20/12/2016 Look North (Yorkshire)

We hear how one family's loss has sparked a campaign to get more men

I didn't want to speak out to anyone.

And it got to a point where I were going to dark places,

and it wasn't places where I wanted to be.

Also tonight: Campaigners lose their legal battle to prevent

Is York prepared for the floods of the future?

They've had a year to put things right.

And how a present from Santa inspired one little girl to help

And it's been a quiet day with most of seeing some decent sunny

But we have got some unsettled and potentially disruptive weather in

the run-up to Christmas. I will be back later with more.

First tonight, the growing problem of men in Yorkshire

430 men killed themselves in Yorkshire last year.

That's an increase of almost 17% on the previous year.

Yorkshire has the highest rate of male suicides in England.

And suicide is the largest single cause of death of men

Halifax Rugby League player Luke Ambler has set himself the goal

of halving the suicide rate in five years after his brother-in-law

He started Andy's Man Club, named after his

There are now five of them across the north of England.

Andy's mum Elaine starts this report from Tanya Arnold.

I was upstairs and there was a knock on the door and I just thought

it was a delivery man, and saw this yellow jacket,

so I went to the door and it was a policeman.

And as soon as I saw him, I knew, I knew.

And he went, yes, I'm sorry, there has been a death.

I know he was having problems seeing his little girl,

but we would have solved that, we would have resolved it.

He was talking to his sister about it in a jovial manner,

so she knew he was having those problems, but we never knew how much

it was actually getting to him, no idea whatsoever.

It was in April that Andy Roberts took his life

in this wood in Halifax, and it is on that date his

brother-in-law, Luke Ambler, decided he had to try

I just realised that that point that nothing we could do

would bring the back, and all the little things that day,

having to bring people and tell people, I just remember

the destruction and the complete devastation.

Luke started with the campaign It's OK To Talk, and the first

Andy's Man Club opened in Halifax five months ago.

These men agreed to talk to us about why they went.

I had broken up with my ex-girlfriend, who's

I wasn't seeing him every day anymore.

My mum passed away in April this year, unexpectedly.

I spoke to her at five o'clock one night, by seven o'clock

I didn't have anywhere to live for about eight months.

It came to about February this year, I got my own place, and just

as I was settling in, a few of my friends died.

There was about three of them in the space of a couple of months.

And it really, really took its toll on me.

I thought I could fight it alone I didn't want

It got to a point where I was going to dark places,

and they weren't places where I wanted to be.

I'm not always going to be feeling like that.

Everyone's story is different, but there are common themes.

I'm meant to be this role model to my children,

and we try and bottle everything up, because we don't want to pass

After just a few weeks, the benefits are clear.

It's had a really positive effect on my life.

I've went back to work within a couple of weeks

Going through that door knowing there's 20, 30 other men that

are going through similar things to what I'm going through

and emotions I'm feeling, and know that there's always someone

Everybody has problems, and you can't bottle them up.

You need to get it off your chest, otherwise you'll just explode.

We've had knocking on 200 men now across this groups.

So that could potentially be 200 brothers, dads,

uncles, sons, cousins, best friends that are still here

Now let's talk to Bob Howe from the Samaritans.

Now let's talk to Bob Howe from the Samaritans.

So refreshing to hear men talk, something they don't do enough.

