16/01/2017 London News

Good evening and welcome to BBC London News with me Louisa Preston.

if Scotland Yard doesn't receive additional funding

That's the warning tonight from the Mayor, who claims Londoners

will not be as safe if the money's not made available.

The Home Office is currently working out what to award police forces

But Sadiq Khan fears that if City Hall doesn't receive

a sufficient settlement, he won't be able to deliver

the number of officers he says London needs.

Our Political Correspondent Karl Mercer reports.

Police cars used to come up this ramp once.

Police officers used to patrol outside.

And the building used to be the most famous in world policing.

Now just the local barber shop remains.

If you wanted a picture of how London's police has had

you need look no further than what was New Scotland Yard.

Sold for ?370 million and soon to be luxury flats.

The Met has had to save money in recent years.

?600 million already with a further ?400 million to come.

And today the Mayor called on central government

My message to Londoners is very simple.

If it's the case that the Government makes any further cuts to

our budget than we've already been told about we cannot keep a target

If it's the case that the Government changes the

police funding formula so that the police service gets less

money than we deserve and should get my job of

having the maximum number of officers becomes increasingly

difficult, which has an impact on safety.

At the moment London has around 31,200 police officers but

the Mayor, like his predecessor, has set a target of having 32,000.

But to get there he says he needs more money

Particularly from a special fund that recognises

The Mayor says London needs ?340 million.

At the moment it gets just half of that,

Two years ago when Boris Johnson was mayor the Government planned

changes to the money given to police forces.

The response back then sounds similar to what's

My concerns are that over the next three to four years we'll lose

between 5000 and 8000 police officers, and that's going to be a

It is an unfair approach to police funding.

It does not recognise the rising population,

the difficulties of policing our capital city.

But today, Conservatives on the London Assembly said

the Mayor could do more himself to keep officer numbers up.

He has already raised council tax to pay for officers.

They say he should have gone further.

The mayor is in charge of a budget of nearly ?15 billion.

?3.2 billion of that is for the Metropolitan Police.

Within that Sadiq Khan has cut 38 million, which

would pay for him to get from the 31,200 up to the 32,000.

You can move money around in order to make it possible.

The Government saying today the Met police was the best funded

This is not the first we've heard of this is it Jim?

That's right. As Karl mentioned, the idea of changing police funding

formulas last discussed at this level two years ago, back then it

was kicked into the long grass because of a statistical error in

the formula, all very embarrassing for the government at the time. That

long grass is now March this year and in some ways the pressure has

mounted. The mayor has said he wants to increase the numbers of police

officers. He claims that will be next to impossible if there are more

budget cuts. Also recent world events mean that the government

could be walking a fine line as well if they cut too much. I'm sure the

primer Minister and Home Secretary understand the importance of keeping

our capital city say. They will have seen and he horrified, as we all

were, by incidents in Berlin and Istanbul recently. There is no more

important job politician has plan keep his citizens safe. In other

words London is a potential terrorist target and if something

were to happen there would be a huge focus on what went wrong. And if

there was any hint that it was related to a reduction in police

budgets that would be hugely damaging. Certainly would.

A jury has been hearing evidence from a blind woman who alleges

that she was indecently assaulted at a hospital in London

denies seven charges of indecent assault, and one of sexual assault.

A number of pharmacists who sit in the heart of communities

across London are warning they could be put-out-of business

They say the changes are coming in at a time when they could do

more to help patients - rather than less.

Chemists are often at the heart of a community, dispensing pills,

But the way they are funded is changing, that means that this

pharmacy near Harpenden in Hertfordshire is under threat.

We are just short of a mile away from the nearest other pharmacy.

We are subject to the full force of the cuts.

Now, that will leave the business non-viable.

Obviously, I won't sign a lease on the premises where I won't know

the business is not going to be able to pay its way.

We will close in the next few months.

It's a so-called modernisation that customers can't

Because, not only is it the pharmacy, they are friends.

