21/07/2017 London News

Now on BBC One, it's time for the news where you are.

Welcome to BBC London News with me Victoria Hollins.

The London Fire Brigade is to buy six million pounds

It's to meet to the demands in case of another large scale incident,

They'll use reserve savings to pay for the new ladders

and breathing equipment - but say they need the cash back

Our political correspondent Karl Mercer reports.

It reached just halfway up Grenfell Tower.

The aerial platform being used by firefighters had to be

Firefighters heading into the blaze had breathing

apparatus that lasted just 30 minutes.

And drones used to help in the aftermath of the fire had to be

The mayor asked the Fire Commissioner to draw up a

The Fire Brigade list is a long and costly one.

It asks for three high aerial appliances at the

It wants 1200 new breathing apparatus sets.

It has asked the two new drones, new masks and shirts and

The total bill for new kit, ?6.2 million.

Michael has spent 30 years with the brigade writing up

many such lists in his final role there.

He says the items on it are long overdue.

Very happy to see proposals for an increase in aerial

appliances, especially pleased to see proposed increase in extended

A lot of people don't realise our firefighters only have around 30

There is also the question of who will pay.

The brigade is raiding its reserves to fund the new kit, but it wants

the government to pay in the long term.

There are worries extra running costs of around ?6 million a

year will leave the brigade facing a huge black

hole in its budget in

It could be as much as ?30 million we need to find.

It's around the scale of the cuts we saw under

Boris Johnson, where we

saw ten fire stations close and the loss of around

We are determined and the mayor is determined for that not happen.

We did ask the Home Office for an interview.

London's Fire Brigade will hope it doesn't

get the same response when it asks for money.

Passengers who use Waterloo station are being warned of major disruption

for almost all of next month, as upgrade work is carried out.

Around half of the country's busiest station will be closed.

And commuters even been advised to work from home.

Our Transport Correspondent Tom Edwards has more.

Waterloo deals with 99 million journeys a year, but this August,

nearly half of its platforms will be shut.

Commuters are being told to, if possible, change their journeys

I can work from home, so we can stay at home

I'd rather not, but it will be a nightmare.

And the impact will be felt down the line.

Stations like Queenstown Road will be shut.

Clapham Junction will be much busier, and upgrades to stations

Network Rail was heavily criticised after commuters suffered months

The mayor says the same thing can't happen here.

My message to the government is two things.

I'm afraid there are examples where Network Rail has not provided

And two, if it is the case that they overrun, the Government

has to provide speedy compensation to commuters.

Waterloo is getting longer platforms so that it will be able

to deal with thousands of more passengers every rush hour.

To ease the congestion, the old Eurostar platforms will be

There's never a good time to carry out such a large-scale project,

but we chose August because more people are away on holiday anyway.

The mayor has concerns that it won't be.

This is one of the most well-planned projects you'll come across,

so we're confident that it will be delivered on time.

Waterloo is due to be finished By the end of 2018.

The State Rooms at Buckingham Palace open to the public over

As well as a special display dedicated to Princess Diana,

20 years after her death - there's the chance to see

what people across the globe have given the Queen

Millions come from all over the world, and most

The chances are that our Queen has visited their country.

She's made 250 overseas trips in her reign, and it's custom

So there are thousands of them, whittled down to 200

Golden sparkling personalised trinkets show off the financial

wealth of the countries they come from, quite at home under

the glittering chandeliers of the state rooms.

This is from Tibet, a prayer shawl blessed by the Dalai Lama.

Gift-giving, as we all know at Christmas or on birthdays,

There was a famous occasion when President Zuma of South Africa

presented her with a chess set which had been duplicated,

which he didn't know, by his predecessor,

Really, so she got the same gift twice?

And that's not the only problem she might have

One of the disappointments of the exhibition is that there

She has been given some 20 horses, apparently kangaroos,

Of course, we'll never know what she thinks of any of them.

She's had 65 years to practise that polite smile one has when receiving

That's it for now from me, but lets find out what the weathers

-- Nick Miller. The rain will clear in a couple of hours, don't be

fooled by the fine start tomorrow morning because big cloud will

develop and showers will break out once again. Through the rest of the

Knights of this rain in the short term will be quite heavy before

clearing away East. Clear skies coming back later in the night.

Temperatures holding up into double figures. The clearing weather system

means tomorrow morning a lot of early sunshine. The cloud will

build, showers break-out, and some of those could be heavy into the

afternoon. A lot of cloud, not much in the way of sunshine in between

these showers. Temperatures high teens to low 20s, not as windy as it

was today. Sunny start on Sunday. Cloud will build. Later in the

afternoon into the evening we start to bring back the of showers on

Sunday, perhaps a little bit warmer. This is the weekend in summary, a

showery one. The start of next week high pressure building in, it turns

dry and warm for a time. That's how it's looking. What about the rest

the UK? it's looking. What about the rest

the UK? Here is Sarah Keith-Lucas.