10/04/2012 Midlands Today


10/04/2012

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Hello, welcome to Midlands Today with Mary Rhodes and Nick Owen. The

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headlines tonight: As Severn Trent consider selling water elsewhere,

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can rural communities survive the drought this summer? Our neighbours

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have been struggling and most of them are not farmers. They are

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lugging it around in jerry cans. Fighting for survival, RAF Cosford

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looking to the business community to save its training base. As the

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size of the services reduce under contract out, the industry is

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finding it harder to find trained people.

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A 12-year-old girl who was attacked by a dog says the police were wrong

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to shoot it dead. And what a comeback, the hatrick

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hero who gave Kidderminster victory, Good evening. Welcome to Tuesday's

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Midlands Today from the BBC. Tonight: Severn Trent is in talks

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with Anglian Water to help to supply around 100,000 homes in some

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of the worst affected areas in England. It would be the first time

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such a trade has happened. But in Shropshire, some farms and

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households which aren't connected to the mains have been struggling

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to get enough water out of the ground for months. They are already

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using emergency supplies. So is now really the time for Severn Trent to

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be selling off the region's supplies?

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In a few moments, we'll be speaking to a climate change expert, but

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first Giles Latcham reports on the problems facing part of Shropshire.

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In these hills, New Life Is born. Like all life though its dependent

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on water and for the Griffiths's among others, after a couple of dry

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winters and an unusually dry summer that's a big problem. It is not

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just the water that they drink, it is the water that falls out of the

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sky and makes the grass grow that the sheep eat. A spring in the

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forest which serves the farm keeps drying up and can no longer be

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relied on, instead they fill up bowsers wherever they can. We take

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for bowsers to my father, who is going to see as more than he wants

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to the summer! We also have friends in the village to have offered.

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Pipes leading from the guttering up their feed directly into this 1400

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lead to a barrister, ready to go out to the fields to supply the

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sheep. When your water supply is under threat, it is time to get M

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genius. The first borehole they attempted was inside the gate here.

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This retired policeman spent �7,000 sinking boreholes searching for

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water. When the barns next door were converted to homes his supply

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from a nearby spring dried up. So he had to find a fresh one and

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install a storage tank to guarantee the flow, but in providence he

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trusts. Probably within a couple of years' time, we will get more water

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than we'd probably do at the moment, which will then filter water tables.

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That is the thing we really need. Between then and now though, there

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could be tough times ahead. We are looking at providing central

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locations where we can provide it had, so that one of their supplies

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run out, they can fill up. It will be community operated. The of

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working with the parish council, the fire service, to find the best

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locations in the areas at risk. Here, few if any take what comes

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out of their taps for granted. Well, joining us now is Dr Ken

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Addison, a climate change expert, who lives in Shropshire. Thanks for

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joining us, Dr Addison. We've had a load of rain over the weekend, and

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indeed today, but it doesn't alter the fact we have a serious

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situation on our hands, does it? you're quite right. The fact we've

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had a lot of intense Rayner... You can see the River Severn is flowing

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fast behind me. A lot of this water is just heading off down to the

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ocean. The other ironic thing right now, and this -- and this is when

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the crops and gardens are coming into their Rome, the plants will

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take a great deal at. So is this the shape of things to come?

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Currently, this winter, in the Midlands, we are somewhere between

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60 % to 80 % of normal rainfall. We are down a bit. In East Anglia,

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where the problems lie, they are down up to 60 % of the normal

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winter rainfall. This is due to get worse. Everyone is aware about a

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great risk of climate change. It's a common topic these days. If we

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look at just the last three or four weeks, we've had wonderful weather,

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lots of warm sunshine. That is because an anticyclone had been

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blocking out the Atlantic rainfall coming into Britain. That is likely

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to be an increasingly recurring feature in the future. By about

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2030, this summer rainfall in Shropshire could be between 5% and

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15 % less than now. If the International Committee does little

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about climate change, we are likely to be down between 40 % and 60 % by

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the middle part of this century. It will get worse. Should people,

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particularly in remote parts, be taking further steps to conserve

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water in the future? From what we've had already this evening, I

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think on the demand side, they are doing very well. They are very much

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aware of the need to conserve. It is the supply side that is the

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problem. As you'll earlier view was pointed out, as the water table

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drops, in the mid- to long-term future, that is likely to be

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increasingly a problem. About a third of the water that Severn

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Trent take out of the catchment is from underground water supplies.

