09/02/2017 Look East

Hello and welcome to Look East. so it's goodbye from me.

In the programme tonight: Free-range egg farmers hit out

at government plans to combat the bird flu outbreak.

They say classifying some areas as "safe" will put their flocks

They are just a bunch of idiots. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Reaction in the constituency after the Labour MP Clive Lewis

Exclusive access to the hospital teams who have to deal

And I am inside shed one looking at the future of the airship industry.

First tonight, a warning that free-range egg producers will go out

of business because of bird flu, despite the lifting of restrictions

which have kept their hens indoors since December.

Today, the government said hens in the white areas on this map can

be moved back outside when the current ban runs out

They would then become free-range again.

In the red areas, they will still be kept under cover to protect them

from wild birds carrying the flu virus.

But today, farmers told Look East that no area is completely safe.

They claim there is no science behind the advice they are given

Here is the high risk zone. Daniel is a free range egg producer in

Suffolk. He is one of the lucky ones because his farm is outside the high

risk areas designated by DEFRA. On March one, his birds will be allowed

out again. But Daniel is still worried that those inside the high

risk areas will suffer. How have DEFRA come up with these zones?

Throwing paint at a map by the looks of it. It is a very random

assortment of blue blobs on a map, mainly coastal areas but there are

large gaps around the coast that are not covered. They say it is a

risk-based response but they have not said what the risk is. Dave

White is another free range producer. His farm is just a the

fields away but is within a high risk area. His birds will have to

stay in their sheds and he is furious. Just a bunch of idiots.

They have taken a compass, put it on a map and done circles. It makes no

sense whatsoever. There is no bird flu at the present moment in East

Anglia, so why are we being punished. In those areas where they

still have to house they will not be able to label their eggs as free

range. I am hopeful people will recognise these are free range

flocks, they are being housed for a good reason. On Monday we met

Alistair Brice. He is a free range producer and Packer supplying three

quarters of a million free range eggs to supermarkets across East

Anglia. He says the DEFRA plans will put some producers out of business

and may even extend the life of the bird flu virus.

We saw Alaistaire Brice in that report and he's

You have some farms inside the red zone and some which are not. Yes, we

have three inside the zones and 13 outside. The government will be

dammed if it did and damp if it doesn't say what is wrong with what

they are doing? It is splitting the whole industry in half and it is

making those almost a postcode lottery where if they fall inside

the zones you will lose money and if you fall outside, you might make a

living. There is no thought gone into this. What would you like them

to do? I would like to continue the housing band and maintain the free

range eggs if we could. If we cannot do that, downgrade the whole

industry to Ban and we have a level playing field and we can move

forward with a disease control management plan to try to eradicate

this. You do think there is a threat to all of the birds? Unless those

birds can read that map I think there is a severe risk to us all and

I have two farms which are not in the zones but that does not mean I

will be happy to let them out. I will think about the risk that

associates my business and neighbours. What sort of difference

does it make to the price you can charge for ex-? The difference is

about 30p a dozen. It might not sound a lot but 30p over a palette

of eggs is ?210. Many of these farms are small family farms and you will

decimate their ability to make a livelihood. You think someone go out

of business? No doubt about it because we have been given the

zones, there is no timescale on them and if we have open areas where

birds are free to roam and the birds that are migrating back from the

West to the east back to their breeding grounds, they will stop off

in places and I do think Mr Gibbins appreciates that they do not follow

maps. The Labour MP Clive Lewis has

kept a low profile today following his decision to stand down

from the shadow cabinet. He resigned as shadow business

secretary last night after deciding to vote in parliament

against Article 50. Friends of the MP have

praised him for speaking up but among voters the verdict

has been more mixed. Across the whole of Norfolk, Suffolk

and Essex just one place voted to remain in the European Union and it

was he in Norwich South. That is why Clive Lewis decided to go against

his party leader last night to vote against the Brexit bill and give up

his job in the Shadow Cabinet. He went with his conscience and that is

fair enough. It was the right thing to do because people in Norwich did

not vote Brexit. He is sticking up for the people. Plenty of support

for the MP today, but not from everyone. I sympathise to a degree

but the majority of the country wanted to leave, so perhaps he

should have done that. Sometimes you have to lump it, you cannot always

have it your way. Mr Lewis has said nothing publicly today. His decision

to stand down was revealed as MPs started to vote for Article 50 last

night. He said he had made what he called the tough decision because, I

cannot vote for something I believe ultimately harm the city.

