13/12/2011 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Welcome to Tuesday's Look North. In tonight's headlines:

Inflation falls but wages in the North struggle to keep up with the

cost of living. We've a special report.

A new police service for non- emergency calls. Will it stop the

time-wasters? A debt to the missing. North

Yorkshire's cold case team seeks answers for families of the dead.

And the mystery of the prehistoric fossil unearthed in a Wearside

garden. In sport, more tributes for Jonny,

as Wilko calls time on his international rugby career.

And a race against time for the marathon runner trying desperately

Today's drop in inflation has brought some good news in an

important week for the economy. Three sets of figures are being

published that should give us an idea of what sort of shape the

region is in. As well as inflation, unemployment and shopping activity

will also be revealed. Our business correspondent is at a shopping

centre in Darlington to tell us more.

That is right, today we saw inflation dropped from 5% to 4.8 %.

We have seen those unemployment figures come out tomorrow and then

on Thursday it is retail sales figures so we will be able to see

whether people have been coming to places like this and spending money

in November. But the hammock is not good. But even with the drop in

inflation today, many of us are still facing tough times.

If you want and in a sample -- at an example of inflation and its

costs take a look at these use workers with a church charity in

Darlington. They moved to within the 8th -- from the West Midlands

four years ago. As a family, in that time we have had two children.

We moved 200 miles and the cost of living has just gone up and up and

up. I do like in bed at night sometimes, wondering about where

can we save money? So how do they make ends meet? We are trying to

keep a tighter track on our money. We do a budget list. Being

Christmas, it is an expensive time of year. Arsenal also has his

brother. This year we have shared the party. -- our son has his

birthday. They are not alone. Right across the region, wages have not

kept pace with inflation. In Cumbria, the median weekly wage is

�438. A drop in the year of over 9%. In the North East the median wage

is �450, a rise of 1.7 %, but still dwarfed by inflation. In mela and

Martin's town, where the weekly wage is �429, it has dropped by

nearly 6%. Only in a handful of places, such as Alnwick, where a

weekly wages �505, has the yearly rise of over 7% top inflation.

Today's fall in inflation, while Wellcome will not have much of an

impact. It is the basics. This is what I find worrying. Things like

spaghetti, pasta, a prize. They have gone up quite considerably in

the past year and I have noticed I do the shopping and so from my

perspective, I think, when I get to the chill, how much will this cost?

There could be better news for Motty and Mel in 2012. The Bank of

England says it reflects -- expects inflation to fall further as prices

for and the VAT increase is no longer felt. The New Year cannot

come soon enough. Someone who knows more than most

how of cash-strapped we are is these columns and Citizens Advice

Bureau worker. You see a lot of people where wages have been

overtaken by inflation. Absolutely. Demands due our service are always

high and we are seeing over 150 clients every month for money

advice, debt advice. What sort of advice do you give them? We provide

prices support for those clients suffering, not able to make

priority payments and not able to make credit cards. Some really

severe issues such as bailiffs calling at the door and county

court representation for repossession. On the other side, we

have seen an increase of clients who are not in debt yet but are on

the brink of debt. Where do people go if they do not come to you for

advice, what kind of places to get cash? There has been a rise

certainly with clients coming in in the last few months of backstreet

lenders, so a rise in payday loans, high-interest loans and high

interest payments. And actually, even seeking advice on paying for

their advice and paying for debt management when really they could

have had the advice for free from the Citizens Advice Bureau. So on

no account go to those backstreet lenders? Come to you? Absolutely

not. They are compounding the problem. We can address the problem

by seeking sustainable payments on their behalf. Thank you very much.

Inflation today, unemployment tomorrow, and that surely will not

be good news. For North Yorkshire Police have

told the BBC there is a new leading the hunt for Claudia Lawrence. She

was reported missing in 2009 when she did not turn up for work at the

University of York, and has not been seen since. It is now exactly

1000 days since she disappeared and detectives say a potentially

crucially -- crucial new witness has come forward.

The number of 999 calls to our police forces has doubled in the

last ten years. As we have reported many times, a lot of those calls

are not actually necessary. For years, the police have wanted an

alternative number for non- emergency calls. Now they have got

one. For the first time, across the whole region, 101 is the number to

ring when it is not urgent. But will we use it?