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will have to leave it there. Thank you very much.

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We're certainly getting some April showers, but will it be enough to

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help with our water worries? Shefali has the answer.

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Well, the problem with showers is that not everyone gets them,

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certainly not the heavier ones. But at least we're not talking of rain

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that's mainly nuisance value over the next couple of weeks. There'll

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be something more substantial than that and after the fifth driest

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March this year in just over a century, we could do with it. I

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will have more later. The BBC's learned that RAF Cosford could sell

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its training expertise to the business community if the

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Government moves its defence operations. There are more than

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1,000 trainees at the Shropshire base and a similar number of

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civilian staff. RAF Cosford was built during the

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Second World War in response to an urgent need to train people for the

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front line. Today, it has an uncertain future. Redundancies are

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likely under MoD plans to train the military in Wiltshire and no one

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has been able to give a firm commitment that it'll continue to

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Once a first-class fighter jet, the Jaguar is now a unique training

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plane for 1,000 engineers at RAF Cosford. But amid waves of MoD cuts

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and re-oganisations, this historic base could lose most, if not all of

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it's aircraft training operations. It must change to survive. We're

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already training people overseas, we already have trained some

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elements of British industry, and as the size of the services reduce

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and we contract out more of our services to other people, industry

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are finding it harder to find trained people, and its very

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expensive to train people, it makes sense to look at options as to how

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we can do that in a smarter way, we're in negotiations and its too

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early to say what will come from that work. A focus on business

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comes as it's emerged that �150 million of taxpayers money was

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spent on MoD plans to transfer operations to St Athan in South

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Wales. The project was scrapped two years ago because of cost. It is a

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large sum of money. Defence has an obligation to make sure it is

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providing best value for money to the taxpayers. In the latest plan,

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RAF Cosford could lose its role as a Defence Training Centre because

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the MoD wants to create a new service at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire.

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1,100 trainees are continuing to be prepared for service here but for

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how long? Luke Dougan's 21. He's hoping for an RAF career after

:08:54.:09:04.
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twice being made redundant on civvy street. I feel quite positive my

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job will be kept, purely because in training, they're not going to put

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a lot of money into me and then just cut me off. I feel that I'll

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do well. Defence is shrinking and therefore the number of trainees

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coming through here shrinks and it is inevitable that the size of the

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staff will also shrink and we're continuing to look at ways of being

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more efficient. To say the base supports the village of Albrighton

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is an understatement. It pumps �70 million a year into the local

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economy. The uncertainty is causing some problems. If Cosford were too

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close that's effectively going to cut the population by half.

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Shropshire Council supports efforts to bring new investment into the

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base. Given the technical expertise there is at Cosford, without a

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shadow of a doubt, I think there's a great opportunity for Cosford to

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have a large income generation scheme by selling its expertise to

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private companies. The Government's delayed a decision on whether

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Cosford could house soldiers returning from Germany until at

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least 2020. If it were to happen, the RAF would move out. Senior

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officers say they can't give a complete assurance that there'll be

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defence training here in five years time.

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And BBC Radio Shropshire has a week of special reports from RAF Cosford.

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Tomorrow morning, they'll be focusing on what difference the

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base has made to the nearby village of Albrighton and what it could

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mean if it closed. That's from 7 am on the breakfast show.

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A man's been arrested on suspicion of murder following the discovery

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of a woman's body at a house in the Black Country. Police visited an

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address in Tipton last night, where a young woman was found dead inside

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the flat. She's yet to be identified. The 27-year-old man was

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detained by police at a railway station in Bristol this morning and

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is being brought back to the West Midlands.

