22/09/2014 Inside Out South East

What the Scottish referendul result means for the South`dast

If we don't grasp this time and this opportunity we will regret ht for

ever. With more home births on thd way,

how will our hospitals cope? Certainly if we were to drabble our

homebirths we would be struggling. That is so amazing!

And we join the underwater archaeologists unlocking thd secrets

It is very much like the Mary Rose. It is probably the Mary Rosd of the

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

From all round the South East, this is Inside Out.

Hello. We are in the middle of the popular seaside town of Eastbourne.

We will be back here later, at first up, Scotland decided to stax. Even

so, what are they with the passions in the South East? Vince Rogers

reports. The North Kent Scottish Association are holding one of their

regular dances in Barnhurst near Dartford. But tonight's dance is a

little unusual. For obvious reasons. Inevitably, it is a major thing that

the whole country. Here in the South East, at the opposite end of the

country from Scotland. What will be the effect on us? Well, mord than

you would think. The talk in Westminster is now devolution in

England. Possibly, right down to the city and county level. In the south

of England, particularly in the South East, there might be ` county

regional solution or a county `based solution, which will give a little

question to the leaders as to what they want. MUSIC PLAYS

So devolution could be on its way to this corner of England, the South

East. So, we are going to vhsit a selection of our council le`ders and

our semi`stupid question. Would you like more power? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Very much so. Wd would welcome being further empowdred For

over one year I have believdd in this the of one place one logic

Everyone agrees that central government has too strong a hold. We

have a hugely centralised, over controlled system in this country. I

think the people of East Sussex will want to feel that they can `ctually

have a more meaningful say hn what is delivered here in East Stssex.

Central government cannot ddtermine what happened in 400 local council

areas. It does not know what is best for Hastings. I could give xou an

example on a schools progralme. The Department for Education decided to

allocate it, so far in Kent, not one brick has been laid. If that money

had been given direct to ask, with a council allowed to modernisd

schools, I can guarantee thdy would have been completed and people would

be enjoying schools in a decent `` education in a decent physical

building. So if our council leaders want to free themselves frol

Whitehall, how is this going to be paid for? The key thing we need is

physical devolution which mdans the ability to raise money locally. At

the moment we are dependent on an announcement every winter bx the

Chancellor of the Exchequer, telling us how much money we will not have

to spend. I believe the loc`l authority should have the power

determined local taxation. We collect business rate and they are

allowed to retain half the business rate. What we don't do is sdt to be

business rates. They are set by central government. There are

several ways of doing it. Wd currently get a promotion of new

homes bonus every house and business that is built currently gets the

county some money back. Bushness rates go to central governmdnt. We

really could do with a shard of the business rates being recognhsed as

we deliver more houses and lore jobs for the county. Where will the money

come from? It's not about t`xing more, but making better use of the

money currently within the public purse, both rated council t`x and

national taxation on commercial rates. One of the members on the

European Parliament the South East believes local government itself

needs to be signified. Here in Surrey, we have cash councils,

Borough councils district councils then we have Surrey County Council.

You left thinking do we acttally need that degree of tiered

government system in place for somewhere like Surrey? If there were

to be more devolution in thd South East, what specifically with the

council leaders like to do with their new found power? They need to

be an understanding from thd Department for Work and Pensions

that a lot of things could be done at a local level, at job centres,

things like that. We don't need to have job centres, what about public

buildings. Working libraries. I think the powers to intervene in the

economy, effectively, with the resources to do so. The powdr to

compulsorily purchase withott requiring government approv`l, I

think, is reasonable. The power to plan without necessarily government

approval. Every different atthority need to submit their planning

strategy for the next 20 ye`rs or so to central government. Are there

specific government `` powers you would like to see? Not parthcularly

at this stage. We are a couple of weeks short of giving away our

policies for the general manifesto. I can't agree that detailed today.

What we might want to do is intended by some kind of businesses by

discounting their business rates and distant advising others by

increasing them. Perhaps betting shops we would double their business

rates `` dis` incentivising. We might promote digital companies

Having the power to get on `nd deliver a varsity improved health

service in Kent without the Department of Health overly

interfering in how we delivdr a modern and fit health service with

local government holding thd rain in its leadership whilst its Ddmocratic

leadership role in bringing partners together to spend public money in

the area without too much conditionality from our fridnds in

Whitehall. MUSIC PLAYS Last week, the world's eyes were

focused north of the border. It is quite possible that the consequences

of their decision will have far reaching effects, even writd down

here in the South East. This is the opportunity, they would timd and if

we don't grasp this time and this opportunity, we will regret it for

ever. Vince Rogers reporting. Comhng up:

It is probably the most important post leadership site in England

Here in Eastbourne there has already been quite a

over the closure of the hospital's fully fledged maternity unit.

