04/04/2017 Look East (West)

Plans to charge diesel vehicles to drive into the city.

Election fever - Labour hit the streets to win back voters

And a settled outlook but rather cloudy at times.

The most heavily polluting vehicles could be charged

to drive into the centre of Cambridge in future.

The City Council wants to create one of the government's

Under a so-called toxin tax, some diesel vehicles could be

The aim is to have a plan in place by 2020, as Emma Baugh reports.

Cambridge has long been trying to curb congestion,

ridding cars from its city centre,

investing in public transport and encouraging

and now it's considering charging drivers with the most

Greys of Ely is already making efforts to upgrade to

They want to work with the council but say it could affect costs.

For the coach industry, it's not massively different for us.

We've seen with the London low emission zone so we kind of expected

that Cambridge would probably take something like that on board and

then there might be a cost for adding the charge

And as with all businesses, any additional costs have

to be either factored in or potentially passed on

Clean air campaigners welcome the charge.

I think it would make a great difference really the air, the

air in Cambridge is disgusting and my husband suffers dreadfully

if we go to town and it would be much better to be cleaner air.

Cambridge is officially classed as one of the most congested

But it doesn't rate as badly when it comes to pollution

So why the need for the pollution charge?

The council says it's not a moneymaking exercise.

We regularly exceed the current European standards so we do

You can smell it in those parts of the city centre

where we've got most traffic and where we get congestion.

So this is a measure to make our city healthier but also

to cut the number of vehicles coming into the city.

So it will clean the air and it will also cut congestion.

A mixed reaction to the pollution charge in

It's another form of tax by the looks of it.

I'm just wondering what they're actually did use

Are they going to improve the air quality with the money?

I think it's good to cut pollution but there are other ways to get into

Cambridge and driving is not necessarily the only

If it's for the environment then I think it is a brilliant idea.

I think you shouldn't be penalised for something the government

promoted a few years ago which is when I bought my diesel car.

Today, the government says it is committed

to cutting air pollution and any city can bring

Emma Baugh, BBC Look East, Cambridge.

Well, Professor Sir David King used to advise Tony Blair's

Earlier I asked him if this action on pollution was really necessary.

Well, the consequences of doing nothing are

that there will be people dying because of

It's not right through the city, it is very localised

and it is close to those roads that carry a lot of traffic.

And I don't want to suggest that a large number of people

and not a high percentage of people would die but never the less,

lives are shortened by these gases that we have to breathe

If diesel cars are so bad, can you ever

see a ban coming in in certain cities?

We clearly don't want government to simply ban you from driving

So it's got to be a phase-out process which is why every

city needs to be looking at phasing out by 2020, 2022,

But in the meantime, give an encouragement to those

particularly in city centres and on those busy roads

A few years ago, people were actively

encouraged to buy diesel cars, weren't they, on the basis that they

so is it fair to now penalise those drivers?

I was chief scientific adviser in the year that we began to

encourage the use of diesel driven cars in this country.

We're clear about what the problem is with diesel in particular

but I want to emphasise, as we move forward,

we need to move away from the use of fossil fuels

and managing that problem in cities in particular

has become more urgent than everybody thought.

A college in Luton that was heavily criticised by inspectors is now

considering a merger with a rival that has campuses

Barnfield College has also had financial difficulties in the past.

Our reporter Waseem Mirza is here and can tell us more.

