17/04/2017 London News

Good evening and welcome to BBC London News.

There's growing pressure for older drivers to have to take a test

to make sure they're fit to stay on the roads.

More than 250,000 people have signed a petition

The campaign was started by a man from south London

whose wife was killed by an elderly driver in Hampstead.

Frank has been driving for most of his life.

Know where you are relative to as much traffic as you possibly can.

But despite 56 years of experience behind the wheel,

he feels he benefits from an appraisal from time to time.

None of us gets sharper as we age, and I can see I'm not as sharp

There's no legal age to stop driving in the UK,

but under the current DVLA system, drivers have to renew

their licence every three years from the age of 70.

For most drivers, this isn't a problem,

but not disclosing a medical issue can have devastating consequences.

while walking with their two-year-old son Jackson.

When the pressure was on, when the driver had to choose

between an accelerator and a brake, he wasn't able to make that

He was driving in an automatic vehicle.

Ben's campaigning for drivers to be retested every three years

Last year, leading road-safety experts delivered a report setting

out a national strategy for safe driving into old age.

It made a number of recommendations, including increasing the age

of licence renewal to 75 if proof of an eye test is made compulsory.

Older drivers, at the age of 70, you're no more likely to be

But, obviously, as we do get older and start to suffer from frailty,

eyesight and hearing, then yes, problems can

arise if we don't address them at an early stage.

Meanwhile, Ben is hoping his campaign will highlight the issue

Meanwhile, Ben is hoping his campaign will highlight the issue

say they fear their loved ones could lose their independence

because two day-care centres in Southwark are set to close.

The council, which owns the buildings in Peckham,

has been allowing a charity to use them rent-free for many years

but says it can no longer afford to do so.

One woman whose son uses the services

says they'd be left with nowhere to turn.

because I would literally be his 24-hour, round-the-clock carer.

It's not only his independence, but it's ours as well.

Next, the story of the north London plumber

Ian Puddick from Enfield was renovating an old bakery

when he discovered it once used to make and sell illegal gin.

Inspired, he got his hands on the original recipe.

As a plumber, Ian Puddick is no stranger to tinkering with pipes,

but when he bought a converted Victorian bakery as his new office,

he never imagined he'd be swapping ballcocks for botanicals,

thanks to a discovery about the building's past.

We learned that the bakers, back in the day, made

and sold illegal gin, so I tracked down

the family descendants, got the original recipe.

When I say that, they never gave me the exact recipe -

that's certainly been lost in time, didn't have the configurations

of the ingredients, but we knew the ingredients,

so from that, bought a little still, played around with it

just for a bit of fun, and now I make gin.

His simple recipe gin is now sold in Fortnum's and Harrods,

as well as his local farmers' market.

That doesn't mean he isn't happy to serve customers

Can you do us two bottles of gin, please?

London has seen an explosion of small-batch artisan

and gin lovers can't get enough of it.

You get all sorts of people that are making gins -

from small husband-and-wife teams who, you know, have decided

it's something they want to explore and enjoy,

and most small-batch gins will have a story.

So these are people who are passionate about what they do.

But how plausible is the story of illicit gin being sold out

of a Palmers Green bakery in the late 1800s?

The perfect cover, if you're going to be distilling,

and distilling your own alcohol from a malted mash,

there's going to be a lot of smells of boiling, fermenting wheat,

and there's probably going to be a lot of steam around.

Now, a bakery, lots of wheat around, you've got your ovens running

I think it's a highly plausible story.

Meanwhile, Ian is hoping one day soon he can give up the day job

fixing dirty pipes and fix dirty martinis instead.

Chelsea Football Club have announced that their captain, John Terry,

is to leave when his contract expires at the end of the season.

The 36-year-old has made more than 700 first-team appearances

In a statement, he thanked fans and the club

and said he'll decide on his future in due course.

Let's take a quick look at tomorrow's weather.

but it will be a fine and sunny day across London,

feeling warm in the sunshine, with a top temperature of 14 Celsius.

We'll be back tomorrow morning with updates during BBC Breakfast.

A fresh morning on the way tomorrow, even some frost around, not

necessarily two in city centres, but in rural air is quite sharp,

especially across Scotland, and temperatures in some rural spots