05/12/2011 Inside Out South East

rail service such a good idea for Kent? I have to pay nearly four

grand for the privilege of a journey that now takes 20 minutes

longer than it used to. Amazing discoveries about the

Romans in the south-east. 1,800 years ago, this would have been

like Ironbridge, with forges bashing away and furnaces firing.

This was the industrial heartland of England at the height of the

Roman Empire. And should we start culling badgers

in Sussex? We are looking for an answer and an answer which is going

to work, not just to kill because we have got to do something.

I'm Natalie Graham with untold stories, closer to home. From all

round Kent and Sussex, this is Hello, tonight I'm in Pevensey,

where the walls built by the Romans are still standing. Later on, I'll

be finding out more about the lesser-known history of their time

in Sussex. But first, after a lot of e-mails

and calls from disgruntled rail passengers in Kent, Vince Rogers

The railway is already, relatively, a rich man's toy. That's according

to the former Transport Secretary Phillip Hammond, when he was on the

subject of high-speed trains. There is currently only one high-

speed service in the country and it runs in Kent. High-Speed 1 itself,

the infrastructure, is a superb piece of rail engineering. So we

strongly support High-Speed 1. is the name of the new railway line

from St Pancras down to the Channel Tunnel - just like M1 is the name

of the motorway. High Speed is the name of the rail service which runs

at a high speed on HS1, but runs at the same speed as normal trains

when they turn off on to normal lines. You can't deny it's a

fantastic piece of infrastructure - if you live in Ashford and you want

to get to London in 35 minutes. But some other commuters in other parts

of the network are not happy. They say some kind of strange paradox

has happened. The fast trains have made things slower.

If you live on the north Kent line and you want to travel to London,

you've got a choice of two types of train. The normal classic train,

and, since December 2009, the new, more expensive High Speed.

So you're saying that the very fact that the high-speed train exists,

that is slowing down everything else? Absolutely.

Herne Bay in North Kent. Many people commute from here to London.

One of them lives here - John Nicholson. Because of that extra

journey time sitting on the train, just thinking what I could be doing

Every morning, John sets off to get He travels on the ordinary train.

But since the high-speed was introduced in December 2009, his

train has slowed down. I have to pay nearly four grand for the

privilege of a journey that now takes 20 minutes longer than it

used to. And fellow Herne Bay train user Peter Lee has represented

commuters for 30 years. He says the high-speed has done one thing to

the classic train service. It has spoilt it. So we do feel hard done

by. The main problem is that when the high-speed service was

introduced, some of the stopping services from Victoria to Faversham

were withdrawn, and that has meant the mainline trains are making more

stops and the journey times are extended.

Remember, this isn't about punctuality. They are saying that

the journey times, according to the Meanwhile, over in Westminster,

there are also complaints about the high-speed service. Roger Gale, the

Member of Parliament for North Thanet, is not a fan of the train.

The classic services that run into central London are slower as a

result of the high-speed one, because they clear a path for the

high-speed train. Where is the benefit of that? So this calls for

a trip to St Pancras... ..to meet Vince Lucas, who is the

Service Delivery Director of Southeastern. He says yes, some

trains are slower, but only some. Some of the off-peak trains that

stop at all stations stop at more stations now, because we changed

the stopping patterns on the trains. On the peak trains, some of the

peak trains into Cannon Street, that a lot of people go in to the

City on, some of those are a bit faster and some are a bit slower

than 2008. Obviously we have looked at it all as well. But the

complaining commuters have dug out timetables going back to 1912 and

crunched the numbers to show that average journey times are going up.

If you look at this one, for example, this is Faversham to

Victoria in the UPOV peak. As you can see, it improved journey times

through from 1976-2009 and then with the introduction of a high-

speed train, we go up six or seven minutes on the journey time to

Victoria. -- up-off peak. Back at St Pancras, I showed the graphs to

Vince Lucas of Southeastern. It is sort of going up like that,

it should be going down. Since privatisation, there has been more

and more trains put on both to encourage demand and to meet that

demand, and when you have more trains on a network with the

infrastructure staying the same, to get them all in, they are going to

take a bit longer. You are using the capacity better. It is a bit

like the M25. When it is really busy, it goes to variable speeds

and drops the speeds down to get more cars through. The trains are

the same. What you are seeing is the result of more people than ever

using the railways. They are saying the trains are going slower and

they are. Some are slower, you could produce a different graph

that shows us something else. With any set of statistics like that,

you could show all sorts of things. We wanted to film John Nicholson on

his commute to work, but Southeastern wouldn't let us.

