17/01/2017 Look East (West)

A Japanese company buys a huge stake in one

of our biggest train operators - what'll it mean for

Calls for companies here to take on former soldiers,

as Government promises have produced few jobs.

And find out how a satellite built in Stevenage will help improve

It's been announced that a Japanese investor is to take a 40% stake

They run trains from Cambridge to London Liverpool Street,

as well as between Peterborough, Cambridge and Norwich.

Abellio says the partnership with Mitsui will lead

to "significant improvements", but not everyone agrees.

Worth ?1.4 billion, it's been just three months since the Dutch firm

Abellio began the nine-year franchise that promise to transform

rail transport across the region for passengers.

To deliver its pledge, it sold 40% of the franchise to the

Japanese company Mitsui, a fair deal for stakeholders and customers, says

All these companies who have come in for the medium and

long-term franchises bringing money with them.

Naturally, they expect a return on it and we're told it

averages about 6%, no more than that.

That isn't big-money buy any commercial standards.

So nobody is being ripped off, so to speak.

Every day, the service carries 250,000

passengers from London Liverpool Street to Cambridge, Norwich,

In a multi-million pound investment, the

rail operator says it will replace more than 1,000 carriages with more

seats and faster services by 2020 and ?60 million will be spent on

improving stations, including Cambridge.

The investment could cut average journey times by 10%.

Unions say it simply shows that a chunk of

Britain's rail network is up for grabs.

It makes a mockery of the tendering process.

Tendering processes are quite tough, if they satisfy

safety, customer satisfaction, and reliability.

And we have this company, come in out of the blue,

never been in the process and they are buying up

Japan introduced the world famous bullet train but it

is unlikely those sorts of speeds will be seen in this country

Is it worrying that a private company that wasn't involved

in the tendering process has such a huge stake in Abellio?

Here's our Busines Correspondent, Richard Bond.

Bear in mind, the Government was unaware of his Japanese interest

But bear in mind, Abellio is still in charge.

It is still in charge of the operations of the company.

All terms and conditions of this new franchise will have to be met,

otherwise the operators will be in hot water.

Mitsui is being vetted by the Department for Transport,

and the Government actually put out a statement tonight saying that it

would only approve this partial sale once both parties,

in other words Abellio and Mitsui, have satisfied us that passengers

So there you are, basically, checks are being made to make sure

that it is a fit and proper partner for Abellio.

Next - are businesses doing enough to support servicemen and women

The BBC has discovered that just 58 companies in our region have signed

up to the Armed Forces Covenant - a Government promise to look

In our region, Hertfordshire has the most companies with 32,

but there are only six in Milton Keynes and

Para-ice hockey in Peterborough with Stuart, who lost a leg

Now he's trying to help others make the transition from

It's not easy, even for an able-bodied person.

You lose a whole network of support, once you leave the forces.

And you're suddenly left with nothing.

And that's exactly what happened to Daniel Johnson Morris,

who felt let down when he left the Army three years ago,

with mental health problems, no job, and no home.

I went into one of the hospitals in Peterborough.

I was literally in one room, on my own, two single

And I was just keeping myself to myself.

The only time I went out was to go and see my two boys.

Here in Peterborough, they're trying to get more companies

to take on ex-service people, and they can get support

from the government, if they sign the Armed Forces Covenant.

But, for now, out of 3,000 companies in the city,

At this drop-in session, they're trying to link

But with so few signing the covenant, it's hard.

I'm disappointed on the fact that a lot of companies

They are looking at an array of different backgrounds,

different trades, different skills that all three services

The service person that's leaving the forces wants another career.

They could have that person for many years to come,

They just need to give them the chance.

But one of the companies which have signed up is Anglian Water,

who found how employing ex-servicemen and women has

In the last three months alone, we've had nine employees

that we've hired with service backgrounds.

And we find that they're just amazing people.