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A woman accused of murdering a 92- year-old war veteran has been

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remanded in custody. William Davis was found with severe head injuries

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at his house in Willenhall. 35- year-old Charlotte Frazier-Doody,

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who's a neighbour, didn't appear in person at the preliminary hearing

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at Wolverhampton Crown Court this morning. She has yet to enter a

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plea and was remanded in custody until June 29th.

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A girl who was attacked by a dog in Gloucestershire has said it shouldn

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't have been shot dead by the police.

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The 12-year-old was bitten yesterday afternoon, along with a

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man. Police arrested a man after the dog had been killed.

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Despenser Road in Tewkesbury, the scene at the start of a series of

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events. Police had been called after reports that the dog, a

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staffordshire bull terrier, had bitten two people. One of the them

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was Sydney Ryan. She knows the dog owners and had gone to see if

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everything was OK after seeing the dog running around outside. She

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says she wasn't too badly injured and is angry the dog was eventually

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shot dead by the police. If they should have either grabbed the dock

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and can't do it for trotted with something that put it to sleep for

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an hour, and then calmed it down. They said they would have to shoot

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it but the dog wasn't exactly going to come down if you have tasted it

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twice. -- tasered. Police say their efforts to calm the dog with the

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taser gun didn't work and that it had tried to attack the officers as

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well. Eventually they tracked it several streets away and felt they

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had no option but to shoot it. They say, as a last resort. The report

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be had were that it was being aggressive. It had been -- it had

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injured two people, one of them quite badly. Police officers were

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not able to calm it down because it ran off into one area with children

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playing. They thought it was appropriate and necessary to make

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sure there was no further harm. Unfortunately, they took the action

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they did do which was to shoot the dog. Police are still questioning a

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38-year-old man from Gloucester on suspicion of having a dog

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dangerously out of control in a public place and for criminal

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damage after windows were smashed at the Black Bear pub in the centre

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of town. Lambing is a stressful time for any

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farmer but this year they have the added complication of a new disease,

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the Schmallenberg virus. The disease can affect both cattle and

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sheep. It only causes mild symptoms in

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adult animals but can have a disastrous effect on unborn young.

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It's an effect that only becomes apparent months later in the

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lambing season. Our Environment Correspondent joins us now from a

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farm in Gloucestershire. David, what is the situation with the

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virus in our region? At the moment, there are two

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confirmed cases in Warwickshire. Otherwise, we seem to have escaped

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unscathed. This is a disease that only becomes apparent as the she'd

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start to give birth to the Lambs. With meat is Jake, the farmer here.

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No sign of the disease on your farm but you know farmers of -- to have

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had it. Yes, I do. There have been nine or 10 cases and it is

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distressing, not just for the chic but for the farmers as well. It

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should be a time of joy and turning lambs out. To have these deformed

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lambs that you have to try and help get out is distressing all round.

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There is also a financial loss of having lambs you cannot sell.

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is a disease that comes with infected insect from Europe. It is

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taking hold in Europe. potential is there, certainly with

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climate change, you see it's now in Germany, Belgium and France. It has

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been spreading from the south-east of the country, towards our

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direction. As we going to this coming year, the period of

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infection will not be for us until November or December. But I think

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with the climate change, more midges around and more infection

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from the livestock this year, the risk is quite significant. It is

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not a disease people have to worry about. Absolutely not. And no harm

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in being around sheep and cattle. Certainly no problem in eating lamb.

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Like many farms at this time, there is an open day here and if you want

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to come down and see something happening, check out our Facebook

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page. Good to have you with us this

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evening. Still to come here on Midlands Today: they're murderously

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difficult to ride but here's a unicycle that does the balancing

:15:52.:16:00.

for you. All part of the Gadget Villagers in Herefordshire are

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celebrating after saving their village pub from closure. Dozens of

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people have joined in the clean up of The Crown Inn in Dilwyn after

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the parish council was handed the keys.

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They borrowed the money to buy the site fearing it would be taken over

:16:14.:16:21.

by developers. Armed with brushes, Hoovers,

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Saul's... -- saws and lots of elbow grease. The people of Dilwyn in

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Herefordshire set about reclaiming the Crown Inn, their village pub.

