02/04/2017 East Midlands Today

we are back with the late News at Ten - now on BBC One its time

With your news now for the East Midlands, I'm Maurice Flynn.

First tonight, in what's being called a "tragic accident,"

a British superbike rider has died after a crash during

a race at Donington Park.

Friends of Mick Whalley, from Kent, have paid tribute to the him, and -

as Jo Healey reports - an investigation into

the cause is underway.

Mick Whalley, who's in his early 40s, was competing ahead of

the British Superbike Championships when the crash happened.

Just completely devastating.

Mick was such a big hearted guy.

A big loss of a life.

If he wasn't at work he was out and about doing

something fun and exciting, and just to hear that he is gone, it

is just so shocking for everybody.

The management here at Donington Park said

it was a seven-bike crash.

The race was stopped immediately.

Mr Whalley and other riders who were injured were treated

track-side by the BSB medical team.

He died later at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre.

Leicestershire Police, along with staff here

and the Motorcycle Circuit Racing Control Board, are

investigating what happened.

He has always been, well, what they would call

a petrolhead I guess.

It has always been motor bikes.

More recently he has got into the track racing.

And at the track today, a minute's silence from the crowd

for the keen biker and father of two teenage boys.

Up to a dozen cars and several buildings have been destroyed

in a fire in Leicester.

Firefighters were called to an industrial estate

on Sunningdale Road in the early hours of this morning.

It's thought the fire spread from the buildings

to the nearby cars.

The East Midlands Fire Investigation dog, Dexter, has been

helping as an investigation into the cause gets underway.

The first trains to stop in Ilkeston in 50 years pulled into the town's

new ?10 million station today.

Ilkeston was said to be one of the biggest towns in Britain

with a passenger line running through it but no train station.

The new platforms and concourses are in the same position

as the town's previous one, which closed in the '60s following

the infamous Beeching Report.

My dad was last stationmaster at Ilkeston Junction

and Cossall station, so we are here today because it is

a very significant day.

For me it is going to be great, because I will use it to go

to Manchester Airport and fly and see my relatives in America.

I think it is great.

I think it is really going to open up opportunities

for people at Ilkeston.

A special school in Leicestershire has become a centre of excellence

for speech and language therapy.

Ashmount School in Loughborough caters for the needs

of around 150 children.

And as Victoria Hicks reports, it's sharing its expertise

and best practice.

# I spy with my little eye...

A fun lesson at Ashmount School in Loughborough.

These children have a wide range of needs.

Finding the right way to communicate with each one is essential

for their learning and development.

Here at Ashmount we have classes with 12 students

in and six support staff, and we break that down

into smaller groups, so some of them might be

using Makaton signing, some might be using symbols and some

might be using objects just to meet that range of needs

in the classroom.

Peekaboo.

I see you.

Let's play.

Georgia is playing a game by controlling the computer

mouse with her eyes.

It is a way of using technology to develop communication.

It is this kind of expertise which Ashmount is now sharing

as a teaching school.

We are committed to upscaling professionals and supporting

families and carers to make sure that no matter where a young person

is educated, they are receiving the very best and the very latest

interventions in terms of their speech, language

and communication needs.

And here is the latest trophy in the cabinet -

a national award for the Special Educational

Needs School of the Year.

No wonder the children here seem so happy.

500 highly skilled and highly paid jobs are to be created in Leicester.

They'll be at the new ?13 million space park, to be built on land next

to the Space Centre in the city.

More details have been emerging about the ambitious plans.

The University of Leicester is keen to carry on the city's long history

of space innovation.

Putting vehicles into space, we've been putting instruments

on satellites, instruments on things that have gone to Mars

and elsewhere for over 50 years, so of course we have a huge

expertise in the space industry and one we want

to take advantage of.

We want to grow this so that it is not just

all about world-class research, which we are of course very proud

about, but we want to turn it into a real innovation hub.

And there's more on this in today's Sunday Politics

for the East Midlands, on the BBC's iPlayer now.

Let's check on the weather now - Rebecca Wood has our forecast.

Let's check on the weather now - Rebecca Wood has our forecast.

Good evening.

We saw temperatures today getting up into the mid teens helped

by all that sunshine.

There was quite a lot of cloud around.

We will keep that theme as we head through this week.

But there will be plenty of sun.

The nights will be quite chilly though.

For tonight it is going to be quite a cold night.

Along the coast we might get a little bit of cloud bubbling up

and some mist and fog working its way in by the early

hours tomorrow, but further inland we will see those skies clear

and temperatures dipping down into single figures.

For tomorrow it will be quite a chilly start, but fine, dry,

some good spells of sunshine.

A little bit of fairweather cloud bubbling up through the day.

But it is going to stay dry.

Our temperatures getting up to around about 15 Celsius,

helped by those light winds as well.

A very pleasant end to the day.

A band of rain will work its way through as we head Monday night

into Tuesday, but once that clears out of the way, high

pressure returns.

Things staying nice and settled for the rest of the week.

More from me and the team here at 10:20pm -

love your company again then.