However, instead, we can show you If you were allowed to film my

journey, you would appreciate that it is an extra 15-20 minutes long

each way and we are really not happy about that. The classic

services have become horrendous since the high-speed train was

introduced. Services have been axed, journey times have been increased

and generally, conditions and services are getting worse and

But surely, though, there's one obvious answer to John's problem?

You want to get to the City quicker? Yes, we do. Why don't you

get on a high-speed service? Because it goes to St Pancras.

would rather go to the City, where he actually works. In any case, the

high-speed is more expensive and, on top of that, Peter Lee says on

the north Kent line, it's not any faster anyway. The high-speed train

takes 68 minutes to go from Faversham to St Pancras. It is

almost exactly the same time as the train took to go from Faversham to

Victoria until it was changed in 2009, so there is no improvement in

journey times at all into London. have some sympathy with that view.

On the routes from Chatham to the Medway Towns, they stop at a lot of

stations because people want to get on and they take quite a slow route

from the Medway Towns to Gravesend to get to the high-speed line at

Ebbsfleet. Before the line was built, everybody wanted the high-

speed train. Even though everybody knew that the journey would be just

as quick into London. Kent County Council is a big fan of the high-

speed train but they agree there is a problem on the north Kent line.

So they have made a suggestion to the Department for Transport,

saying that a simple tweak of the timetable will sort it out.

think what we can do is have a look at the whole timetable and take one

of the two trains an hour and speed it up by missing some of the

smaller stations. But Southeastern's Vince Lucas says

tweak or no tweak, we shouldn't forget that Kent is the first in

the country with a high-speed service. It is about the fast

journey times but it is also about saying what a fantastic piece of

infrastructure Kent has got and how that boosts the economy and growth

in jobs. That's the important thing here.$$WHITE But there is no

persuading John and his band of grip disgruntled passengers.

They are convinced that high-speed Vince Rogers reporting.

Coming up later: how do we stop the spread of TB from badgers to

cattle? We're testing these cows for bovine TB. And if they have

been exposed to TB, then they will Now, what do you call someone who

spends thousands on specialised equipment and then months looking

for something that might never have existed in the first place? I went

They came, they saw, they did some fascinating geophysical surveys -

and a spot of metal detecting, too. These guys are part of a new breed

of archaeologists - amateurs who invest their own considerable time

and money scouring the Sussex countryside. Thanks to the growing

number of people willing to fork out for the necessary equipment,

and the increasing opportunities to share information on the internet,

important new discoveries are being made here in the South East by what

you might call part-time time teams. Everyone here is a volunteer or a

student. And this is how you learn - hands-on experience - and it's

brilliant. It is something that everyone can get involved with,

everyone can enjoy. It's our cultural heritage. The last person

to touch that rock was a Roman, and me. OK. That's quite amazing, I

Harry Cunningham's day job is running his own garden centre but

when he's not selling plants, he's searching for Roman glass, coins,

tiles and knives in the High Weald. This is the sort of stuff

archaeologists dream of. So it's not the pile of rubbish it

looks? No, it certainly isn't. Harry's found all this in an area

that's largely unexplored by professional archaeologists.

much archaeology these days is developer-led, commercial, so it's

archaeology companies which are paid by the big developing

organisations, who are building houses, to do some archaeology

before they start building. Here, we're in an area of outstanding

natural beauty, so there's not much building going on. And that's not

the only reason professional archaeologists steer clear of the

Weald. It's thick clay, which is difficult to dig. It's a very

wooded, which means there are routes everywhere and it's

difficult to find the archaeology. The clay is acidic, so it rots

things very quickly and bodies disappear. So all the lovely things

go. It's dirty, unrewarding work, in other words. Exactly. It sounds

to me like the professionals are being very sensible in avoiding

this area altogether. But all these factors make it prime territory for

people like Harry. It's great for the amateur archaeologist, because

it hasn't been looked at very well at all. The whole of the Weald area.

You don't find villas with the gold and the silver, but what you do

find is far more exciting. You see the proof of everyday living, in an

area which used to be solid forest. And the more we look, the more

we're finding. And what they're finding in the leafy, rolling

countryside of the Weald is an incredible amount of evidence of

huge-scale industrial activity. The Romans didn't just come here in

43AD to conquer. The Romans came here to the South

East of England because they needed something vital to their empire,

and they knew they could find it right here. They came for the iron

of Sussex and Kent. The Roman Empire needed endless supplies of

it - for weapons, for tools, even nails for building. But to turn

iron-rich Wealden rock into metal, you need temperatures of 1,000

degrees, so not only did they dig up the rock, they chopped down the

forest to feed hundreds of furnaces. The Romans stripped the land bare.

They turned all this into an industrial wasteland. Where we have

fields today, there would once have been ancient woodland, and where we

have trees, well, that's often regrowth over disused iron pits.

