17:27.these changes to housing benefit, and the burden on the taxpayer
:17:27. > :17:32.through claiming of other benefits and crowding in that may result,
:17:32. > :17:36.that will create eight greater tax burden on you and I.
:17:36. > :17:43.That does sound like scare tactics to me. We are talking about a
:17:43. > :17:49.cutback of 10%. You have heard some of the arguments. Does that change
:17:49. > :17:52.your mind? Those people at the lower end of the margins, they need
:17:52. > :17:59.some help, but I think the Government is giving them help.
:17:59. > :18:03.They are getting money and housing benefit. It is just been capped.
:18:03. > :18:07.There are the changes coming in as the Government tries to cut the
:18:08. > :18:12.Housing Bill. One of the subsidy for families living in houses that
:18:12. > :18:18.are too big for them. For their bedrooms are a luxury the country
:18:18. > :18:22.can no longer afford. -- spare bedrooms. Another meeting. This
:18:22. > :18:26.time, a family living in social housing. The current proposals,
:18:26. > :18:31.that means they may have to move out. The problem is, she has three
:18:31. > :18:39.bedrooms. She and her daughter and the need for two. This is my third
:18:39. > :18:44.run. It is not huge. If the only way to stay here is to sub-let, I
:18:44. > :18:50.do not think anybody would want this at the bedroom. This is the
:18:50. > :18:54.reason why a I cannot stay in this house. My little home. Helen says
:18:55. > :18:59.there is a shortage of two bedroom homes in the area and she does not
:18:59. > :19:03.want to leave the neighbourhood where she grew up. A I do not see
:19:03. > :19:07.why I should be pushed out of an area where we have built a
:19:07. > :19:13.community, we walk about to make sure the place is clean, you know
:19:13. > :19:22.all your neighbours... It is not just me starting over again. Is
:19:22. > :19:26.everything. It is so much more than just a house. I do not drive.
:19:26. > :19:31.lived in north London for 25 years, lots of friends, and then I had to
:19:31. > :19:35.move to get a bigger house. You do that, you make new friends and
:19:35. > :19:40.settle down. Helen could stay she pays an extra
:19:40. > :19:44.�15 a week for the spare room but at the moment she is on incapacity
:19:44. > :19:49.benefit and cannot afford it. Do you think Helen should stay
:19:49. > :19:53.here? She cannot pay the �15, she will have to move. Do you feel
:19:53. > :19:58.sympathy? She is a lovely person. Do you sympathise with the fact
:19:58. > :20:06.that she has to move? Absolutely, it is difficult but moving is
:20:06. > :20:10.always difficult. Helen has been thrown a lifeline. The House of
:20:11. > :20:15.Lords has voted against the Government's spare room proposals,
:20:15. > :20:19.deeming them unfair in cases where other suitable accommodation is in
:20:19. > :20:23.short supply. Ministers will have a rethink in the next few weeks but
:20:23. > :20:33.are keen to push on with their plans to cut Britain's spiralling
:20:33. > :20:33.
:20:33. > :20:37.benefit bill. We are asking what would happen if
:20:37. > :20:44.a tsunami hit the Severn Estuary. If you think it could not happen,
:20:44. > :20:47.we have used the you. It probably already has. We have been
:20:47. > :20:54.investigating whether they Hinckley nuclear power station could cope
:20:54. > :21:01.with such an emergency. Hinckley Palace Station sits on the
:21:01. > :21:06.edge of the Somerset Levels. An area that has seen a storms and it
:21:06. > :21:11.is even bought a tsunami. A great wall of water came up the estuary
:21:11. > :21:16.and houses that were there were demolished. The owners of Hinckley
:21:16. > :21:20.Point dismissed tsunami fears. our analysis suggests this is a
:21:20. > :21:26.good place for a power station. Campaigners say it is too big a
:21:26. > :21:30.risk. Our concern would be a massive wall of water coming in
:21:30. > :21:36.from the sea would knock out the power supply and that could build
:21:36. > :21:40.up into a breakdown of the fuel. was a massive offshore earthquake
:21:41. > :21:48.that triggered if the horror came back in Japan last year. 16,000
:21:48. > :21:52.people are known to have died. -- the tsunami. The plant was engulfed
:21:52. > :21:58.by a 15 metre wall of water. He knocked out power supplies which
:21:58. > :22:03.eventually caused a meltdown. The area around the plant remains an
:22:03. > :22:13.inhabited. Since the 1950s, four nuclear reactors have been built in
:22:13. > :22:17.the West of England, including two at Hinckley Point. Energy suppliers
:22:17. > :22:22.are have applications. This will become Britain's biggest nuclear
:22:22. > :22:26.power station to date if they are successful. In a disaster happened
:22:26. > :22:35.here, the exclusion zone would reach Taunton. We have no worries
:22:35. > :22:39.on that score because we do not get tsunamis in Britain. But we do. A
:22:39. > :22:48.three-metre tsunami hit Cornwall in at 1755 after an earthquake
:22:48. > :22:52.destroyed the city of Lisbon. But far more devastating with a
:22:52. > :22:57.cataclysmic event that battered our coastline a century earlier,
:22:57. > :23:02.causing death and devastation. Cardiff academic believes it was
:23:02. > :23:06.another tsunami. I met him on the north Devon coast. In the area
:23:06. > :23:12.where the houses are built behind us, the houses that were there then,
:23:12. > :23:17.were demolished. We are looking at a significant wave height, or seven
:23:18. > :23:25.metres. Only one house built before 16 07 remain standing in the street
:23:25. > :23:28.that backs onto the shore. Simon's tsunami theory has been challenged
:23:28. > :23:33.about the meteorological establishment which think they may
:23:34. > :23:40.be a more straightforward explanation. On the day the wave
:23:40. > :23:47.crashed ashore, there were spring tides. It hit around the time of
:23:47. > :23:55.high water. We know that that combined with low pressure, strong
:23:55. > :24:05.winds, in lot of rain, is the classic set-up for a severe storm.