You know, you build up a rapport with people.

If I were to have to go to Harpenden because this pharmacist had closed,

I would have to climb into my car and, like many people,

and bearing in mind that pharmacists serve something between 8,000

and 10,000 people in the locality, you'd then have lots of car journeys

The government says everyone should have access to a pharmacy

But that makes chemists in densely populated London even more at risk.

We're talking of a cut of 12% in pharmacy budgets,

just in the months December up to March 2017 and more cuts

Now, for a lot of pharmacies, that is a big hit.

What you are going to see ultimately, if the government

doesn't change course, could be large-scale

The full impact of the changes will be know until later

in the year but, by then, many chemists say they will already

These world-famous advertising screens which light up

Piccadilly Circus have been switched-off today.

It's for renovation work which will take months,

but will produce some impressive results.

Emilia Papadopoulos has been finding out more.

It's been lighting up London for more than 100 years but this

The billboard lights have been switched off

Now, they have been turned off briefly in the past,

during Winston Churchill and Princess Diana's funerals

but this will be the longest period of time since World War II.

The first electrical advertisements appeared in 1908.

Midnight on Tuesday, August 14, 1945, before the Prime Minister had

finished his radio announcement that Japan had surrendered,

After the war, Piccadilly Circus was a popular place for Londoners

Soon after, it also became a tourist attraction and the lights have

moved with the times, starting with incandescent light

bulbs, moving on to neon, digital projectors,

This might not look like much but we're actually in the control

room behind the lights and the screens are made up

of thousands of these panels and when the work begins,

all of this will be replaced by one big-screen which will have more

It will be different because it will be one screen that

will be used flexibly, it will be interactive,

it will display a very high quality image.

The way that the advertisers are using the screen

The advertisers will have the ability to be very creative

When the work's completed, Piccadilly Circus will be

home to Europe's largest single digital screen.

For now, a temporary advertising banner will replace the lights and,

until October, the most luminous corner of the capital,

That's it for now from me, so I'll say goodnight and hand

you over to Wendy Hurrell for a look at the weather.

This week is quite different, S is the sunshine, and not the snow. We

will start with sunny clouds but if it turns cloudy towards the latter

part of the week, it is going to be feeling quite cold. Weather is

coming in from the east where temperatures at their maximum

tomorrow in Amsterdam will be minus one. That's going to mean chilly

conditions. We'll have minus figures of our own overnight tonight. After

midnight there will be plenty of stars to see above us, but there

will also be a frost forming and many places will get below freezing,

perhaps -2 or three. A crispy underfoot sort of start to the day.

It will continue to feel like that through the day despite beautiful

amounts of sunshine and light winds. We'll be doing well to get between

three and 5 degrees. And then there will be a sharp frost overnight into

Wednesday as well. Wednesday morning starts beautiful and bright. Some

more clout creeping from the north through the afternoon. Feeling quite

chilly in the middle part of the week, three to 5 degrees. Towards

the end of the week, the certainty around how much sunshine starts to

wane. There will be more clout through Thursday and Friday perhaps

with some smatterings of rain -- more cloud. On the weekend the

outlook is often cloudy. Mainly dry, perhaps a little milder. If you like

the mild weather, you'll have to head elsewhere in the country. Find

out more in the national weather forecast. Our weather is going

against normal expectations this week. In Highland Scotland some snow

to be seen on the hills. Temperatures as high as 12 Celsius

today. Over the next few days the coldest air is in the far south-east

of England where there is sunshine to be had. Four or five Celsius in

Kent. Differences remain over the next few days and here is why. I

pressure in control of the weather. Some clear a continental air, but

coming into Scotland from the Atlantic plenty of clouds around.

Outbreaks of rain through Scotland and Northern Ireland overnight,

patchy drizzle into parts of England and Wales, but where you've got

cloud the temperatures are holding up. Clearer skies in parts of

south-east England and East Anglia, could get below freezing as the day

begins. One or two fog patches around. Here is