And almost all of this land is uncharted territory. So that's what

David Staveley is putting right in his spare time. This particular

piece of kit, a magnetic field gradiometer, cost David more than

�15,000. It paints a picture of what's under the surface of the

earth and it's particularly good at finding Roman remains.

What have you found? New roads, new settlements, new iron working sites,

so yes a lot of work has been done there. Under this hill near

Etchingham, David has mapped a large Roman settlement that's been

dated to 150AD. The height of the Roman iron industry of the Weald.

And he's convinced there's much more to be discovered. So the more

you do, the more you're getting into this? Absolutely, I'm obsessed.

I'm out most weekends. I won't be giving this up any time soon.

Down the road at Barcombe near Lewes is another site where David

did the geophysics. Here on what appears to be the edge of the vast

Imperial iron-working estate, David Rudling of Sussex University is

leading a legion of students and volunteers. They've already found a

villa and now they're busy uncovering a large Roman bath-house.

It is a massive complex, and we don't quite know really what was

going on here. It's huge, this bath-house, really enormous, so

bigger than an estate bath-house would be normally. Maybe this was

used as an estate baths, or possibly for a wider audience or

wider clientele. We know that further up the River Ouse there are

iron working sites, so maybe this was used by people working there

and some of the transportation people involved on the river, as

well. Enthusiastic amateurs are always welcome to join digs like

this. But even with no equipment at all, if you know where to look you

can still easily find evidence of According to Dr Ed Jarzembowski, a

good place to start is in the woods near Stonegate. We're in the bottom

of a valley here on clay, surrounded by dense woodland, but

1800 years ago this would have been like Ironbridge with forges banging

away, furnaces firing. This was the industrial heartland of England at

the height of the Roman Empire! Here it is. That is why the Romans

invaded because out of this comes the iron to make metal. This is the

slag from the ironworks. That is all that is left of the Roman

Empire here. Tons and tons of the stuff. The reason we are standing

knee-deep in the stream is because this is not an archaeological dig,

but this string has been gently cutting into these ancient Roman

layers, accumulating the stuff under the surface. -- of this

of iron slag may be plentiful round here, but if look long and hard

enough, there's a chance you might find something very rare indeed.

Robin Hodgkinson of Eastbourne Metal Detecting Club has found,

logged and reported plenty of Roman artefacts in his time. But he never

expected to uncover a medallion in the High Weald of Sussex, dating

from the time of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. At first, it looked

like a coin but as soon as you handled it, the weight and size of

it, we knew we had something completely different. It was just a

case of going to the archaeologists, who took it to the British Museum.

And some at the British Museum got out of their tree with it.

that's because this medallion is so incredibly rare. Just one of four

that have ever been found. other three are in the major

museums in Milan, Paris and Vienna. And here we are, sitting in the

woods in Sussex, with number four! Extraordinary! How it got here, of

course, is a mystery. You must have asked yourself that question, a

million times. It has got to be in connection with the iron industry.

It was thought to be so good that the Emperor decided to... What's

the word? Reward, I suppose. Reward, yes. Reward somebody. The discovery

of this medallion here shows that our region was of vital importance

to the Roman Empire. And it gives all amateur archaeologists a

tantalising glimpse of what else might be out there and how finding

it might change our perceptions of the past. It sounds silly to say it

but you can change the course of history. If I did find a piece of

iron that got identified as a manacle for a slave, it would

change how we think about the iron industry in this country.

that's why amateur archaeologists keep exploring the Weald. Because

they're determined to unlock more secrets from the past, no matter

how much it costs them or how long it takes. You're not going to give

this up, then? No, no, I'll be going for this for

a few more years, until my legs drop off. $$ WHITE No danger of

this ending up on eBay? No, not a chance.

And if you want to know more about Roman Britain, take a look at our

Now, as an outbreak of TB in cattle approaches the South East, could

Sussex be the perfect place to test out the culling badgers in our

Badgers have a special place in many people's hearts - but they're

not as harmless as you might think. They carry a disease that attacks

cattle, called bovine tuberculosis. It can cause chronic wasting,

debilitation and death. In fact, more than 25,000 cattle are

slaughtered each year because of it. The disease can be passed to humans

from animals - but cases are rare. Over the past 25 years, it's been

spreading. So far, Sussex only has a few pockets of infection compared

to places like the South West. At John Hook's farm in Oxfordshire,

he's been getting a taste of what farmers in the South East are

likely to face in the future. He's had to slaughter 127 of his herd

after a TB outbreak on his farm. know all our cattle, and it's very

upsetting to lose them in this way. Producing milk is seven days a week,

365 days a year. To have it stopped for the best part of 12 months is

devastating The government says badger culling could be the answer

to stop the disease spreading. It's looking for areas to try it out.