Indeed, we are notoriously bad at it. Women are usually better at this

sort of thing. Do you think that is what Andy's Man Club has struck a

chord with? There are calls all over the world to open more centres, is

it really as simple as getting men to talk? It really is, we find that

with callers to the Samaritans, if we can get them to start to talk,

the floodgates can open and they can find that they are unleashing

emotions they almost didn't know they had, and it becomes easier. Is

this the first time, the build-up to everybody enjoying themselves and

then maybe the Lyell afterwards? Christmas can be a very false time

for people, they have to put a false face on the situation, and sadly New

Year often dawns on us as a very bleak time, particularly with credit

card bills kicking in. Is very particular man that is most at risk

of taking their own life? Young men we have the biggest problem with,

and the pressures on them over the years have been accentuated. There

is this feel that we have to provide, we have to be the person

that provides for the family, and perhaps if they have had problems,

just maybe from a bereavement, it may be financial, it may be

relationship, the pressures feel great on them, and the fact that

they don't open up on top, it build-up inside. As a society, do we

shy away from this taboo subject? ES, and people can get to where they

feel there is no other option than to take their own life, it is still

the biggest taboo there is. But we are getting better at talking, we

have a lot of male role models coming out talking about how they

have suffered with mental health problems. We have been very pleased

to see over the last two or three years some big names in sport, some

sportsmen coming out and saying, I suffered depression, I have had

mental health problems, I have gone through trauma and I have come out

and said, we need to talk and start talking more, and they are good role

models for the younger men. And those who do need support, what

would your advice be to them? From our perspective, pick up the phone

and talk to us. It has been said to three times on the trip tonight, and

we run a campaign every July, it is OK to talk, and it may be difficult,

it is very difficult the first time to pick up the phone and talk to

Samaritans, but once you have done that, it is easy, because you will

have someone at the end of the phone who is going to give you time and

space, it is anonymous and confidential, there is no rush. Bob,

thank you. Thank you. Next tonight: Campaigners from North Yorkshire

have lost a legal challenge against one of the first planning

applications to carry out The High Court has

dismissed an application for a judicial review of a decision

to allow the company, Third Energy, to frack for shale gas

at a site at Kirby Misperton. The county council welcomed

the decision but campaigners said Anti-fracking campaigners from

Kirby Misperton took their fight Today's news that their challenge

to the planning approval had failed was not the festive message they had

been hoping for. Obviously it has been quite

a long battle for us, and a lot of detailed research has

gone into what we think were very good grounds for bringing

this judicial review. This is the site at the centre

of the concerns, nestled in fields not far from the village of Kirby

Misperton. It's here that Third Energy wants

to extract shale gas. To get the gas out of the shale

rock that's underground, water and chemicals are pumped down,

and the gas pumped out. People living near here are worried

about the environmental impact and the long-term effects

on their health. Third Energy, the company behind

the plans, insists it's a safe and regulated process

which will bring benefits locally. We already employ around 25 people

locally, and the likelihood is in the future if the operations

are expanded there will be more jobs, there will be

more apprentice schemes. So there will be significant

benefit to the community. North Yorkshire County Council,

who granted planning permission for fracking,

welcomed the decision of the judicial review,

and said they had a responsibility to apply national and local policies

and had followed a statutory process which the High Court found

was followed correctly. Even though today's legal

challenge failed, campaigners We are not going to be changing our

mind that this is a great idea. So the bottom line is,

we are opposed to further We are looking to the future,

which unfortunately we don't While campaigners plan

their next moves, preparation Abi Jaiyeola, BBC Look

North, Kirby Misperton. Still on the way before seven:

The show's on the road. We'll meet the Yorkshire woman

touring Europe with a mobile cinema West Yorkshire Police say

there are plans in place to protect public events over Christmas,

in the wake of last night's 12 people were killed when a lorry

ploughed into a crowd The force says it's considered

a range of threats, They also say they recognise the

current terror threat is 'severe'. A strike by bagagge handlers

at Leeds Bradford and Doncaster Workers had been due

to walkout in the run up to Christmas as part

of a long-running dispute over pay. Today it was announced the Unite

union announced action South Yorkshire police

have arrested two men after a body was found

in Lawton On Le Morthen The body of a 47-year-old man

was discovered at a house in Kingswood Avenue

on Sunday afternoon. His identity hasn't yet

been released but his The two men who have been arrested

are in their twenties. Two controversial planning

applications for greenbelt in Leeds, which would have helped pay

for the redevelopment of Headingley stadium,

have been withdrawn. Leeds Rhinos had wanted to sell this

land at Tetley Fields and a site in Tingley in order

to fund work on the south stand, but the plans were met with fierce

opposition from campaigners. Today the Rhinos and Yorkshire

County Cricket Club say the applications have been dropped

but they're still hopeful a solution to their funding

problem can be found. Now we turn to the second

of our special reports looking at the legacy

of the Boxing Day floods. This time, we're in York which saw

six hundred properties flooded. The damage was so severe

because the system to manage York's two rivers -

the Ouse and the Fosse - went wrong. This is the beast that should have

protected York, the Fosse Barrier. It's situated where York's two

rivers meet, the mighty Ouse over there and this

smaller river, the Foss. Now, when it rains, the Ouse

fills up, and it starts to flow up this channel,

and that's where It's like an enormous garage

door that swings down and blocks this channel,

and prevents that Ouse water from flowing up

and flooding houses upstream. What do we do with all this water

that still coming down? They are housed in this building

here, the control building, and they take that water

from the Foss and they pump it over the wall and into the Ouse

where it flows downstream. Now, on Boxing Day, all that

happened as it should. The water found a weakness

in the foundations of the control building, and it started to come up

through the floor. The engineers inside realised

they had a problem. It was going to take

out their control panel, and with it the electricity supply

not only to the pumps Stand and watch the pumps fail

and watch all the Foss water flood the houses upstream,

or lift the barrier and let the Ouse Which was going to be

the lesser of the two evils? In the end, they raised the barrier,

and that decision has been And what could be done to prevent it

all happening again? One year on, that's

what I've been finding out. The pictures show

the awful consequences Home after home wrecked,

businesses and lives disrupted, No one wants to see this again,

so the beleaguered barrier Eight new pumps

arrived in September. They can shift nearly double

the water of the old ones. The pumping station now

works to a lot higher capacity than what it did,

and knowing that it can handle the sort of floods

that we had last year, that should give people a great

sense of relief coming Certainly within five years,

when we have finished the works in York, I would have thought York

is probably one of the best Emergency power generators have also

been installed and raised up out of harm's way,

and York has been given ?45 million by the Government

to make further defences. It's reassuring news

for the residents of Huntingdon Huntingdon Road, who are just

about returning to normal. Back in March, Tony was making

new skirting boards But he's not really

sitting comfortably. What he has been

through leaves a mark. It's going to be a very quiet

Christmas, because the forecast for the weather is reasonable,

and they have got the new pumps, so we should be all right this

Christmas, but it's the Christmas after that and the Christmas

after that until the flood defences for the whole of York

and the River Ouse have been implemented, then

we are all on borrowed time. An examination of how the city coped

highlighted its vulnerability to climate change, but it also noted

the city's resilience. Its precious heritage has survived

for centuries, and continues The undercroft of the Merchant

Adventurers' Hall was inundated It is now dry, but it is damaged,

and needs restoration. We had dryers operating

in the undercroft from mid-January, as soon as the drying company

could get here, until We have now decided that the walls

are sufficiently dry, and the next step is to repaint

the walls in the undercroft. Where we are standing now,

the 17th-century pews around us have been damaged by the floodwaters,

and so we have a programme of restoration on those

ongoing at the moment, I'm hoping by the summer of 2017

that everything will be behind us, and the only evidence

will be the photographs. In the meantime, the venue is open

for weddings and events. The floods, for now, consigned

to the hall's very long history. An independent report

on York's floods is due to be published soon,

so maybe that, too, will provide And tomorrow we will be looking at

how Todmorden and with Freud are coping when you run from the floods.

Seeing children in refugee camps abroad can make many of us feel

But our next guest has taken action to bring some peace and escapism

Shireen Farkhoy from Leeds, together with her friend

William Johnson from Huddersfield, have bought a mobile cinema

which they've taken to Europe to play films for refugee families

Since then they've brought a few hours of entertainment

to more than five hundred refugees in Greece.

Will and I used to live together, and we spent a lot of time having

cups of tea and talking about the world and feeling overwhelmed by it

all, and we wanted to do something positive. He is an artist and I am

an actress, so we thought we would do something together. Look at them,

they are just transfixed by it. It is the magic of that suddenly just

going from being chaotic and running around and then being suddenly

gormless, that is the effect we wanted to transport them. And you

are giving them some real joy in their life, because it is tough. You

think that Greece is a warm country, but in the winter, it is cold. And a

lot of the times, the tents are brought into the warehouses, but

there is no heating, they are not sleeping, they are crying all day,

and the feedback we get is that the parents say thank you because you

have given us a break. I have two young children the same age as some

of those we see there, and you take for granted city them in front of

the television and watching a cartoon is very normal, and we take

it for granted. It was a gift to go there and do that and see their

faces, which is why we want to carry on doing it for as long as we

possibly can. And you are moving around? We are, we move from camp to

camp, so we are in a sense of the moment and we want to do the islands

next, which is why we want to raise more money. What kind of films are

you talking about? Which do they like? We love the classic cartoons,

they love Bollywood, we have some Egyptian and Urdu. It is a real mix

of media, but a lot of farce, they like that. People want to do

something to help at Christmas. What can people do? We have a go fund me

page called moving pictures, and people can contribute, so the more

money we get, the more camps we can go to. Any more project in the

pipeline? Justice at the moment, this is taking up all our time. Have

a good time with it. Now to some sport.