They've got brilliant skillsets that are really transferable

They have health and safety, they have supply chain,

and they have engineering and practical requirements

So, that's absolutely brilliant for us, too.

It's all about getting them more integrated into civilian life.

Because, as any ex-forces person will tell you,

forces life is completely different to civilian life.

It's hoped that by giving people a chance, it might mean the nation

lives up to its promise of looking after those who served

A court's heard how the man accused of murdering the author Helen Bailey

told police she had spoken of "wanting space".

Ian Stewart made the comment during a recorded 999 call

to report her missing, four days after she disappeared.

Ms Bailey was found dead in a cesspit under the garage

of her home in Royston three months later.

Cambridgeshire Police are investigating a

They say at least three people are in hospital with serious but not

life-threatening injuries and four people have been arrested.

It happened in the Wentworth Street area of Peterborough

Now, just before we bring you the weather,

a look at how our region is helping to improve the accuracy

A satellite made in Stevenage will be the first to measure

In Greek mythology, Aeolus was the keeper of the winds.

Now, it's the world's first ever satellite to study the Earth's wind

It's going to collect more data in one week than we have already.

It's been built in a clean room at Airbus to keep its lasers

It shines it through the atmosphere and a telescope picks up

the reflections of that signal from the dust particles

From this, we can see the wind speed throughout the whole

At the minute, we don't measure the wind in this way,

we just use weather balloons that pop up in individual

points, and radios that are scattered around the world.

There are huge parts of the planet where we actually don't know

This will make it much more accurate.

It means that there will be actual data rather than estimated data

and that should feed into more accurate weather forecasts.

Aeolus works by firing a laser into the atmosphere

It's reflected back by molecules and clouds,

but at a subtly different frequency in what is called

It is the difference between these two signals that

This satellite, which weighs about the same as a Mini,

is going to be travelling around the Earth at

In its three-year life span it will orbit the Earth over 17,500 times.

There is all sorts of fundamental building blocks to making a weather

forecast, but none really more important than

People obviously appreciate the wind at the surface,

But the wind is a really complicated thing.

It varies very dramatically as you go up through the atmosphere.

What we can do with the satellite is just get a much broader image

and you need to know what the winds are doing right now

to be able to predict the weather in the future.

The data that Aeolus sends back could lead to a breakthrough

in our understanding of the Earth's climate.

Fascinating stuff - so lets get our latest

But from me and the team here, goodnight.

Well, we've already got temperatures in some spots below freezing.

As the night goes on, we'll see a lot of the clear sky

filling in with cloud from the north.

And that could produce a little bit of light rain and drizzle.

But for most of us it will be a dry night.

As the cloud increases, that will probably bring

the temperatures back up in many sports above freezing.

So some of us will wake up to a frost tomorrow morning,

And then, tomorrow, we have high pressure in charge again.

This weather front to the north, that's likely to push a bit more

Generally more cloud around tomorrow compared to today.

I hope it will thin and break in time to at least allow

Temperatures at best only up to about four Celsius, but we do

But it's going to stay on the chilly side, and stay largely dry

Although we may again just to see a little bit of drizzle out

In a moment, Nick will have the national forecast,

Thursday and Friday, high pressure stays in charge,

so it stays fine and dry, but largely cloudy.

On both days, we should see temperatures perhaps closer

to average - about six Celsius at the best.

from time to time. Staying settled still. Nick has the national

forecast this evening. Hello. If you are watching the

football earlier it turned out to be an evening for football fans in

Lincolnshire. This is how it looked at the start of the day. No idea

whether this weather watcher is a football fan, it's a fan of weather

that matters here. All sorts of weather, from 13 in Aberdeenshire to

two, despite the sunshine in Kent. I wonder if this six in the cloud

across the Midlands into northern England and parts of Wales felt

colder, particularly in these misty and foggy conditions in this weather

watcher view. Some drizzly rain around at times still from the

thicker cloud into parts of England and Wales overnight, hill fog too.

Cloud for Scotland and