19/10/2016 East Midlands Today

And now the news for the East Midlands, I'm Dominic Heale.

Statistics obtained by East Midlands Today reve`l that

seven teaching staff in our region have died from asbestos-rel`ted

The dangerous material can still be found in most of our schools,

and staff exposed to it are now getting payouts from councils.

And managing the problem in our schools is costing htge

Mike O'Sullivan has this special report.

They kept saying to her, what's your pain level out of ten?

Bromley Kniveton's wife Jenny, a retired teacher, died aged 72

from the asbestos-related ltng cancer mesothelioma in the summer.

The diagnosis had come three years earlier.

You know, it was a terrible shock cos we'd gone from being OK,

Mr Kniveton says Jenny handled broken asbestos ceiling tilds

She worked for two decades at the former Glaisdale

He said the City Council made an out-of-court payment to her.

Asbestos was used as a building material for decades...

ARCHIVE: The walls are plastic-covered asbestos...

It is in the vast majority of our older schools' stock,

But asbestos is still causing concern.

Leicestershire County Counchl says they have paid out nearly

?30,000 over exposure to asbestos since 2010.

For Nottinghamshire County Council, it is nearly ?200,000.

Derbyshire County Council s`ys it has paid damages of ?400,000.

The Derbyshire figures were uncovered by an asbestos

in schools campaigner from London, who says

Lucie Stepehens' mother Sue, a retired teacher from Devon,

died from mesothelioma in the summer.

Mum was terrified of all the children who might also have

been exposed through her te`ching, when she didn't know anything about

it so she couldn't protect herself and she couldn't protect thdn.

This asbestos support worker in Chesterfield says her te`m's

helped around ten teachers in the region who have developed

Now they are promoting their own interactive computer model,

We're not wanting to scare people, but I think that if people know then

they can at least ask the rhght questions, and ask the school

if they've got a register of their asbestos, if they know

Jenny's old school is now the self-governing

Bluecoat Beechdale Academy, which has its own asbestos

The Academy says some asbestos was removed in a controlled

way from a heating duct here as recently as August.

But Jenny's husband says the government is putting off action

to take out all asbestos from all schools,

From the government's side, it would take a terrific amount

And it's a problem that is shelved, I guess, but people are still dying.

The Health and Safety Executive says seven people in our region

who worked in teaching have died from mesothelioma

She spent her payment on a cancer treatment that wasn't avail`ble

A council in Nottinghamshird is considering fining rough sleepers

Rushcliffe Borough Council is mulling the idea of a fixed

penalty of ?100, which could rise to ?1,000 if it's not paid.

The campaign group Liberty has called the idea "cruel".

The district council is inshsting they'd only be used against homeless

This isn't about fining people, this is about acting as a ddterrent

and preventing the problem from occurring in the first place,

and directing people to appropriate support if they do need it.

We have an excellent reputation for supporting

people in Rushcliffe - we help people, over

1,000 people each year, with homelessness issues.

So it's not an issue about homelessness, it's

about preventing unwanted antisocial behaviour from occurring

Well, also today a homelessness charity has cancelled its annual

sleep-out event, because of fears it might be targeted by protesters

Framework in Nottingham was planning an event for 300 people.

Here's our social affairs correspondent Jeremy Ball.

This is one of Nottingham's most high-profile fundraising evdnts

It has been running for more than 15 years.

But today Framework announcdd next month's Big Sleep Out

Up to 300 people were plannhng to spend the night here

But the charity says it has been sabotaged by a protest group

that was going to harass people and it couldn't guarantee the safety

of the families who were taking part.

It follows a row that began almost a year ago, when this camp

was set up in Nottingham to highlight rough sleeping.

That was criticised by Framdwork, who said many of the protesters

were not really homeless, and that by choosing to sledp

in tents they risked losing their housing.

Now activists have responded with this post on social media,

urging the Big Sleep Out fundraisers to hand over their sleeping bags

and their warm clothing and mugs, so that what they call "the real

homeless of Nottingham" can spend the night in safety,

and use the charity's free drinks and breakfast.

It's a problem, because the event must be safe, it must be secure

Participation in the event is to raise money, not to gdt

This year's Big Sleep Out was supposed to pay for mord

of the outreach workers and help people sleeping rough,

and Framework says it should have raised ?30,000.

Money that is desperately needed, as more people

The future of the East Midl`nds specialist children's heart unit

There was a debate today in Westminster over the Glenfield

unit in Leicester, which has been threatened with closure.

The NHS claims it's not meeting standards

It is also a world centre of excellence, and for it to be

closed or for any of its services to be decreased would be little

Keeping Glenfield open is lhterally a matter of life and death.

If it was to be Birmingham, or Great Ormond Street,

It's a topic that has united left and right,

led by Leicester West MP Liz Kendall, who secured thhs

special debate into the futtre of Glenfield Hospital's children's

If this proposal goes ahead, the East Midlands will be the only

region in the country without a children's

NHS England says the unit is not meeting, and is unlikely to meet,

new standards, including not performing enough operations.

But that was refuted by Liz Kendall, who says it is likely to hit

And if they don't quite achieve this, it won't be

So they rightly say, why put a centre which is on track

The debate forced the Department of Health to send a minister

Philip Dunne reiterated that this wasn't a cost-cutting exerchse,

and gave a timeline of when a decision would be made.

The intent is to do a formal three-month public consultation

which will conclude in the spring, and decisions will be made

next summer and I'm sure all right honourable members

The magic of Harry Potter is being brought to life in Loughborough

For the second year, the Loogabarooga Festival

is celebrating all forms of children's literature.

But one of the star attractions is an exhibition

of original illustrations from the Harry Potter series.

What people will get to see is some of the original artwork

that the illustrator Jim Kax used for his book, from the sketches

through some of the oils through to the digital prints.

Supplemented by Leicestershhre Museum collections, so things

like skeletons of rats and some fungi and things like that.

We've also got a place for people to try stuff on,

so we hope that people will come in and really get involved

Andrew Smyth from Derby is through to the final

Earlier, here in the studio, he told us he'd had to be pdrsuaded

Well, I've always been a fan of the series, I've watched it

I almost applied for the last series but kind of wimped

out of the last moment, I thought, "No, I'm

But this year, friends and family said "You've really

So, it's goodbye from me - but with your weather

We've had quite a lot of cloud around today, so thank goodness we

had some lovely autumn colotrs. We've still got that weather front,

which is across the East for the last couple of days. It is giving us

a few showers, but keeping lost of the rain out towards the east and

bringing in quite a lot of cloud. It's not really going anywhdre over

the next few days. There should be a few more breaks tomorrow so a few

more sunshine. The chance of a rogue shower, but most of us stayhng dry

and bright. The wind is a bht brighter, so it is feeling ` bit

warmer. We still got a couple of showers, most are fading. Jtst one

or two macro continue across eastern parts, but the temperatures will be

held up for most of us. If we get breaks in the cloud, we could see

them dipping around us back to around five or six Celsius. Tomorrow

morning we will see the clotd breaking up, so we will get some

sunshine breaking through. One or two macro light, isolated showers

drifting in, but you would be unlikely to catch one of those.

Temperatures tomorrow peaking at around 12 or 13 Celsius.