10/12/2017 London News

It's time for the news

where you are.

Good evening.

I'm Asad Ahmad.

As you've been hearing,

overnight snow has caused widespread

travel disruption, particularly

at our airports and on the roads.

The extent of it -

which covered most of London

and the Home Counties -

caught many by surprise,

with snowfall being heaviest

in Hertfordshire and north London.

There weren't many places,

in particular north of the river,

that didn't wake up to scenes

similar to this one in New Barnet.

And it didn't take long

for the fun to begin.

But when there's snow,

there's disruption.

The M25 motorway came

to a complete standstill,

and in Hertfordshire,

drivers had enough as they waited

to join junction eight of the M1,

unaware that their journey

was likely to take hours.

This was Potters Bar,

the driving made that much

harder on the motorway

because of ungritted roads.

North London too moved slowly,

if at all, for the same reason -

no preparation in the form of grit.

Luton Airport had flights

temporarily suspended,

causing long delays

and frustration for passengers.

One described it as chaos.

And there were further problems

at Heathrow, with snowploughs

clearing the runways.

The London Underground

had its share of delays,

with snow causing power problems.

But most of the network ploughed on,

much to the relief of passengers.

Londoners south of the river

were affected as well.

This was south-east London this

afternoon, where sleet had started

to turn snow to mush,

with a warning tonight to be

aware of widespread ice.

Victims of abuse at children's homes

in Lambeth are to receive

compensation from a £100 million

fund set up by the council.

It will include former

residents of the Shirley Oaks

Children's Home near Croydon -

some of whom are still

angry with the council.

Here's Ayshea Buksh.

It was supposed to be

a sanctuary for vulnerable

children from across London.

But for decades, Shirley Oaks

children's home in Croydon was

the centre of a child abuse network.

The home was run by Lambeth Council,

who after pressure from campaigners

have created a compensation scheme

worth millions of pounds.

Anyone who lived in a children's

home run by the borough can apply.

We act on our pledge to provide

redress for people who have been

waiting for far too long

and as well as

providing compensation,

the scheme brings forward

specialised counselling

for people as well as a form

of written apology.

But Raymond Stevenson,

who lived at the home,

remains mistrustful of the council.

He believes such a scheme should be

administered away from Lambeth.

An important chance of a redress

scheme is an independent panel.

It almost comes with

the whole scheme.

So for this council to manufacture

an independent redress scheme that

has no independence is very dark

and very offensive to our members.

I think it's incredibly hard

for somebody who has been so badly

let down by Lambeth Council

in the past to have confidence in us

doing the right thing going forward,

I appreciate that.

But we have worked hard on this

scheme, which is the first

of its kind in the country.

For survivors, such compensation

is a significant milestone,

but their fight for justice

and in-depth scrutiny

of the past will continue.

So now time for a full

weather forecast.

Hello, good evening.

Plenty of snowy scenes

across the capital today.

There could still be a bit of light,

patchy snowfall at times overnight

tonight, but no great accumulations.

Instead, the major hazard is going

to be ice as everything re-freezes

onto the roads and pavements.

Watch out on untreated

surfaces in particular.

A mostly dry early start,

and then through the early

morning rush hour, we have some rain

spreading in from the south along

with some milder air,

so most of this is going

to fall as rain but there

could be a bit of

winteriness at times.

Some sleet and even

some snow mostly over

the high ground.

It won't be on the same sort

of scale as we saw today.

It will become more

confined towards eastern

areas as we head

through the afternoon.

Temperatures still on

the rather chilly side.

Now, that system is

going to push its way

eastwards as we head

through the later part

of the day on Monday to leave us

with a very cold night

on Monday into Tuesday.

Some of our rural spots

could be down as low as

-5, or even -6 Celsius.

Maybe some more ice issues

on Tuesday morning.

That's it.

More from us tomorrow morning.

Have a good night.