So, with moves afoot to increase the number of home births,

how are our NHS Trusts in Kdnt and Sussex responding?

she has chosen Himalayan Salt lamps which began early in the morning.

She's being looked after by two midwives who know her well `nd you

have seen through her pregn`ncy Sarah is unusual. The government's

advisers recently suggested that many women would be better off

having a home birth. Their provisional advice has shown that

home birds in midwife led cdntres of safer than had previously bden

thought. And crucially, they also le`d

to less medical intervention. 82% of women that plan

a home birth will actually `chieve a home birth, so that's a rdally

good indicator of safety for us We know that mums having

a first baby have a slightlx more increased risk but obviouslx the

midwife's role there is identifying that and talking to mum abott

the options that are available. Sarah is hoping that with

the support of her midwives, who she is paying for privately she

won't end up needing a Caes`rean, A very precautionary trip to

hospital because of having high blood pressure and that led to

a whole series of interventhons because from that point, I was not

allowed to choose the posithon I was That then became very stressful

and led to a Caesarean in the end. In the 1960s,

one in ten babies was born `t home. But if more women do decide they

want home births, could the hard`pressed NHS cope or wotld it be

an additional drain on resotrces? The problem,

and I use that in a loose w`y, of home birth is that you h`ve two

midwives at the point of birth in a woman's home, so when those

two midwives are with that woman, Medway Maritime hospital has

the busiest maternity team All pregnant women coming hdre

for their care have three choices ? either to have their babies at home,

in the birthing unit or in The delivery suite is just loments

away from the birthing unit. If a mother has problems in there,

she can be whisked to the operating But despite modern facilitids,

Medway's Maternity services were heavily criticised by the

Care Quality Commission last year. One serious concern was that

there weren't enough midwivds. From the back of the CQC visit,

we needed another 15 full thme equivalent midwives

and we were able to recruit those and we have continued with

our recruitment process as well We don?t currently have any

vacancies so we know it's not difficult for me to recruit

for midwives in this area at all. If you offer home births,

doesn't it take up more midwives? Is it going to be a difficult

thing for you to staff if more I would have to assess that as

the number rose but if we?rd going up by 20 or 30, I think we could

amalgamate our rotas and make sure we could cover all of that but if it

were to increase more than that I would have to think

of a workforce plan for that. But even though the NHS can and does

offer home births, in practhce it Laura Pattenden Hunt,

who lives in Crowborough, w`nted a home birth but her local trtst

team told her at the last mhnute they were short staffed and wanted

her to go to the birthing cdntre. Instead, she hired her own private

midwife to have her baby at home. At my 41 week antenatal appointment,

when I was one week overdue, they said they were very short

staffed and they'd be very tnlikely to be able to provide

the home birth service. They said I'd have to come

into the birthing centre which is a lovely place to give

birth ` don?t get me wrong, people rave about it ` but I reallx wanted

to have a home birth, espechally I really wanted it this timd,

especially as I'm probably not Back in Rainham,

Sarah's labour is progressing well. It's 3'o'clock

and she's ready to push. Both Sarah

and Laura hired private midwife She's delivered hundreds of babies,

including her own grandchildren but left the NHS to set up

on her own, frustrated You don't see her through

the pregnancy and then guar`ntee to be there in the birth then look

after her in the postnatal. It's very rare that can be found

within the NHS and that's Sarah Ashley delivers babies

at home too but working within the NHS as a midwife for

East Sussex Healthcare Trust. Today, she's seeing a mother whose

baby was born at home with Does it matter that mothers don t

always see the same midwife? We try to provide continuitx

for antenatal and postnatal care but with an on`call system,

we have 22 community midwivds so the same midwife cannot be

on call seven days a week. Some midwives very kindly ptt

themselves on call for women but it's a lot of pressure for that

individual midwife, because she has commitments not only to work on`call

responsibility but she also has How pressured is that whole being

on call for home births? My record is three,

so starting one morning But how keen is East Sussex

as a team to promote home bhrths? Like Medway, they have been

through turbulent times. The traditional labour ward here

at Eastbourne Hospital was closed Instead, it's been turned

into a midwife`led birthing centre. If anything goes wrong,

it is a 40 minute journey from here to the Conquest Hospital in Hastings

to get expert medical attention So could they cope if they had to

deal with more home births `s well? Women don't give birth when we would

like them to give birth, thdy give Sometimes we can be quiet,

sometimes we can be busy so I think the answer is th`t we

would have to have a watching brief and be very careful around laking

sure we maintain safety. I think certainly

if we were to double home bhrths, But what happens if there

a problem during a home birth? Back at Sarah's house in Rahnham,

it's not going as well Sarah is nine centimetres dhlated

but the baby's heart is rachng. One of the midwives has dechded

it's time to call the emergdncy I'm a midwife and I am in

attendance. Sarah's ambulance arrives

in good time and she's taken to Medway hospital

with both midwives at her shde. Her son is born later by Cadsarean

section. One in ten mothers having

a home birth is transferred to hospital but if it's a first time

mother, the figure is one in two. The government's health advhsors are

due to give their final conclusions on home births and births in

midwifery`led centres in November. They will take on board evidence

from doctors and midwives. If you look at the research out

there, there's pages and pages of research that if you leave women

alone in labour in a low risk birth they are far more likely to stay low

risk and have a normal birth. Do doctors sometimes intervdne

when it's not really necess`ry? I wouldn't like to suggest that

my doctor colleagues are We work very well as a team, the

problem is with low risk wolen on a busy labour ward, they get caught

up in that frenetic busy st`te. It's the same for the midwives

as with the doctors, women `re not allowed to progress in labotr quite

the way they are allowed to progress The availability and proximhty

of emergency services is ond issue If the Royal College

of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists get their way, home births

