23/06/2014 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Government hopes for a third high speed rail line across the North

Rubbish idea from the man who's spotted a gap in the market.

Peak Fitness ` super Steve breaks the Wainwright fells record.

And how a stolen Lowry insphred an artist with a unique refdrence

In sport ` more wickets for Yorkshire's Liam Plunkett in

And going for gold ` England's lawn bowls captain hopes

to put the disappointment of Delhi behind him this summer in Glasgow!

The Chancellor, George Osborne, has floated the possibility

of a High Speed Three railw`y line between Leeds and Manchester to help

create an Northern economic powerhouse to rival London.

But, of course, the North doesn't stop at Ldeds

Our news correspondent, Adrian Pitches, is at

HS2 is still a distant prospect but already George Osborne and David

Anybody who has come on this cross`country train from Newcastle

to Manchester via Leeds would like to see that sped up. The new link

could be between Leeds and Manchester. For HS2, there hs some

great futuristic video of the trains travelling and shaving the journey

time. The timeline for that is that the London to Birmingham le`gue

would end in 22 `` opening 2026 and the Spurs will not open unthl 2 32.

That is before we get a link between Manchester and Leeds. Does this lead

the north`east in the sidings? I spoke to the newly appointed

regional director of the CBH and she has worked in the north`east for 25

years. She was very upbeat `nd said anything that is great for the great

North will be good for the north`east. Anything that brings

more economics to the Northdrn region can only be positive. We are

good at getting outside of our region and integrating anything It

can only be a good thing for the north`east. What about political

reaction? Labour MPs have bden rather snooty about this because

Leeds is 100 miles to the south and we're not seeing age high street ``

high`speed rail for that jotrney up to Newcastle, Sunderland and

Middlesbrough. Having spoken to the leader of County Durham and the

chair of the north`east combined authority, he said he did ghve it

qualified welcome. It looks that way but I do think it is welcomd that we

have potentially an improved railway line between Manchester, Ledds and

other cities. Clearly, Manchester needs the M 62 corridor and it is

only a small part of the North. It will be wrong to think that

improving the railway line hmpacts on the whole of the North of

England. HS2 is still on thd drawing board. HS three hasn't reached that

stage but the debate has st`rted. Well,

earlier I spoke to the Consdrvative He defended George Osborne's

announcement saying it was good news It is good that we enhance the

cities in the North. These `re the cities that we need to grow and

build and I am delighted he is talking about the issues and the

connectivity we need. You mentioned in Newcastle `nd

the high`speed line is coming as far What economic fallout could

the north`east get from this? The key point is our city ddals

to Newcastle and Sunderland. There is the work being dond on

the A1, the northern hub, HS2 goes What they are trying to do hs grow

the cities and make them I want to see Newcastle and

Sunderland building, growing and becoming super cities like London

and Manchester going forward. How can they become super chties

when they haven't got that sort What they have got is city deals,

the support and devolution that We have everything and what we have

going forward is proper invdstment in the north`east so we can have the

cities and support that we want A lot of the reaction

on our Facebook page is people saying it does seem like a cynical

attempt to win votes in the North and doesn't promise an awful lot to

be north`east and Cumbria. The north`east Chamber of Commerce

contacted me today and say they supported the

investment in the infrastructure That is an organisation representing

4000 separate businesses. And you can have your say and quite

a lot of people have alreadx A Russian student,

arrested after bomb scares `t Newcastle University, has appeared

before the city's crown court. The 18 year`old is charged with

having an explosive substance He's further charged with

carrying two lock knives. Vladimir Vladimirovich Aust was

arrested on June 10th after two evacuations from these buildings

and a controlled explosion. His arrest came in central London

near the Russian Embassy whdn it is He is being held at the Pentonville

prison and appeared The court was told he was ddtained

under terrorism prevention provisions but that those provisions

no longer apply, but the cotrt was also told that the case agahnst him

can proceed only with the consent of the Attorney General

and that that is now in hand. The judge said his trial wotld

take place in November and ht A woman has died after a collision

this morning. The pedestrian who the police have described as an elderly

woman has since died. Policd are appealing for witnesses.

Now, in the last few years, many of us have seen changes

Some local councils have moved from weekly rubbish collecthons to

But in Harrogate, Andrew Brown has set himself up

It's clearly time the bins were collected,

but the council came last wdek and won't be back until next week.

So this pile of bags is an opportunity.

Andrew Brown has started a business filling a niche.

People will pay to have their rubbish removed.

You've got to be realistic and say that, nowadays, with

so much packaging, processed food and disposable items, that for some

people it is just not practhcal to wash out plastic food contahners.

And then you've also got the nappies and things like that,

which for young families, is just very difficult.

People like property developer Richard Bancroft.

We've got nine people living here and we've got four wheelie bins

It soon equates to quite a lot of rubbish, which is fine until

the bins are full, and then we have black sacks on top of the bhns.

It doesn't take long before the foxes and the cats

and birds get involved into the bags and then we'vd got

Some people can't help producing rubbish.

If you are going to cut flowers you are going to have waste.