What has been stolen from the shed? Welcome to room 101. If your shed

has been broken into or you are reporting anything that does not

need an immediate emergency response, the police want you to

call this, not minus nine. theory, it is very simple. All the

calls, 101 and 999, our first taken in this room here. They are then

prioritised to handlers in this room. The idea is that cases

deserving a 999 reaction can be dealt with more quickly but the 101

number is also meant for reporting antisocial behaviour, for example.

So is having two numbers a recipe for confusion? Then maybe some grey

areas but if in doubt, if you think it is an emergency, please do we

999. But what I want is for -- 101 is for something like damage to a

car or window, something that is not an emergency, or just a call

for when you lead a police officer to come round and provide advice.

lot of members of the public will bring 999 because they cannot

remember the local number so 101 is easy to remember. If you are making

a new report... Calling 101 will cost 15p and in our unscientific

Office experiment, it took an average of nearly one minute to get

through to a human, so will we, the public, by the idea? Those sort of

things do not make a difference. is more memorable because everybody

already knows 999. This new number will cost you 15p to call. That may

be a problem. I do not know the number! One of one? The public told

us they like to be able to contact us on 101. It is a number that is

easy to remember. This is about being able to call your local

neighbourhood police officer, which is what we want people to do.

the end, whether these works is probably down to us. How sensible

we are and how much we trust the police to take our calls seriously.

A new plant which will help cut land fill in Cumbria by 80% is due

to start operating next week. The plant at Hispin Wood in Carlisle he

is one of two sites where household waste will be transformed into a

tub of cream fuel. It is part of the �700 million investment by the

council. It is not nice to look at and not

good for the Environment when it is buried in the ground but this plant

is one of two in Cumbria which is going to cut the amount of

household waste put into landfill been the county by a whopping 80%.

It turns the waist you cannot normally recycled into a fuel that

is used instead of fossil fuels at places like cement works. It is the

wonders of technological development. It is all based on

common sense. It does work. It has been very successful on the

Continent and here we see a major development in Cumbria which puts

us right at the head of the pack in terms of environmental

responsibility. I think Cumbria is the most beautiful place in the

country and hopefully will be the greenest place, too.

So this control room is as near to the waist as the employees ever

have to get. And that is because all of the rubbish is dumped,

shredded and cried mechanically through here. Rubbish will be

processed at the Hispin Wood site from next week, three months ahead

of schedule. It is part of a �700 million investment by the county

council, which says the savings that will be made in the long-run

both financially and in Dai Greene Police in North Yorkshire of going

ahead with plans to try to identify eight people whose remains have

been found across the county in the past three decades. Officers say

they have a strong moral obligation to the families to discover the

truth. Inquiries into the deaths, some suspicious and some probably

accidental, remain active as part of an investigation by a cold Cases

Review team based in York. Just right before the Bank, near

the farm entrance. You'll find her in the bushes. That anonymous phone

call on the 28 for all this 1981, brought North Yorkshire Police to

these isolated spot close to his sudden bang. Here in the

undergrowth they found the skeletal remains of a woman. She was naked,

there was nothing to identify her. All that the pathologists could say

was that she had possibly been here for as long as two years. The body

remains unidentified but a wax reconstruction, the first of its

kind, shows her to be about 35-40 years old, with short, dark hair.

The true identity of that lady, and why she was there are still unknown.

North Yorkshire's called cases unit is currently looking into the

deaths of no fewer than eight unidentified people whose remains

have been found across the county in the last 30 years, among them a

body of a woman of Asian extraction found in 2004. A man with a police

property back round in Scarborough harbour in 1989. A body with an old

shilling in the pocket. The man could have died in the 1970s. And

fake skull at Whitby which may have been that of a servicemen who died

during the war. -- a skull. The police said they have an obligation

to the families and the victims. have eight unidentified people.

Each of those will have family members and we owe it to those

committed as farmers, to identify who these people are, let them know

where their relatives have been put to rest. Perhaps the saddest of all

North Yorkshire's outstanding cases concerns the death of a baby boy.

He is now buried in this unmarked grave at Norton cemetery. The

child's body was found at Tidby -- local beauty spot on 30th April

1999. It was wrapped in plastic bags and there was no obvious sign

of injury. Clearly we have a mother and a father. I would ask if

anybody knows who they are to come forward so we can provide them with

support. You will be treated with care and dignity. The police say

that developments in DNA analysis, forensics and information being

collected by a new website, are making them optimistic that one day

the mystery of North Yorkshire's court case unknowns will be solved.