As you said, Barnfield College had been given a very poor rating by

inspectors back in 2015. They gave it the worst possible rating at the

time. They said it suffered from poor teaching, poor management and

bad behaviour from students. Two years on, it was given a

satisfactory rating and our spotted a review, it is converted it is

looking to merge with Central Bedfordshire College. If that plan

is approved, it will create the area's first so-called super

college. We are talking some 9000 students and a strong emphasis on

building vocational skills. Today, one of the chair of governors

acknowledged a challenging past but also looked to the future with

optimism. College-mac fall sort of reasons that we don't have time to

go into now have really found themselves in great difficulties. I

think we can really help them in many areas relating to quality and

curriculum, relating to development. They also have skills of course and

I think that is why the whole committee can be greater than the

sum of the part. What a teacher thinking about this? Teachers at

Bonfield may be sensitive to that the College only has a satisfactory

rating. There is no suggestion tonight that jobs are at risk. --

Barnfield College. That is not on the agenda taught according to

Central Bedfordshire College. A study has begun already and it is

looking as to whether this merger is feasible. It is due to report back

in July. Thank you. With a month to go until

County Council elections, the Labour Party has been

in the region to rally support. The party controls just a handful

of seats in Hertfordshire. So today, the Shadow Health

Secretary was in Stevenage, Whilst you're here, come on over

to the Labour Party stall and meet the Shadow Secretary of State

for Health, Jon Ashworth. A rallying cry to shoppers

in Stevenage, but is Labour faces an uphill

battle in the east, and in The council is represented by 77

councillors, Which is why the Shadow Health

Secretary was in town to drum up support, despite polls suggesting

the party faces a rout I'm not going to put targets

on it, but we want a good Labour vote in this area,

because there's lots of constituencies in this part

of the country which are very important to us, constituencies

which we want to gain back off the Conservatives whenever

the general election comes, so these elections are also

about putting in place the base for The Conservative Party holds

majorities in Cambridge and Northamptonshire

and here in Hertfordshire. But the town's Labour leader

is adamant change is needed. I've been out knocking

on doors in Stevenage People are telling

us on their doorstep that they are dismayed to see

the public services that they value in this country being decimated

by what the Tories are doing at national level

and at local level. The country is in a state of flux

which ever way you look at it, whether it is joy or resignation

towards Brexit, the NHS and schools are facing unprecedented

financial pressures. Both are traditional

topics that play well to voters here in Stevenage, but will

it be enough to turn the tide The lack of affordable housing

in Stevenage is a rising problem, but people we spoke

to were far more concerned about the influence Jeremy Corbyn

was having on the party. He seems to want to do his own thing

to me, his own thing. I think there has been

a bit of trouble with I don't think they'll

get in with him. I don't like his views

on Ireland and getting rid The town centre is undergoing

massive regeneration at the moment, and Labour will hope the same thing

is true of their election chances as they focus on making

gains next month. Mousumi Bakshi, BBC

Look East, Stevenage. Football and just one

result for you tonight. MK Dons in League One,

with a 2-0 win away at Charlton. Finally, a development of luxury

homes in Cambridge has been covered with graffiti

written in Latin. Vandals spray-painted

the new five-bedroom river-front houses with the words

Locus in Domos and Loci Populum which roughly translates to "local

homes for local people". I'll leave you with

the weather from Alex. It was quite a cloudy forecast

for this afternoon but as we go through the night,

it's going to turn clearer across many parts of

the region and under those clear skies, temperatures

turning quite chilly. So quite widely temperatures down

to around four or five Celsius but one or two spots we could record

lows of two Celsius, bringing the risk of

a touch of ground frost. So, we start the day

tomorrow bright and we've got the high pressure

on the scene so we kick off with a good spells

of sunshine after that chilly start. But it will tend to cloud

over as the day goes on. So, on the whole, much

of the day looking rather cloudy and under that cloud

temperatures being held back. So, highs perhaps 11

or 12 Celsius with a light to moderate north-westerly

wind but it does look as though The national forecast

is coming up And although high pressure

keeps things rather settled, it does look like a rather cloudy

outlook with some brighter spells, Temperatures around

12 or 13 Celsius. bit from the south, so we could get

to 18 or higher on Sunday. Now the national focus. Good evening,

things are looking good in the next few days, some pressure drifting in

from the Atlantic, bringing some finance settled with it. Just some

questions about the amount of cloud we will see under that. The cloud we

saw the sea links gave rise to a lovely sunsets are many areas. This

is the view from one of our weather watchers in Cornwall. Look at the

tones in the sky in Warwickshire this