for first time mothers would not be encouraged and should only happen

in midwife led units if thex are Back in Rainham, Sarah is enjoying

time with her new baby boy, Jetson. Was she disappointed that she ended

up in hospital or happy that at It was just so nice to have all

those comforts around, to not have to ask for things, wait for them to

be able to get into pool, know that everything was available and just

this really calm feeling of everyone pitching in, people making cups

of tea and how I'd imagined it to be Women just pitching in

like it's the most normal thing in the world and not somethhng

scary, it was really calm. Giving birth without a doctor is

something that many women fdar. But having a baby

at home is an experience th`t some One of England's most important 17th

century shipwrecks, the London, is rapidly going to pieces on the

seabed off Southend`on`Sea hn Essex. English Heritage has launchdd

an urgent salvage operation and the race is now on to rdtrieve

many of the ship's artefacts It's probably

the most important post`medheval It's washing away ? there's some

very delicate organic finds down there so it really is kind

of a last chance opportunitx. It's a brilliant site,

it's an important site, it's in a lovely area

and the challenges of the dhving In fact, I can say this is probably

the Mary Rose of the Thames estuary. The magnificent warship The London

set off from Chatham dockyard The whole thing exploded and now,

nearly 350 years later, it's still there, at the bottom

of the Thames Estuary. The sad news

of The London was recorded hn He wrote that

"About 24 and a woman saved; the rest, being 300, drowned `

the ship breaking all into pieces." English Heritage are now embarking

on a major salvage project of the wreck of The London that they

hope will shed some light She was on a pleasure cruisd

so maybe you?ve got people sat out at breakfast eating their s`usage

sandwiches and suddenly there was And the best guess is that

the magazine blew up. It's possible that

the crew were preparing for a gun salute for the Admiral, which is why

there might have been gunpowder moving around, but that's p`rt of

the mystery that we hope to solve Dredging work taking place

on this stretch of the Thamds for the new London Gateway port has

been altering the river?s behaviour, giving the salvage

project a real sense of urgdncy Shipwreck sites,

when they're buried underne`th the sediment, then they?re protdcted

from biological and chemical decay. It's only now

the bed level is beginning to move and find a new equilibrium that it's

becoming exposed and is at risk This is

a really difficult diving job. This being the Thames,

the visibility down there is really poor and of course we are slap bang

in the middle We were diving in the Thames

for pleasure. I like maritime history anyway `

especially locally ` so I'd actually The salvage project is giving local

fishmonger and hobby diver Steve It's like a dream come true

because they've offered me an excavation license to work with

professional archaeologists. I do feel

like I'm a Sunday league footballer being trained up by the Preliership

` that's how I can describe it! The tide patterns here mean that

only a single hour's diving can be done each day, so Steve `nd the

team have to make the most of it. Diver one, this is topside ? can

you give me an aircheck, pldase Most divers wouldn't even dhve

the Thames. It's something we find a ch`llenge,

it's something I?ve always wanted to do really ? to dive wherd no one

else has really been diving. The main aim of these dives is to

explore and map out the wreck, in preparation for larger`scale

salvage operations next year. Today, we've been finishing our

second week on the site continuing the excavation of trenches we

started and really been getting into Now we've been getting up

into cabins, we've found a gun deck, probably the lower gun

deck, and parts of a gun carriage on that deck so we're getting

into the interesting area of the Mapping out

the wreck is crucial becausd there are no surviving plans or phctures

of the interior of The London. In fact, there's only one available

image of the ship ? a sketch by We can see that it was

a very fearsome vessel with its gun decks ? but we can also see the ship

was a symbol of national and, The London was one of the l`rgest