A pensioner in Sunderland has unearthed something rather

interesting to say the least in his garden. He dug up a lot of rock and

took it to his local museum where they identified it as a section of

dinosaur backbone but the real mystery is how it came to be on

Wearside when the underlying rocks are actually much older than the

age of the dinosaurs. When dinosaurs walked the earth,

they did not visit Sunderland, until now. A few weeks ago, a

gentleman had been digging in his garden and came across this rather

unusual rock and he recognised it as being something different, so he

brought in to the museum and our geologists have looked at it and

discovered it is a vertebra from the tale of a dinosaur. What is it

doing here in Sunderland? That is the big mystery. We do not know how

it got here. The theory is that somebody connected it from the

south coast as a fossil and boarded as a garden ornament back to

Sunderland. I think that is the most reasonable answer but we will

never know. The rocks in this part of the world are too old for

dinosaur remains to be found in them. So yes, very curious as to

how a bone from a dinosaur arrived in Sunderland. There are baffling

indeed. So if you have some amazing finds, maybe something that turns

up in your Christmas stocking, bring it here to Sunderland Museum

and they will be happy to put it on display. On second thoughts, better

Time for sport. Perhaps we now know why Jonny Wilkinson was at Kingston

Park the the night. We got a clue last night. He has been one of the

world's most famous rugby players for nearly a decade. No surprise at

the decision by Jonny Wilkinson to call time on his international

career has prompted so many tributes. He blossomed on Tyneside

so it is fitting his former club Newcastle Falcons will play his

current side Toulon in France this weekend. A teenager Jonny Wilkinson

scoring one of his first tries for the Falcons, even at 18 his focus

and ambition was clear. I hope to gain a secure place in

the Newcastle first team and eventually play for England for as

long as possible. And he did just that, becoming

England's all-time points scorer in an international career which

spanned 13 years and 91 caps. He wasn't just a prodigious talent, he

spent more hours on the training pitch than anyone. This is the

ground where Jonny Wilkinson literally shed blood, sweat and

tears in pursuit of this work -- perfection. His status as a

sporting hero was insured on that unforgettable day on 22nd November,

2003, when he scored the drop goal in the dying seconds of the final

against Australia to win the World Cup for England. For a but the

trade-off lifting rugby's greatest prize was an unprecedented string

of injuries which almost ended his career and led to depression. He

always came back fighting and those who knew him best are in no doubt

where he ranks in rugby history. He was extraordinary. He wanted to

be the best player that he could be, and he turned out to be certainly

the best fly-half England have ever had. He is the full package. There

are not many fly-halves can tackle like him, and you pray for guys

that that. Perhaps they will be praying he will not be on the field

when the Falcons prey too long this weekend.

There has been a play embargo embargoed -- impose a Darlington

Football Club. It means that the Quakers can't sign or register

anyone. This follows claims from several players that they haven't

been paid all the wages they're owed. Chairman Raj Singh has been

in talks with the Professional Footballers' Association to try and

resolve the issue. Meanwhile Newcastle United are hoping to

complete the signing from French club Sochaux of striker Modibo

Maiga, who's expected to play for Mali in the African Nations' Cup in

the New Year. Three months ago she was at the height of her career and

about to make a international debut for Team GB at the World Athletics

Championships but after completing a marathon as in Dixon was

diagnosed with a double fracture in her foot -- Alyson Dixon. She is

trying to keep her Olympic dream For the past three months Alyson

Dixon has spent every day running up and down this swimming pool.

Others were must think she is crazy but it is all part of the marathon

runners recovery from a broken foot and she is determined nothing will

stop purchasing have Olympic dream. -- stop her chasing. I hope my body

will hold up and I get the training as a need to run in the Olympics in

my home country, it is that added incentive. You have got to go out

there and put that extra bit. injury surfaced at the World

Championships in Daegu where she pushed through the pain barrier to

make it to the finish line. A scan later revealed she had run the

marathon with a double fracture in her foot. I could have easily

walked off the course at any point but I kept on telling myself,

quitting is not an option, I haven't put in 20 years of hard

work together and not finish. The time wasn't there and now there was

the position but I would rather to see it completed them quit halfway

round. The injury was a major setback, her partner Ian was there

to help pick up the pieces. Standing on the line with everyone

else, deserving to be on the line, then not be able to produce her

best because of the foot injury was a big disappointment. She wasn't a

young superstar that has always been on the scene, it has taken her

a while to plug away and built her reputation. She is good at moving

It is now a race against time for the Chester-le-Street run-up to be

fit for the London Marathon in April. She has enlisted the help of

sports scientist at Sunderland University who were using

technology usually seen in computer games to analyse her injury. If she

can run fast enough in the capital a place in the 2012 games alongside

the likes of Paul Radcliffe could be hers, but it is a big if. --

Paula Radcliffe. Just making the team itself will be a hard task. We

have got it to nine goals capable of getting the 230 when you need

for the qualifying standard. It will be a big chunk of my personal

best. We believe I'm capable of it. What would it mean to you if she

did manage to get that spot admitted to London 2012?