Recyclable waste, but waste nonetheless.

Andrew's service recycles 80% of what he collects.

I've struggled trying to get rid of the green waste that's from the

We used to have buckets of things sitting around

the back before we could take them to the tip and then it was dxpensive

to actually go to Harrogate tip to recycle what you want to recycle.

Andrew's business has only been going a week

but he gets new customers every day, proving once again that where

A Cumbrian runner is celebr`ting and recovering today,

after beating a record which stood for nearly 30 ydars

Let's look at Steve Birkinshaw's amazing achievement which hd

He ran up and down all 214 of Wainwright's mountains.

He completed the challenge in six days and 13 hours.

So the time of seven days, one hour and 25 minutes set by Joss Naylor

Six days and 13 hours after he started, Steve completed his epic

challenge. His wife and children were a welcome sight. He conquered

all 214 Wainwright Mountains consecutively with limited sleep.

Shattered, actually. Shattered but ecstatic that I have managed to

complete them all and got the record. I was trying to get four

hours of sleep a night but H couldn't sleep very much because my

knees were so sore. The bodx felt like it was falling apart. H had to

concentrate on moving and it was nice to have people around to lift

me and gave me going with conversations. Joss Naylor was the

last person to complete the 518 kilometre route in just over seven

days. It is fantastic. It doesn t matter what you do, you havd still

got the climbing to do and the time to put in. It has taken 27 xears to

attempt and break that long`standing record but Joss Naylor says his

efforts may encourage more people to get out onto the fells. Challenges

only a challenge if you can do it or not. I didn't know whether H could

compete it and after four d`ys, I didn't think I could complete it. It

will be something in his mind for many days. Has it stayed with you? I

had a bottle of Guinness and three or four at the finish. Both men now

belong to this even very exclusive club.

Some of you may recall an incident in the early 70s when a

painting by LS Lowry was stolen from an art gallery in Middlesbrough

Several days later it emergdd the theft by John Durkin was part

Well over the years the story has inspired John's son

Sean to follow in Lowry's footsteps with his own art exhibition recently

Phil Connell has been to medt him and hear more

It is 42 years since Sean's father stole the Lowry

painting, a story which has inspired Sean to paint as well.

The theft from Middlesbrough Art Gallery took place in 1972 `nd

Sean's father, John, was no big criminal.

He was cultured and every time he wanted to see

a painting, it was closed and it used to drive him round the bend.

He finally made a stand for the small man and took a pahnting.

This is the original Lowry on display here in Middlesbrough

until the end of the week that John Durkin store.

It is a prank that was to cost him ?1500 with the painting dephcting

scenes of Middlesbrough's old town hall and the church.

It is a story that 42 years on has led to Sean's own display.

His early illegal recollecthon has clearly influenced his work

What I do remember is all the fuss that caused, that such a little

How influential is your dad's story on you as an artist?

I like to think I am doing the paintings he never got round to

What do you think to what your dad did?

To remind people of his dad's capers, he paints a

special reminder on every completed painting, two stick figures of a

Night`time for the sport. `` now time.

For the second week running, one of the region's speedwax matches

has had to be halted becausd of a lack of medical cover.

Last week it was Workington Comets who had to cut short their

Premier League clash with Edinburgh Monarchs,

This time, Berwick Bandits' League derby with Redcar Bears was

interrupted after just six of the 15 heats, when the p`ramedic

After a wait of more than an hour, a replacement was found `

but then there was another delay, following a crash involving

The teams eventually managed to take the match up to heat 10,

by which time they'd reached the council`imposed cut`off timd of half

At that point The Bandits wdre leading by 32 points to 28 `

It's nearly four years sincd one of the proudest but most frustrating

A Commonwealth Games gold mddal eluded him by the narrowest

In just a few weeks time, though, Stuart Airey, captain

of the England lawn bowls tdam, will try to go one better in Glasgow

Mark Tulip caught up with hhm at one of his former clubs in Cumbria.

Born in Sunderland, raised hn Workington and now forging ` career

The big question for Stuart Airey, one of five members of the Dngland

men's team, is can he bring Commonwealth gold

back to Cumbria this time after bitter disappointment

We were in total control and the South African player put a ball out

and won in 100. It won him the gold medal and it is something that will

live with me forever. I aim to put it right in Glasgow.

Not surprisingly, with gold snatched from his grasp,

When he got what he wanted, the water bottle was the first thing to

get it and it went flying through the air. It is something I had to

live with but in the heat of the moment, that is what happendd.

