16/01/2012 Inside Out London

The average the average council tax payer would be horrified at the

cost of it all. If he lives in a house which currently has the

benefit of the perspective of village green he would be delighted

at everyone else in the county is paying for been getting an open

space. If you think this is not a village green should look like, you

will be surprised what the money is being spent on. A failed

application to have this lake declared a village green cost more

than �20,000. They rejected attempts to protect part of this

former airfield in Weston-super- Mare cost taxpayers more than

�12,000. Somerset County Council is dealing for an application to have

these seafront gardens made a village green and the one that has

caused the most controversy is the attempt to protect this land from

development by Bristol City football club which has cost the

taxpayer more than �123,000. That case is set to go to a judicial

review after a public inquiry had to be held and it is those

inquiries that caused costs to escalate. Where does the money go?

A small amount goes to the local authority but most of the goes to

the lawyer's and professionals involved. It is good news for

barristers but not such good news for council tax payers. Yes, it is

good news for barristers and that is bad for the public interest.

one of those public inquiries involve this piece of land in

Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire. Pauline Radley applied for village

green status with the support of the neighbours and they are using

the law to stop a housing development. Is there an element of

Not In My backyard about this? You want the house is built somewhere

but not here? Yes, there probably is. That is in most cases, not many

people want people on their back doorstep. This is the only area

left. If the application succeed it will not be a private developer

that loses out but a social housing provider. Bristol-based planning

consultant believes this is where campaigners using the law are

causing the biggest problem. weird by the large number of

housing associations -- we advise a large number of local housing

associations and this stops a lot of homes for people who cannot

afford them. This could be landed has not been used for 20 or 30

years that are owned by Central Government and could be used for

projects like hospices or two at infrastructure ought to be sold on

to raise money for other projects in the area. It is no surprise that

developers are calling for the Government to change the law so it

is more difficult to use against them. The minimum criteria for open

spaces being designated as village greens needs to be brought up

higher and shown that these areas of land are of high higher quality

and that they are used by a very broad and wide selection of people

from the local community. Government has suggested

introducing a character test to define what a village green should

look like. It sounds like a nice idea which would protect places

like we are standing on but not scrubby wasteland. The problem is

in practice it would be difficult to administer and it would keep my

bank manager happy because I suspect we would have a lot of egg

-- arguments. A test you can think of, I do nothing would working

practice. Concrete proposals will not be made until later this year.

It looks highly unlikely that the sun will set on this particular

land were bought any time soon. These are yet another tactic used

by developers and local people to further their respective interests.

It is not surprising but it does not seem to be very fair. Our worst

fears that government decides to do away with the system for

registering and as Greens ought to severely restricted. We would fight

that all the way. If there is something you would

like us to investigate then drop me Her later in the programme, we

asked if Hinkley nuclear power station could withstand major

flooding along the southern estuary. That is coming up on Inside Out

West. This month the government is

cutting the amount it pays out in housing benefit. Scott Ellis has

been investigating what the impact of those changes will be here in

the West of England. Owning a home is an aspiration for

many. The reality in Bristol and Bath is that one quarter of people

are now renting. One third of those receive some kind of housing

benefit. It is a bill the Government has long promised to

rein in. Are we happy to go on paying housing benefit of �30,000,

�40,000, �50,000? Are constituents working hard to give benefit so

that people can live in homes that other people could not even dream

of? I am going to meet those that are now losing out. A lot of people

will find themselves homeless. There does not seem to be any two-

bedroom properties in the area but I do not see why I should move away

from the area where all of my family are. I will meet a man who

is police that �2 billion is being cut from the benefits system.

People should move out from the centre, it is very set expensive,

that is what I did. One of big cut has come in this year. It affect

those claiming local housing allowance. In Bristol it leads 900

claimants at least �40,000 a week worst-off. Until recently if you

were single and under 25 you got enough allowance to live in a one-

bedroom flat of your own. That has now changed to people over the age

of 35 only. If you're a single and 34 Don't go, you will only get

enough money to pay for a single room in a shared house. It is a big

drop in your rent and it could be a It may means Kate -- it may mean a

cake has to move out. In the summer, my rent will be produced -- reduced

to �71 a week. That will be a reduction of nearly �50 a week.