As a Labour MP, I will never apologise for my socialism. And MP

for less than two years, Clive Lewis has found himself at the heart of

Labour politics. He was one of those who persuaded Jeremy Corbyn to run

for leader. He was briefly Shadow Defence Secretary which got him into

a row over Trident before getting the business brief. He has had a

roller-coaster time since he was elected and in lots of ways, the

period of time which was to be about getting your feet under the table,

doing the work as a constituency MP, starting to build up experience, he

was catapulted into two big positions. He has negotiated and

done well in those rows. I do not think it will be too long before he

is back on the front bench. But it is the backbench which now beckons

and a promising career has now stalled. How long will he be on the

backbenches for? This is Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party and what is

interesting is how nice everyone is being about him today. John McDonald

says he has a major contribution to make and hopes he will be back in

due course. The talk at Westminster last night was that all those who

reside will be back by the end of the year. It is interesting that

Clive Lewis is not giving interviews. He is hoping the story

will go away and if he does not give interviews, people will forget about

Labour's divisions. Will he go for the leadership? It is inevitable

that you will be seen as a future leader. The odds have been cut, he

is now 5-1 favourite. It will not happen in the foreseeable future.

Both are France, I cannot see Mr Lewis running against him. If Jeremy

Corbyn stands down, that might be different but it will not happen

soon. Council tax in Suffolk

is going up by 3% and the budget for services will be

cut by more than ?30 million. The budget for the coming year

was signed off at a full council Let's go live to the political

reporter for BBC Radio Suffolk, It is a chilly evening here at

Suffolk County Council, but earlier this afternoon, the debate got

heated. It centred around the ?30 million worth of budget cuts they

have to find. One area where the grants to charities. Age UK suffix

say their grant is a third less than it was three years ago. Earlier

today I met up with Gillian Ellis from Lowestoft who told me about the

impact these cuts were having. Shopping has to be ordered over

the phone and delivered. The 79-year-old former secretary has

carers coming in four times a day. Every Friday, Mary an Age UK Suffolk

befriender came to see Gillian to cheer her up,

but now there is no more money to support the service,

so the visits have stopped. She popped in, brought the post,

opened it up, that's rubbish, that's rubbish, that's rubbish,

handed me what I wanted. It was nothing really,

but important at the time. Age UK Suffolk had been running

the befriending service, but they have had their budgets

reduced from over ?800,000 in 2014 Just before Christmas we had to shut

a couple of day services that we ran in Bury St Edmunds

and we are at the moment in the process of reducing

and combining the benefits service and the advice service

so that it continues, but it will be smaller,

have less capacity For Gillian, the loss of funds

is a loss of friendship, which had helped her

through a very difficult time. I just hope, if she is watching

this, thank you, Mary, because from the bottom of my heart,

she helped a lot. The labour opposition here at

Suffolk County Council wanted to see the Conservatives dig deeper into

the reserves, but they said that this would be financially dangerous.