Roger Waters runs the cattle market in Hailsham. He wants action before

the problem gets worse. definitely in favour of a cull if

it's going to deal with TB in the area and the United Kingdom.

Scientist Tim Roper from Sussex University has been studying

badgers since the '80s. They are part of the cattle TB problem -

there's no question about that. We know that from the culling trial

that happened a few years ago. When badgers were culled, the rate of TB

in cattle went down. A culling trial took place six years ago in

Britain - an experiment where badgers were killed to look at how

BTB spreads. But the animals involved started behaving in a

unpredictable way - moving around and affecting results. The overall

rate of TB did indeed go down, but just outside the culling areas it

went up. Therefore the findings were open to interpretation. Now

people are saying East Sussex is an ideal place to do another study to

find out more about the phenomenon that surprised everyone. It was

called the perturbation effect. Badgers are territorial - they

stick to their own areas - but when disturbed by the cull, they spread

into neighbouring zones and the number of infected cattle in those

areas went up. Because badgers are social animals, they live in a

fairly close-knit community and defend their own territory. Once

they start getting culled, that's disrupted. You don't have as many

badgers to maintain the borders, so other badgers will start coming in,

and then you can get the disease being spread between the badgers.

The government is concerned about badgers wandering, so it's looking

for places to cull where badgers will find it difficult to spread

out. That's why some say this area in East Sussex, between Eastbourne

and Brighton, could be the ideal place for a cull. Hemmed in by a

railway line, a river and the A27, its not impossible for badgers to

cross, but it is more difficult. There are physical boundaries

available - we have, obviously, the sea to the south, and the River

Ouse is a good boundary. And the A27 and the Eastbourne-Brighton

railway. And, of course, the area ticks another important box - it

has a high incidence of bovine TB, which is why cows here have to be

tested every year. If they have been exposed to TB, then they will

get lumps on their skin and then they will have to be killed. Roger

Waters says another reason why East Sussex would be a good place is

that the infected area's small, making it easier to perform a trial.

We have a small area here, which we could divorce away and have a cull

and see if it is effective. it's not just a case of geography -

to make a cull work, it will need landowners. Which is why farmer

Stephen Carr has his doubts. of the land area within the cull

area to be committed to the project. That could be very difficult, where

you've got public bodies like water companies, or the National Trust,

or other areas where they might be subject to people not wanting the

cull to happen. But could there be another way of dealing with the

problem? We've come to this farm in Buckinghamshire just as it's

getting light to find out. The Badger Trust says vaccination is

the answer. Injections are being mixed up as part of a pilot study

here. And after a walk into a nearby woodland, it's not long till

we see a rather bleary-eyed looking badger.

With permission of a local farmer, volunteers here have been trapping

badgers and injecting them with a vaccine to protect them against

Simon Boulter is one of the volunteers. He says this study will

help the trust see whether vaccination is viable. It can stop

badgers from getting TB. The main job is that it actually reduces the

severity of the infection - it captures them before they become

too infectious, which means you're reducing badger-to-badger

transmission of bovine TB. But it will take time for badgers to build

up resistance to the disease - and not everyone's convinced it will

work. Not all bad as can be trapped - some are just too shy - so if

vaccination is going to be rolled out on a large-scale, we will have

to have an oral vaccine. That would be something that could be put out

in date for badgers to pick up as food. The Government says it won't

consider vaccination without a cull, because there's not enough evidence

it will work. Meanwhile the Badger Trust say alternatives must be

explored properly and badgers are being unfairly blamed for spreading

the disease. Other forms of wildlife certainly can carry TB -

deer, rats and quite a lot of other mammals as well - but badgers are

the ones that seem to be being blamed. Back In East Sussex, farmer

Stephen Carr says a trial won't work and government plans won't

make any difference. I'm afraid, it is very much at shutting the stable

door after the horse has bolted. It is decades too late, really.

National Farmers' Union says if we don't act now, the disease will

continue to rise. We need a call to bring the disease under control.

Without that, we believe that unless you deal with the problem in

wildlife, you're not going to get on top of the problem. But the

Badger Trust says it will fight any plans. We are looking for an answer

that is going to work, not just to kill, because we have got to do

something. It plans get the go- ahead, the badger call could go

ahead as early as next May. It is clear the problem is having a

devastating impact on some farmers and feelings are running high. But

some say we are running out of time if we want to protect cattle and

the countryside from bovine If you want any more information

about the show, you can visit our Kent or Sussex website. You can

also watch the programme again on the iPlayer. Coming up next week:

We investigate exactly what is going on at Occupied Brighton.

Why did you want to work in the funeral business? It is helping

people. How funeral directing his becoming vicar real choice for

young people in Kent. -- is becoming of the career choice.