That will force me to be in shared accommodation. I am 29. The idea of

moving back into shared accommodation does make me feel

like I am going backwards in life. It is something I have done in the

past and I thought I had moved forward. Kate is in for another

shock when she starts looking to move. There is a dire shortage of

rooms for rent in Bristol for those on benefits. Right now, we have

only one house that have a double room available. That is �280 per

calendar month. If I put somebody and unemployed in there, he might

only be eligible for �240. Where is he going to get the extra money?

says landlords are not dropping rents as the Government had hoped.

Instead, they are getting tough on tenants. I have not had a landlord

walk in and say, if the housing benefit is reduced, I will accept

this, whatever they pay. No. They say, my flat is worth so much and

that is how much I want. If I cannot get that, please could you

serve notice for the tenant to quit. Evict the tenant? Yes. Bristol's

head of housing is also worried. He thinks the cuts will concentrate

those on housing benefit into deprived areas. People may choose,

if they're able to, to live further afield but then they have the cost

of travel. It is more likely to spread into the suburbs of the city.

A people talk about poverty ghettos, where people on benefits have to

live in poorer areas -- area is out of the city centre. Is that a true

reflection of what might happen? are already seeing it. What we know

about this group of people is they are concentrated in the east, the

low rent area. The likelihood is that there will be more renting in

those areas. He in Bath, with cuts in housing benefits, there is a

bigger impact. Bath is a very expensive city. There is a large

student population. If this man from the Julian House charity is

encouraging more landlords to rent rooms to benefit claimants. But he

doubts there will ever be enough to go around. There will be more

homelessness and overcrowding. People have to live together,

perhaps with too few rooms, in order to meet -- make ends meet.

The impact of local housing allowance is that people have to

pay on top for their accommodation. Benefits are paid as a minimum

which people need to survive each week. If you then have to take some

housing costs out of that, people are below the poverty line. Tim is

an author and a member of the TaxPayers' Alliance. It campaigns

for lower taxes and supports the reduction in housing benefits.

Government needs to make cutbacks and it is going to be a cutback of

10%. They seems reasonable this should be shared by all people. We

are all having a hard time. If 100,000 people are affected by

these changes to housing benefit, and the burden on the taxpayer

through claiming of other benefits and crowding in that may result,

that will create eight greater tax burden on you and I.

That does sound like scare tactics to me. We are talking about a

cutback of 10%. You have heard some of the arguments. Does that change

your mind? Those people at the lower end of the margins, they need

some help, but I think the Government is giving them help.

They are getting money and housing benefit. It is just been capped.

There are the changes coming in as the Government tries to cut the

Housing Bill. One of the subsidy for families living in houses that

are too big for them. For their bedrooms are a luxury the country

can no longer afford. -- spare bedrooms. Another meeting. This

time, a family living in social housing. The current proposals,

that means they may have to move out. The problem is, she has three

bedrooms. She and her daughter and the need for two. This is my third

run. It is not huge. If the only way to stay here is to sub-let, I

do not think anybody would want this at the bedroom. This is the

reason why a I cannot stay in this house. My little home. Helen says

there is a shortage of two bedroom homes in the area and she does not

want to leave the neighbourhood where she grew up. A I do not see

why I should be pushed out of an area where we have built a

community, we walk about to make sure the place is clean, you know

all your neighbours... It is not just me starting over again. Is

everything. It is so much more than just a house. I do not drive.