The big test will come in May, this is a county council election year

and the measure will be did people like the budget, or did they not, or

is it time for a change? Part of the A12 in Essex

is still closed after a lorry The driver died in the

accident near Witham. The lorry was carrying 26

tonnes of batteries. The southbound carriageway is closed

between junctions 25 and 20B. Specialist equipment is being used

and fire crews are having to hose the wreckage to keep

the batteries cool. Still to come tonight: More

wintry weather on the way. And fighting the fines

for taking children out We meet the couple who refused

to pay and ended up in court. As new figures reveal that

so-called bed blocking is the highest on record,

we've been given exclusive access to one of the region's

hospitals to see how The head of the NHS said today that

delays in getting people out of hospital and into social care

or back home have gone up by 90% Simon Dedman has been

to Basildon Hospital to see how a team there is dealing

with the problem. We have had a very

challenging night. We are still on black

alert currently. It is the first meeting

at Basildon Hospital to work out I've got three potential

discharges for today. We are in a position where we have

no more beds in the hospital, so we have 28 patients placed

in A, so at the moment, if we have any more ambulances arrive,

we only have one trolley If you have more than one patient,

what are you going to do? Then we will have

ambulances queueing. We admitted more people than we were

able to discharge yesterday. Basildon's managing director takes

me through the latest situation. What we're hoping to do is move

patients into our elective orthopaedic ward, which means

we are not able to do joint surgery, Just coming round to see if there

are any patients for hospital home? After the morning meeting,

nurse Natalie Cook goes ward to ward to find patients who could be

discharged from hospital and get their treatment

from Basildon hospital nurses The consultant saw you yesterday and

is happy for us to take you home. She has found one who will hopefully

be discharged today. She heads now to find four other

patients who can get But the real problem

is being dealt with here. Sick elderly people

who get stuck in hospital. This ward aims to treat

the frail quickly and get That is what this team works

on every day at nine. Some patients have been

here for ten days though. But after two days on this

ward, Eileen is looking I am on some tablets, I don't know

exactly what they are for, other than having those

in the mornings and apart from that, it's just being here

and getting looked after. Some patients here are waiting

for social care to kick in. The majority of the patients

who come over here we treat The longer they stay,

more complex problems arise, so having access to community

services and talking to leads in community,

we are able to get them out quicker. Every bed in Basildon Hospital

is taken and it has pretty much been that way since the beginning

of the year. So much so that if you needed

something like a hip replacement, they would pay to send you private,

none have taken place Basildon Hospital is trying

but getting slack in the health This time of year, lots of families

will be spending hours trying to find a decent summer holiday

at a decent price. So do you take the children out

of school during term time when everything is much cheaper,

or do you wait for the school The government says children need

to be in school and unauthorised absences attract a fine

of ?60 per child. But when Matt and Kerry Thomas

from Norwich were fined ?120 following a trip to Majorca,

they decided to fight Wearing her uniform today but last

summer, faith and her brother took a week out of school with their

parents. They headed for the Spanish sun. It cost ?1800. In the summer

holidays it would have cost 3000. I learned how to exchange the money

and the exchange rate and I learned how big the world was. Their schools

took a DM view. The local council took action. Matt and Ceri Thomas

refused to pay the ?120 fine so it was doubled. They still refuse to

pay and so today both sides faced each other in court. I know what is

best for my children not someone sitting in a courthouse or behind a

desk. I know what is best and the best thing for them was to have the

experience of a foreign holiday. Matt is pinning his hopes on the

case of another father who won his case at the High Court. He took his

daughter to Florida and faced a fine. His local authority appealed

and now Supreme Court judges will decide if he has to pay. I don't

think there is an issue, as long as they catch up with their work and

make sure that is not affected. Maybe when they were younger, maybe

not so much when they are older because of exams. I don't agree with

it. They are therefore education. The county council told us it is

Headteachers themselves who decide whether or not to take action...

Aside from the lower cost of holidays during term time, there are

those like this family who thought their rights as parents are being

undermined, but the government is clear, even a few days away from

school can affect exam results and have a detrimental effect on a

child's's education. That is the only holiday we have ever been on as

a holiday. But we took it on term time which is against the law. The

family will be back here for a full trial next month.

I'm sure most of us remember the case of the wheelchair user

who took his local bus company to the supreme court,

after a dispute with a woman with a child in a buggy over

He won the case, but now something similar has happened in Essex.

Nicki Price has cerebral palsy and was waiting

She says there were two pushchairs taking up the space for a wheelchair

and the mothers refused to move them.

