16/02/2018 London News

That is all.

Welcome to BBC London News.

I'm Alpa Patel.

The online taxi firm Uber

says it will go further

to protect the safety

of its drivers and passengers.

It comes a day after Transport

for London announced new rules

requiring private minicab

companies to limit working

hours for drivers.

All this comes five months

after Uber was stripped of its

license to operate in London.

Emma North has been speaking to Uber

and sent his report.

I think it's safe to say

that the clock is ticking for Uber.

It has until June to prove

that it is worthy of retaining

its licence here in London,

and so it's introducing a whole load

of measures to try and prove it

should stick around.

Fred Jones is from Uber.

What are you doing to make sure that

you stay in business?

Today we are announcing the latest

of a series of measures that really

put safety at the heart

of our service in London

and across the UK.

Tell us a bit more about

what you intend to do to make

these journeys safer.

We are announcing a series

of measures, perhaps most notably,

we are going to launch a 24/7 phone

line, so drivers and riders have

told us that they love our customer

service, but the simple issue

is that sometimes, when there

is a series incident,

they want to speak to a human

to help them resolve their issue

as soon as possible.

That's something we are announcing.

Why do you think it's taken

you so long to do this?

It almost feels as if you are trying

to catch up with what many other

companies just do naturally.

You are right, over the past months,

we spent a lot of time listening

to our riders and drivers,

TfL, the Met police,

and looking at what we can do

to improve and change

and make our service better

for London and people across the UK.

That's what we've done today.

What also happened in the last 24

hours was that Transport for London

has imposed a whole new list

of measures which should make

the amount of hours that people

working for companies like Uber

will be limited.

That's already live, says Uber,

but perhaps it's a sign that TfL

and Uber are still working together

to try and resolve their problems.

There's been a drastic fall

in the number of young Londoners

able to buy their own homes over

the past two decades.

A study has revealed that, 20 years

ago, around 47% of people below

the age of 34 had bought a property.

That dropped down

to just 20% in 2016.

Let's get more on this.

Joining us in the studio

is the author of the report,

Andrew Hood from the Institute

for Fiscal Studies.

This is a problem for youngsters

across the country. But particularly

in London.

London is one area in a

country that has seen the fastest

fall in home ownership in the last

20 years, simply because house

prices have risen faster relative to

the incomes of young Londoners and

in the rest of the country, and that

has carried on as house prices in

London have continued to rise as

they slowed across the rest of the

country.

Lots of youngsters missing

out. What needs to be done to help

them?

The issue of housing supply

needs to be tackled, to make sure

enough houses are built to meet

demand, but also to make sure they

are built in the right places.

Particularly for young Londoners,

it's important they are built where

they want to live, rather than in

parts of the country where maybe not

the jobs.

We have heard this before

about house-building. It hasn't

really happened to the level we

need. What will happen if the

government doesn't intervene?

It's

challenging to think about any

short-term fix. A long-term solution

is needed but it's important because

there are long-term problems being

stored up was for example, if

today's young adults go through

their working lives without being

able to buy a home, when they

retire, will the government be able

to pay their rent in London? Today's

retirees tend to be mortgage is paid

off and living in their homes for

free.

Hundreds of young people will take

part in one of London's largest

urban talent shows later today.

Past winners include street dancers

Diversity and singer Leona Lewis.

Ayshea Buksh reports.

Last-minute preparations at the Crib

youth project in Hackney

for their biggest night of the year.

The talent show, Boroughs United,

as singers, dance groups and poets

perform live on stage

at the Hackney Empire.

The young people come

from different youth clubs

and centres across London,

and organisers say the aim

of the event is to show the creative

potential young people have

when given the right support.

All we ever hear is negative

things about young people,

like gang-related, this one's

getting stabbed, parents

burying their children,

so we need to show the positive side

of young people, what they actually

do, because that's not been shown.

The Crib is based at the de

Beauvoir estate in Hackney.

It works with hundreds of young

people and their families.

As well as a youth club,

it runs regular workshops on issues

such as knife crime and mental

health and well-being.

Pembe Tokluhan Went to the Crib

as a youngster and now works

as a professional stage manager.

She's been coordinating

the Boroughs United event.

We have over 200 people

backstage, all volunteers.

I think that's the

difference between us.

There are a lot of talent

competitions, but there's nothing

that specifically targets all 33

boroughs of London,

and that's what we target,

bringing everybody together

to be one community.

Organisers hope tonight

will help break down barriers

between youngsters from different

parts of London, and promote

peace and positivity

to the wider community.

Best of luck to those youngsters.

We're just over two weeks away

from the Academy Awards and one

company from Soho is in with a good

chance of winning.

I say chance, but it's guaranteed,

because the company called Foundry

is behind the scenes of every

nominee in the Visual

Effects category.

Wendy Hurrell has been

to have a look around.

Behind the visual effects that put

us in fantasy spaceships.

Bring life to the faces of chimps.

Or take us into dystopian futures.

Is a very clever piece

of software developed in Soho.

It is called Nuke.

It's about really mixing the real

and unreal together to make them

look like they blend together

perfectly and they are shot

through the same camera.

It's actually tracking

where all the pixels are going

in the image, the movement.

So your computer, at this point,

has built itself a camera?

A virtual camera, yes.

So that's following the path of that

image over the sequence.

You have drawn it as

an old-fashioned spool

to spool camera, as well.

Just as a nod to the olden days!

It's true.

In this year's Oscars,

they can't lose.

Every nominee in the visual effects

category has used their software.

They've been behind a win every year

for the past decade, in fact.

But you will never see them up

on the dazzling Oscars stage.

We still get recognised,

but not in that way.

We work on the tools.

The tools, the software,

the solutions that help them

bring that magic to the screen.

But absolutely, we are kind

of more in the background.

Foundry received this

Academy plaque this week.

For the science bit,

there is a separate ceremony.

The boffins in Soho will be watching

the main event on March

the 4th to see which of their works

gets a gong this year.

Wendy Hurrell, BBC London News.

Pretty impressive effects.

Time for the weather.

Here's Lucy Martin.

Good afternoon.

A cold and for some of us

frosty start to the day,

but we've seen plenty of blue skies.

This photo sent in by a weather

watcher in Kingston this morning.

For the weekend, Saturday looking

like the better of the two days,

mostly dry and bright with the risk

of the odd isolated shower.

Sunday, a cloudy day

with some rain later.

This afternoon, staying dry

and bright with plenty of sunshine,

possibly hazy at times thanks

to a bit of high-level

cloud, with highs of 10

Celsius and light winds.

This evening and overnight,

staying dry with some patchy cloud,

but skies tending to clear

into the early hours,

so a chilly night to come.

Overnight lows around minus two

Celsius to freezing.

A risk of a touch of frost and one

or two patches of mist and fog.

A bright start on

Saturday, if chilly.

Plenty of sunshine first thing,

turning cloudy into the afternoon,

with a risk of the odd isolated

shower, and highs of 11.

For Sunday, a cloudy day to come,

with the cloud tending to thicken up

from the west and some patchy

outbreaks of rain later

and highs of nine.

That's about it from me.

Louisa Preston will be here

with our 6:30 evening programme.

But for now, from us all,

a very good afternoon.