lived in north London for 25 years, lots of friends, and then I had to

move to get a bigger house. You do that, you make new friends and

settle down. Helen could stay she pays an extra

�15 a week for the spare room but at the moment she is on incapacity

benefit and cannot afford it. Do you think Helen should stay

here? She cannot pay the �15, she will have to move. Do you feel

sympathy? She is a lovely person. Do you sympathise with the fact

that she has to move? Absolutely, it is difficult but moving is

always difficult. Helen has been thrown a lifeline. The House of

Lords has voted against the Government's spare room proposals,

deeming them unfair in cases where other suitable accommodation is in

short supply. Ministers will have a rethink in the next few weeks but

are keen to push on with their plans to cut Britain's spiralling

benefit bill. We are asking what would happen if

a tsunami hit the Severn Estuary. If you think it could not happen,

we have used the you. It probably already has. We have been

investigating whether they Hinckley nuclear power station could cope

with such an emergency. Hinckley Palace Station sits on the

edge of the Somerset Levels. An area that has seen a storms and it

is even bought a tsunami. A great wall of water came up the estuary

and houses that were there were demolished. The owners of Hinckley

Point dismissed tsunami fears. our analysis suggests this is a

good place for a power station. Campaigners say it is too big a

risk. Our concern would be a massive wall of water coming in

from the sea would knock out the power supply and that could build

up into a breakdown of the fuel. was a massive offshore earthquake

that triggered if the horror came back in Japan last year. 16,000

people are known to have died. -- the tsunami. The plant was engulfed

by a 15 metre wall of water. He knocked out power supplies which

eventually caused a meltdown. The area around the plant remains an

inhabited. Since the 1950s, four nuclear reactors have been built in

the West of England, including two at Hinckley Point. Energy suppliers

are have applications. This will become Britain's biggest nuclear

power station to date if they are successful. In a disaster happened

here, the exclusion zone would reach Taunton. We have no worries

on that score because we do not get tsunamis in Britain. But we do. A

three-metre tsunami hit Cornwall in at 1755 after an earthquake

destroyed the city of Lisbon. But far more devastating with a

cataclysmic event that battered our coastline a century earlier,

causing death and devastation. Cardiff academic believes it was

another tsunami. I met him on the north Devon coast. In the area

where the houses are built behind us, the houses that were there then,

were demolished. We are looking at a significant wave height, or seven

metres. Only one house built before 16 07 remain standing in the street

that backs onto the shore. Simon's tsunami theory has been challenged

about the meteorological establishment which think they may

be a more straightforward explanation. On the day the wave

crashed ashore, there were spring tides. It hit around the time of

high water. We know that that combined with low pressure, strong

winds, in lot of rain, is the classic set-up for a severe storm.

As recently as 1981, the storm surge caused serious flooding. But

Simon insists the storm surge explanation does not account for

the ferocity of the 16 are seven event. Flooding that is created by

other storms is different to that of a tsunami. -- 16-7. It is like a

bath overflowing. The first thing you know about being flooded is

your feet are getting wet. account from the time described a

mighty wave advancing at a speed faster than a greyhound can run. In

support of Simon's theory, there are two accounts. Neither appear in

official records of British earthquakes. Simon and I are

travelling more than 50 miles up the coast to Hinckley Point, close

to the scene of the 1981 flood. This is the site of two nuclear

power plants. Site aiders de commissioned and site be is nearing

the end of its life. The narrowing of the Bristol Channel will have

made it even worse, according to Simon. A by the time in get here,

it is that higher altitude. Once the floodwater reached the Somerset

Levels, there was no stopping it. Both sides were devastated. 2,000

people died. It was a colossal amount. If that is true, it made

the earlier flood the worst natural disaster to hit British soil. In

one area alone, 500 people drowned. Apparently, mass graves have to be

dug to dispose of the bodies. -- had to be dug. Storm surge or

tsunami? There is no doubt something terrible happened. As

part of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the

Government wants to see an expansion of nuclear power. The

ground is being prepared for Hinckley. If its operator is

granted full planning permission, the new plant will be five times

more powerful than the previous Hinckley site. Protesters had that

day will never come. Their opposition is based partly on the

fear of a repeat of previous events. Our concerns would be a massive

wall of water coming in from the sea would knock out the power

supplied, it would also knock out the back out electricity. The power

station would have no electricity. Although it would automatically

shut down, it would still be a lot of residual heat. That could build

up into a meltdown of the fuel. That is what happened in Japan.

F is confident such an event could never happen. Hinckley will house a

different type of reactor to the Japanese ones. There is a back-up

supply. The new station have a new comprehensive back-up supply. In

Japan, the reactors are not licensed in the UK. We are looking

to licence that type of reactor. The pressurised water reactor we

are going to build, proposing to build, has got a huge legacy

through the world where it has been proven to be safe. The company says

the power station is elevated above the surrounding flood plain and

plans take full account of the event from its 16 07. Everything

has operated safely. All our analysis suggests this is an ideal

spot to build a power station. stock pinkly campaign will probably

never be convinced by such reassurances. In the planning

authorities allow it, what on the new plant could take off around one