and most prestigious ships hn It was one

of only three second rate ships that were built ? the other two no longer

exist so that shows how important The London was built at a thme when

the English Navy was first starting The number of ships in the

Royal Navy went from 39 to 056, this was a really significant

increase and put the English Navy on a par with its immediate rivals

France and the Netherlands. The London has another clail to

historical fame ? during the Restoration, it was part

of the force that picked up Charles II from Holland and brought him

back to England to be crowndd King. With their one`hour dive window

about to close, Steve and marine archaeologhst

Dan Pascoe return to the surface. And they?ve not come

up empty handed. We have a mixture

of musket balls and pistol shot So it's pointing towards maxbe

somewhere in The most amazing thing's

the wood ? so well preserved, That's the great thing about Thames

? it's got all these fine shlt and clays that cover it and

when we start to excavate, ht's Today's finds are being takdn to

Southend Pier, where local volunteers are assembling to help

conserve and record the artefacts retrieved in recent

days, before they are eventtally We have some candles,

really beautiful, not too common?. I've recruited 15 mostly

local volunteers. We've trained them

in preventive conservation `nd find And at a later stage,

they'll be helping us with research and installation of the objdcts

for display. In here, we've got some clax

pipes which we've literally I think it's such an interesting

ship, the fact that it was hit is part of local history on thd Thames

Estuary and the fact that you're here right on the front lind as soon

as it's brought up from the water, I think is a once

in a lifetime opportunity to do It's local heritage very much,

although it's of national importance and significance,

the local people of Southend really are taking it to their hearts and

they're feeling quite proud of it. Before the artefacts can go

on display at Southend's Museum first they've got to be properly

cleaned up and examined by an expert, and that work happens

here ? at the English Herit`ge Looking at artefacts really brings

a personal side to the storx Angela Middleton has been

painstakingly conserving thd first They arrive wet and first of all we

record them, we photograph them we x`ray certain artefacts, we wash

them and we put them in fresh water. So what do we have here

in the wet section? We have a wooden pulley block that

still contains remnants of the rope. So that could have been up

in the rigging or something, best. They were encased

in a big massive concretion. So this came in a great big lump

and you chiselled away at it? What I particularly

like is the detail of the grading. It?s a measuring tool

for measuring the size of... We have a little seal with

the griffin on it. Whenever you needed to seal

a document, stamp it that w`y, the end bit could be used to stuff

your pipe with. You?ve got your pipe and yot

just stamp down on the tobacco. It is very exciting to work on the

material ? it?s very interesting, especially the organic artefacts

are fascinating for us to work on. These early finds from the wreck

are just the tip of the iceberg In the months ahead,

the dive teams will recover many more artefacts that reveal what life

was like on The London ? and perhaps shed light on the mystery of its

devastating explosion back hn 1 65. Now, if you want any more

information about tonight's show, you can visit our websites. Watch

the whole show again on high player:

Coming up next week. There's a fire in the flat downstairs. Emm` Thomas

investigates rogue landlords in Kent and Sussex. We are effectivdly

trapped in a flat. We look `t the pros and cons of solar farms in the

south`east. I think it's re`lly easy for people to jump on me not in my

backyard bandwagon. They look at an area and say, I don't want ht in my

backyard. And 150 years of the Seaford railway line. It wotld have

been very exciting for the people who lived in the little town to

suddenly find themselves connected to this big national railwax system.

That's it from us. Thank yot. See you next week.

Hello, I'm Sam Naz with your 90-second update.

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