The future of Bradford Bulls still hangs in the balance

after talks this afternoon didn't produce an agreement.

has been speaking to the one remaining potential buyer and those

Talks are focusing on a possible sale of the leasehold

of Odsal Stadium, which is owned by the RFL.

Huddersfield Town manager David Wagner has rejected an offer

to take over at German club Wolfsburg.

Wagner joined the Terriers in November last year

and they're now fourth in the Championship table.

In a statement, he says there's been interest from a few German clubs

Wolfsburg reached the Champions League quarter-finals last season

but are struggling in 15th place in the Bundesliga.

Once Upon a Time there were two little girls from York who collected

over a hundred teddy bears for sick children in hospital.

For the past four Christmases, 9-year-old twins Juliet

and Ella have asked their school friends to donate a bear

to the children's ward at Leeds General Infirmary.

They came up with the idea after Juliet was diagnosed

with a brain tumour on Christmas Eve, aged three.

She woke up in hospital on Christmas morning to find a cuddly new friend

Well, you don't have to look far to find a bear in Ella

Big ones, small ones, girl ones, boy ones.

They're even hanging off the Christmas tree.

And they've all been donated by schoolfriends and family

To help the children in Leeds hospital and to make them feel happy

when they are in hospital, and when they've had the same kind

Juliet was diagnosed with a brain tumour on Christmas Eve.

So we were in York Hospital overnight, Juliet and I.

And on Christmas morning, there was a bear outside

Juliet's room, this bear, and it made a huge difference

Juliet was only three years old at the time.

Now, six years later, and after a long and successful

recovery, Juliet and Ella wanted to give something

So every year they invite their friends at the Archbishop

of York Junior School to a "bring a bear" party.

But little did they know just how many bears would turn up.

We've got about 130 now, because my grandparents have got

some, and we are getting sent from all over, teddy bears.

And now the bears begin their own adventure,

ready to meet their new owners at Leeds General Infirmary.

It is very easy at Christmas to think, yes, it's Christmas,

But what about the child who comes in in January?

What about the child who comes in in July?

They've still got their social needs, emotional needs

And so having such a huge number of teddy bears like this just means

that we can give them to children all year round and actually

And with the bears safely delivered to their new home,

the girls can take pride in knowing they have made other children

Juliet and Ella, little angels. Well done. Let's move the weather. In

that report from Cathy about York, the gentleman was worried about the

weather, and we know that next weekend could be a bit dodgy. Is it

developing at all, this storm? A couple of things. A lot of people

are nervous at this time of year because there are often warnings

out, but this warning is for wind, not rain, with storm Barbara, it is

particularly because it is going to be high winds on Friday with so many

people travelling. A couple of pictures to show you, the first is

of the Bolton Abbey, moody skies above that there, and then the

second picture, some winter sunshine in Keighley. We all pretty much got

some sunshine through the course of today after that cloud broke up, and

there will be bought over the next few days, it does look rather

stormy. Keep your pictures coming in.

So, my graphics have crashed, so we are going to do it all three of us.

Tomorrow, a bit of a mixed bag of weather, some sunshine through the

morning and then through the middle slice of the day, some showery rain.

We start tomorrow with sunshine, there will be sunshine through the

morning, and after a little damp weather overnight tonight, we start

with some sunshine which will continue through the morning, and

then through the middle portion of the day, showers tracking down from

the north, so a little wet weather tomorrow, one or two heavy showers

around and brisk winds, then it comes down to the afternoon and we

have some pleasant weather to come. It will be a little milder than it

has been, temperatures getting up to eight or nine Celsius. Looking a

little further ahead from tomorrow onwards, Thursday looks very windy,

we have a strong gusty Westerly, and across the tops of the Pennines, the

Dales, it will be very blowy indeed, but a lot of sunshine around through

Thursday, and then it is Friday when we are looking at Storm Barbara. The

main part of the store will track across the North West of Scotland,

there is an amber warning there, and Yorkshire has a yellow warning, so

severe gales, meaning 60-70 mph gusts, which you can imagine could

cause some problems. So potentially some damaging gusts, potentially

some disruption to rail services, and that does slow things down if we

get severe weather, and potentially even to bring some power lines down

as well. Christmas weekend itself still looks windy, very windy still

on Sunday but hopefully by then, people will be where they need to

be, so it is definitely worth staying tuned to your local radio

station. A lot of information over the next few days. So from Thursday

onwards we need to be careful. Yes, and on Friday particularly, so my

advice would be to set off before then.

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