Grabbing a quick practice sdssion during his lunch hour in Carlisle,

Stuart's current bowls club in Wigton also boasts the England

Despite national funding cuts, which have curtailed top`level

We are going up early and h`ving a few Test matches. Hopefully we will

be right on the money for that. Stuart's MD at Border Steelwork is

a huge bowls fan himself, which As for the sport's newest rdcruit,

well it may take just Too heavy, is net. Definitely has

your Weetabix this morning. Fans and former players havd been

looking back on a golden period for Carlisle United, when the team

won promotion to the top flhght At a party last night, organised

by BBC Radio Cumbria, ex`pl`yers and hundreds of supporters watched

archive footage of games in the old First Division, which Carlisle led

before eventually being reldgated. Many regarded Carlisle's achievement

as one of the most incredible in the game,

a feat that may never be repeated. I think it will be more

difficult now with all the loney I was really disappointed

when they were relegated last year but hopefully Kava `

I know Kava well from Wigan, when I was there ` I hope hd can

take them back up and back on the road, but I think it will bd very,

very hard to do a Carlisle now. Cricket and

Yorkshire's Liam Plunkett h`s taken his 9th match wicket for England on

the fourth day of the second test The fast bowler from Middlesbrough

who's been recalled to the squad after a seven year absence combined

with his Yorkshire teammates Gary Ballance and Joe Root to dismiss

Dinesh Chandimal and then Dhammika Prasad in consecutive balls

at their home ground. But Sri Lanka have set England

a record run chase for victory. Well Durham's Ben Stokes is doing

his best to bowl himself back into contention for England taking

seven wickets against Sussex who Durham will go

into the third day with a ldad. And top of

the table Yorkshire are in command It's now 12 days to go

until the Grand Depart and only a week until the rhders

start to arrive in our region. Sadly, as ever one

of the big topics for conversation Matt Slater looks at the sport's

troubled past and asks can we really Born into a mining family in Durham,

raised on the Nottinghamshire /Yorkshire border, Tom Simson won

gold. He had a secret. He doped He paid for it. Dying on his bhke

during the 1967 tour, you mhght think that shocked the sport into

cleaning up its act but it didn t. When Lance Armstrong when hhs record

four decades later, all that I changed was the drugs had got

better. Did you take drugs to enhance your cycling perforlance?

Yes. In all of your Tour de France victories, did you take banned

substances? Yes. After this was unheard of, it hit the sport hard.

When you see Lance Armstrong who was an inspiration to many people fall

to such a degree, what we h`ve to do now is say, "what can we le`rn

from? Are we better than anti`doping? We have to look for the

future. ". We have new riders coming through. Nobody has two tell Chris

Froome what he is doing right. They are adamant now that the sport has

learned his lesson. It will be amazing to know that 365 daxs a

year, the authorities know where we are sleeping and where they say we

are. We will get penalised for it. Cycling is cleaner now than it has

ever been but it will take longer for the doubts to disappear. It is

the only way we will only ever get to say we will never be fooled

again. Some people, it has to be s`id,

paint the town red, but there's a group in North Yorkshire who

every now and again spend The horse in question is

of course the White one at Kilburn Think the average two litre tin

of household paint, It's supposed to be known as the

Kilburn White Horse so todax, in glorious sunshine, volunteers had

the difficult task of correcting this by giving the well`known North

Yorkshire landmark a lick of paint. We do get a lot of observathons

people saying it's gone grex. This is what we try

and do to keep it white. As you can see, this is no dasy job,

but ropes and harnesses do help And with over 1.5 acres to cover,

the team expect to be busy `ll You can see just how big

the task is going to be. It can to take a couple of days

and 1,000 litres of masonry paint. I've been given my chance to make

a mark. We've been putting chippings

on it since the 60s, but now we ve got too many chippings on

so we are having to go back to doing At 72 years old, John is now

a dab hand at equestrian makeovers. But to truly appreciate his

handiwork, we've invited hil to fly Thankfully, John's handiwork below

is better than his camerawork. And many tourists are impressed

by what they can see. We especially came down to

take some photos of it todax. We've seen it as we were gohng

past on the train, but have I think it could do with a bit more,

couldn't it? It's been five years since the

horse was last given a paint job. I love seeing that from a train You

know you are nearly home whdn you see the white horse. Now for the

weather. Over the next few days, there will

be more cloud around and it will be a shade cooler. The Tyne Valley was

one of the spots that did c`tch a shower this afternoon. Most places

have stayed dry. If you are underneath those shower clotds,

there are one or two downpotrs. They will Peter out as we had through the

evening. The cloud starts to thicken up again and eastern areas lay see

one or two spots of rain. Temperatures will stay in double

figures through the night. Elsewhere, there will be a few

breaks in the cloud. Tomorrow morning, that thicker cloud and

patchy rain sinks southwards. There will be a few spots of rain and is

some showery outbreaks. Things generally dry up as we had through

the afternoon. There will bd some sunny spells for the second`half of

the day. It is cooler and wd have that north`easterly breeze. Further

west and Keswick should reach 2 Celsius. That is the way it is

looking for tomorrow. That weather front introduces that cooler air and

it is mostly dry for the next couple of days. This lake `` this low

pressure stays out of the Wdst but it does push in and it looks as if

it will sink to the south of us It leaves us a fair amount of dry

weather. There will be more cloud than we are used to and even when

the sun does come out, tempdratures will make it into the high teens

rather than the low 20s. It is a similar picture for Thursdax and

Friday. Remember to keep yotr weather pictures coming in. Thanks

to you for watching. We will see you tomorrow. Goodbye.