19/12/2016 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

earlier this evening. There will be more on that and any

Last week he was a star on the pitch when Sunderland took on Chelsea.

Last night he was a guest of honour at the BBC's

Sports Personality of the Year event.

Bradley Lowery is the County Durham boy with a rare form of cancer who's

received lorryloads of Christmas cards from wellwishers.

The five-year-old from Blackhall was diagnosed

Our first report is from Ian Reeve reports.

Bradley Lowery's story has seen an outpouring of affection.

The five-year-old with a rare cancer, a

guest at last week's Sunderland match and today more evidence of how

Tens of thousands of cards and parcels

passing through Hartlepool's sorting office.

A wave of warmth destined for Bradley.

Bradley has 200,000 and it has added to the

It has been really good and he has reached everybody's

We have had them from all over the world, from China,

On top of the cards, ?850,000 has been raised.

Its original aim was to send Bradley to America for treatment.

That may yet happen but the New Year will see

him start a new course of treatment here in the UK and if his tumour

shrinks, he could yet be America bound.

For now, it is a Christmas like any other for Bradley.

Born up on a compassion that transcends the

A message willing him to be in festive good health and beyond.

Thank you everybody for the cards and presents. Merry Christmas.

Olivia and Georgia have written countless songs together but Bradley

has inspired them to write an extra special tune for Christmas.

Christmas Eve, stands next to the fireplace. Somehow it just all came

together and it felt right. It was about Bradley and super heroes. He

inspires us. He's so brave. And the sisters will perform their song for

Bradley live at the Middleton Grange shopping Centre on Thursday between

12 and one. # because you are the definition of a superhero. When it

came into the charge we were so excited. The nation is behind badly.

We could get him to number one if everybody downloaded it.

Newcastle University says it will investigate the death

of a 20-year-old student who died after drinking too much alcohol.

Ed Farmer, who was in his first term at the university,

died in the Royal Victoria Infirmary on Wednesday.

Police say he arrived at the hospital in a life-threatening

condition after drinking an excessive amount of alcohol.

The University says it's saddened by the news and says once

the Coroner establishes the facts, it'll take any appropriate action.

Four people are being held by police investigating the murder

He's been named as 29-year-old Mark Shaw.

His body was discovered in a house in Grange Villa

near Chester-le-Street on Saturday night.

Four people in their late teens and early twenties were arrested

in connection with his murder, all of whom knew the victim.

Today's the last day of consultation on drastic changes to health

More than three thousand people have had their say on controversial

proposals which could see a downgrading of services

at the West Cumberland Hospital, and changes to the running

It's been a year of firey meetings, public protests and fear

about the future of health care in Cumbria.

This has to be everybody's number one priority in fighting those

changes because it is going to cost lives.

This document is at the centre of the debate.

With a focus on making services safer, most of the preferred options

would see a downgrading of services at the West Cumberland hospital.

Services like childrens and maternity, meaning some mums

could have to travel 40 plus miles in labour.

with the loss of inpatient beds suggested in Alston,

We are in dire circumstances and our lives matter

as much as anybody in

Penrith or Carlisle or Manchester or London.

Those in charge say they've listened to the views expressed

they insist decisions haven't been made and the changes discussed

Instead we're told this is about making sure services

The public consultation hasn't been a referendum,

There are some underlying problems with the

The inability to recruit specialist staff.

That problem is not going to go away.

It is a national problem affecting lots of

parts of the country and we have to look

services as well as the immediate opinion of the public.

online with postal submissions being accepted until Friday.

The decisions will be announced in March next year.

The bells at York Minster will remain silent this Christmas,

despite last ditch attempts by the church authorities to recruit

The thirty bell ringers at the Minster were sacked

in October and told they had to re-apply for their jobs -

over concerns about safeguarding issues.

The bells have been heard since 1361.

In October, the Dean stopped its 30 volunteer workers from

working over concerns about safeguarding and vetting procedures.

The BBC understands bell-ringers from elsewhere

were asked to stand in, and that finding trained

It depends on the willingness of other

ringers to come forward when they have their

own responsibilities to

fulfil at their own churches and how the Minster approaches it and

whether they are willing to get some of their own ringers back in as part

One experienced bell-ringer told look

North it is likely anybody would take up what he described as a

They are not commenting about the latest developments in

they would be prepared to come in and ring the bells if the Minster

Unless there is a quick resolution to the dispute, it seems the

Minster's famous appeal will not be heard over the city for the first

That's it from me, and it's time for our Christmas Week weather

Less than a week to go until the big day and the question on everyone's

lips is whether we have a white Christmas or not.

We'll get to that, but this week is looking unsettled.

It's going to be a breezy weaker times.

We are going to see some spells of rain.

Overnight tonight it is cloudy and dull.

We start tomorrow morning on a fairly chilly note with no

That cloud is going to break up and we see Sunny spells,

A strong southerly winds picking up so it will turn

As we go through Tuesday and into Wednesday we start seeing

the cloud thickening from the West ahead of a weather front

which is going to bring smart bricks of rain overnight.

By the time we get to Wednesday that should have cleared away.

Temperatures dropping down to around four or 5 degrees.

So for Wednesday this is how things are looking.

You can see those isobars are still squeezed together.

So Wednesday look something like this, we start off on a breezy

note, but we have some bright sunny spells.

Between those sunny spells we are going to see a fair

Some of the showers could be on the side with wintry

Further into the week, Wednesday and Thursday,

once we've got those fronts out of the way we see a ridge of high

Thursday looks dry and settled before the next area of low

Some showery rain, but things brighten up later on in the day.

Winds will be lighter and temperatures around

Friday, things look windier and more unsettled.

Lots of cloud to start with, rain is going to be

There will be plenty of rain and it is going to be very windy.

Stay tuned for the forecast over the next few days.

The rest of the weekend, some rain around, windy, but with dry and

bright spells. Heavy weather is brewing, it will

not reach us just yet. It will take a good few days before the stormy

weather reaches us. At the moment, it's just potential, nothing is

certain, but it will be different to what we've had over