To emotions, when would be really pleased for her, also a bit of

relief -- two emotions, one would be police for her. Relief -- one

would be pleased for her. You think you are in there with the chance

when it has always been just a dream. A lot of people have, not

after you, but they get a real job and do something else. To run in

the Olympics in your home country Good luck. That physio session that

painful. She got through it, she will be

there. Time for the last Grundy's North in

the series. John has been to the ancient borderland between England

and Scotland. An area which in some parts have seen very little change

in the last five years -- 500 years. Our intrepid explorer headed for

Longtown and beyond in the north of This is the River Esk which is

mainly a Scottish river bed for a while just north of here it becomes

part of the border between Scotland and England. Here I am in England.

Just. This surprisingly bouncy Victorine suspension which claims

to be safe for six people. -- Victorian bridge. It leads to the

splendid church built in 1776. I don't know what you imagine a

border church should look like, but to meet this doesn't seem typical.

It is refined, very civilised, and this whole area looks pretty and

peaceful. And yet for hundreds of years it was one of the most

violent places in the kingdom. The whole area was known as the

debatable lands. Debatable because nobody could agree who they belong

to and that is why the Graham's who lived here have to build themselves

a tower, a mini castle instead of a normal house. They stretch east

from here along the border and south towards Carlisle and Brampton.

They form a sort of triangle which remains one of the least known and

least visited part of England. It is beautiful country, and wild. It

-- in places it has got a wildness that makes you think it hasn't

changed for hundreds of years. Much of the North must have looked like

this once, with scattered, inching trees, and the ground covered with

rough, marshy grass. Even the cows look ancient, it rough and Perry as

if they were bred to cope with his Welshness. -- rough and hairy.

Where else can you see a herd of cows roaming freely on the

mountainside. It is difficult not to imagine menacing invaders

flitting amongst the street. All over this landscape there are

castles and towers, not always obvious. He didn't necessarily want

to advertise your presence too clearly the when there were

invading armies around, and not always pretty, either. They were

here because they were needed. Even houses built after the war fare

indeed tend to look like castles. Stonecrop side hall was built in

the 16 80s and it is definitely on the English side of the border but

looks so much like a Scottish fortress. The most extraordinary of

all of the buildings in the area is on the Scottish side of the border.

Hermitage Castle. So confused was this area it was actually probably

built by an Englishman who was married to a Scot. It is difficult

to imagine any building that suggests the violence and the

harshness of life in the debatable lands more than that. There is a

story of a prisoner abandoned in a castle here, and he ate his own arm

in desperation as the starve to death. I hope you're not still

eating your tea. A wonderful place to remind ourselves of our

debatable past. That was a big grizzly. A bit like

On the whole, it is not pretty. Even the Cumbria and Hardy Herdwick

sheep are taking cover behind the dry-ice couldn't -- dry-stone walls.

60 mph wind, freezing temperatures, snow. We have been watching the

cloud drifting down from the north- west, through the course of today.

That is bringing frequent showers as we head into the evening. We

will have a cold wind, freezing temperatures. It is the snow that

the Met Office are warning primarily about for the coming

night. More, especially, for the high ground. It is the high ground

from Cumbria or Northumberland which bears the brunt. It will blow

about in the wind. Very cold. Temperatures hovering just above

freezing. A biting wind. Even if you don't get a covering of snow

you could see some icy stretches to contend with tomorrow morning. A

cold, windy day. Showers, few and far between as are many places

drive. Decent price bus stop it will never feel warm. Even with a

bit of sunshine for top -- decent break mass but it will never feel

warm. -- brightness. That is the picture for tomorrow. A look of

respite, positive news, has we head towards the tail-end of the week.

This did area of low pressure comes into was the Atlantic, going

further south. -- Keep area. We should get let off with the worst

of the wins keeping to the south of us during the tail-end of the week.

It will stay pretty cold. If you're out on Thursday and Friday, Deborah

just stuck firmly in single figures. A few showers around. Certainly

ever high-ground. A wintry feel for the rest of the week. Watch out for