Nicky Price on her way to the bus stop. She says using a bus must be a

basic right. Unfortunately they are not very reliable. They are always

missing buses out which makes the enough is bus overcrowded. And when

Nicky try to get on a first bus recently, there were two pushchairs

in the space for the wheelchair. The drivers ask the mother to fall they

pushed us up, they both said no and Nicky could not get on. I was

devastated. I was upset, angry. I was worried about my child which was

my main thought at the time, which was I must get to my child, to pick

her up. But I felt like a second class citizen. And it came despite

Doug Pauley's recent victory in the Supreme Court. He could not get onto

a bus when a mother with a pushchair refused to move. The judges ruled

they should do more to accommodate wheelchair users. Nicky Price says

the ruling has not made any difference. She dreads being left

stranded at a bus stop. I am vulnerable, left out in the cold,

alone. Where does it... What if something happens? I feel scared to

use the buses. In a statement, first said:

Nicky Price see the fore says she has received overwhelming support

over what she feels is a continuing injustice against wheelchair users.

You may well know that hidden away in a giant hangar in Bedfordshire

is the longest aircraft in the world.

It's called the Airlander and it's a cross between an airship

and a conventional plane. Last summer, everybody got

very excited when it made its maiden flight.

Then, a few days later, there was a crash landing.

Now after months of repair work, it could be back in the air very soon.

Airlander in the skies above Cardington. One of many maiden

flights. Its second test flight ended in this, and undignified

nosedive on landing. The state of the cockpit shown it could have been

worse. I have been given special access inside shed one. To find out

how the air lender is recovering. The cockpit now being rebuilt, those

at the controls that they are unharmed. There was a loud noise

when we hit the ground. Pretty soon we realise that most of the damage

was superficial. We were fine and a chilly got top and walked off the

flight deck. Are you looking forward to going back up? We are all

excited. There was frustration we had to stop flying to repair the

aircraft, but we know we have made loads of changes to our training and

we will come back much stronger. This shed is 100 years old, built

for the original airships with its own climate, far colder than

outside. A century ago, nearby shorts town was built to house the

workers and now the apprentices once again being recruited from the same

area. It is amazing to follow in their footsteps and a revolutionary

aircraft like this is amazing. It's a great feeling, a great atmosphere,

everyone grew up around here so knows the history. If it hadn't been

for a heavy landing, the Airlander would have had extra flying time but

backers remain optimistic. Details confidential but they include a high

profile investor from the middle east and it is hoped Airlander will

return to the skies very soon. Come March time, we should leave the hang

out again for our 2017 flight test programme. Then we will work with

customers, working up to some longer trips into Asia, North America. This

is the latest chapter in airship history as the industry celebrates

its 100th year here. Handsome. Very impressive. Now the

weather. Colder firmly establish across the British Isles. Bitterly

cold for at least 48 hours and there have been some snow flurries. These

photographs define some. Evidence of snow on the windscreen. You can see

a little bit of snow there on what looks like a table. Most of us saw

leaden skies today and with the temperature and the bitterly cold

wind, it has not felt pleasant. There will be the risk of further

snow showers over the next 24 hours. High-pressure, huge area of high

pressure across Scandinavia and that is blocking these Atlantic weather

systems coming in. Colder air across us over the last 24 hours. These

showers will continue this evening. Mainly for coastal parts, but as

that north-easterly wind freshens, they could move further inland, so

the chance you may wake up to a dusting of snow tomorrow morning,

particularly if you live in eastern counties. A few degrees below

freezing. Tomorrow's weather, not a lot changing but we have this

feature coming in from the north sea and there will be more depth to the

cloud tomorrow, so any showers will be heavier. The risk of those

showers through the day, a lot of dry weather but no evidence of

sunshine. Temperatures once more similar to today, two or three

degrees. Factor in that north-easterly wind, it will be

bitterly cold. Snow showers could move further west so as we go into

Friday evening, a greater risk of getting a dusting of snow and

further across western counties as well. Certainly looking very wintry

over the next few days. There are changes into next week. Low pressure

moving up from the south and that will change things. Slightly less

cold air for the weekend, but we still have the north-easterly wind

so it will feel the same temperature wise. But by mid week, more of a

springlike feel as temperatures cover perhaps into the mid teens.

Fantastic! That is all from us. Goodbye.

OK, everyone, have you got your bamboo sticks?

If you just paint what you want to paint,

I've turned around, my painting washes away.

..and take on The Big Painting Challenge.

Remember, you're not painting a pond.

Before I met you, I was a civilised woman.