:24:05. > :24:08.As recently as 1981, the storm surge caused serious flooding. But
:24:08. > :24:13.Simon insists the storm surge explanation does not account for
:24:13. > :24:23.the ferocity of the 16 are seven event. Flooding that is created by
:24:23. > :24:27.other storms is different to that of a tsunami. -- 16-7. It is like a
:24:27. > :24:32.bath overflowing. The first thing you know about being flooded is
:24:32. > :24:39.your feet are getting wet. account from the time described a
:24:39. > :24:47.mighty wave advancing at a speed faster than a greyhound can run. In
:24:47. > :24:52.support of Simon's theory, there are two accounts. Neither appear in
:24:52. > :24:56.official records of British earthquakes. Simon and I are
:24:56. > :25:03.travelling more than 50 miles up the coast to Hinckley Point, close
:25:03. > :25:09.to the scene of the 1981 flood. This is the site of two nuclear
:25:09. > :25:16.power plants. Site aiders de commissioned and site be is nearing
:25:16. > :25:20.the end of its life. The narrowing of the Bristol Channel will have
:25:20. > :25:28.made it even worse, according to Simon. A by the time in get here,
:25:28. > :25:36.it is that higher altitude. Once the floodwater reached the Somerset
:25:36. > :25:41.Levels, there was no stopping it. Both sides were devastated. 2,000
:25:41. > :25:51.people died. It was a colossal amount. If that is true, it made
:25:51. > :25:52.
:25:52. > :25:58.the earlier flood the worst natural disaster to hit British soil. In
:25:58. > :26:05.one area alone, 500 people drowned. Apparently, mass graves have to be
:26:05. > :26:15.dug to dispose of the bodies. -- had to be dug. Storm surge or
:26:15. > :26:15.
:26:15. > :26:18.tsunami? There is no doubt something terrible happened. As
:26:18. > :26:22.part of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the
:26:22. > :26:28.Government wants to see an expansion of nuclear power. The
:26:28. > :26:32.ground is being prepared for Hinckley. If its operator is
:26:32. > :26:36.granted full planning permission, the new plant will be five times
:26:36. > :26:40.more powerful than the previous Hinckley site. Protesters had that
:26:40. > :26:46.day will never come. Their opposition is based partly on the
:26:46. > :26:50.fear of a repeat of previous events. Our concerns would be a massive
:26:50. > :26:54.wall of water coming in from the sea would knock out the power
:26:54. > :26:58.supplied, it would also knock out the back out electricity. The power
:26:58. > :27:03.station would have no electricity. Although it would automatically
:27:03. > :27:09.shut down, it would still be a lot of residual heat. That could build
:27:09. > :27:15.up into a meltdown of the fuel. That is what happened in Japan.
:27:15. > :27:21.F is confident such an event could never happen. Hinckley will house a
:27:21. > :27:27.different type of reactor to the Japanese ones. There is a back-up
:27:27. > :27:33.supply. The new station have a new comprehensive back-up supply. In
:27:33. > :27:37.Japan, the reactors are not licensed in the UK. We are looking
:27:37. > :27:41.to licence that type of reactor. The pressurised water reactor we
:27:41. > :27:47.are going to build, proposing to build, has got a huge legacy
:27:47. > :27:51.through the world where it has been proven to be safe. The company says
:27:51. > :28:01.the power station is elevated above the surrounding flood plain and
:28:01. > :28:03.
:28:03. > :28:09.plans take full account of the event from its 16 07. Everything
:28:09. > :28:16.has operated safely. All our analysis suggests this is an ideal
:28:16. > :28:20.spot to build a power station. stock pinkly campaign will probably
:28:20. > :28:24.never be convinced by such reassurances. In the planning
:28:24. > :28:32.authorities allow it, what on the new plant could take off around one