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It has been a brilliant pub in the past and will be again. It will be

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nice to be able to walk back here. When the last tenant left recently

:16:41.:16:44.

there were concerns the site would be sold to developers so the parish

:16:44.:16:47.

council stepped in. They borrowed �250,000 from the public works loan

:16:47.:16:52.

board to buy the pub. We know people use this power band so, we

:16:52.:16:57.

know it will make a good profit. If we get the right tenant, they will

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do well and the community will do well hopefully. The villagers have

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big ambitions for this place. Once the pub is up and running they want

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to use this building as a shop and have a restaurant at the back. It's

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not the first time people here have pulled together. Last year they

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saved the village school from closure. How has this place

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succeeded? Sheer determination, bloody-mindedness. We are not

:17:26.:17:35.

prepared to accept and we feel so strongly that the rural community

:17:35.:17:39.

around the country are under threat. We are not prepared to take it.

:17:39.:17:42.

is wonderful that people are pulling together and we will make

:17:42.:17:47.

this a wonderful pub. We all pull together, that is not a community

:17:47.:17:57.
:17:57.:17:58.

is for. -- what a community is for. They're inviting applicants for the

:17:58.:18:01.

tenancy and are planning to open the pub for the village show in May.

:18:01.:18:05.

Dan's here with the sport, with the story of one of the best football

:18:05.:18:07.

comebacks in recent memory. Picture the scene. Your team is

:18:07.:18:10.

trailing 2-0 in a game they must win to keep alive their play-off

:18:11.:18:14.

dream. There's only four minutes left, so you get away early to beat

:18:14.:18:17.

the traffic. Then you turn on the car radio to find you've actually

:18:17.:18:20.

won 3-2. And your super-sub scored a hat-trick. That's what happened

:18:20.:18:28.

at Kidderminster Harriers yesterday. Lunchtime at the Malt Shovel in

:18:28.:18:33.

Great Barr. Time for a quick drink with Nick Wright, his brother Billy

:18:33.:18:38.

and a very special matchball. The same ball that produced a late late

:18:38.:18:48.

hatrick for the Harriers supersub. The unreal, quality. You are the

:18:48.:18:53.

best. With 20 minutes left, Kidderminster were trailing 2-2.

:18:53.:18:57.

And that's when Nick got the nod from the boss to stop warming the

:18:57.:19:02.

bench, and start worrying the Newport defence. He said to me, go

:19:02.:19:09.

and do something, anything. He said, do what you can do. With four

:19:09.:19:12.

minutes remaining, Nick rifled in a penalty to give a glimmer of hope

:19:12.:19:15.

at 2-1. In the first minute of stoppage time, he scored again to

:19:15.:19:18.

level the score at 2-2 and then seconds before the final whistle,

:19:18.:19:21.

Nick triggered pandemonium on the airwaves of BBC Hereford and

:19:21.:19:27.

Worcester. The key premise is it! It is there. Kidderminster

:19:27.:19:37.
:19:37.:19:38.

Harriers! They've won it! The hat trick! It is the stuff of dreams,

:19:39.:19:45.

isn't it? Dreams are made of those sort of things. It was a great day.

:19:45.:19:48.

Surely the Harriers boss Steve Burr will never make a more dramatic

:19:48.:19:51.

subsititution if he's still managing football teams. At the age

:19:51.:19:57.

of 92. They told me a hat-trick had made the national press but

:19:57.:20:03.

something is missing! Harriers now have three games left to cement

:20:03.:20:06.

their place in the play-offs, starting on Saturday when children

:20:06.:20:09.

under 16 get in free to witness another day of high drama against

:20:09.:20:12.

Kettering. And as for the missing piece in the jigsaw, look no

:20:12.:20:15.

further than Billy Wright's scrapbook, on the day his big

:20:15.:20:22.

brother Nick made hatrick history for Kidderminster Harriers.

:20:22.:20:25.

After the busy Easter programme, Aston Villa are still looking for

:20:25.:20:27.

their first home win since Bonfire Night, following yesterday's 1-1

:20:27.:20:31.

draw with Stoke City. Villa were leading at the break thanks to a

:20:31.:20:33.

super goal from their Austrian under-21 striker Andreas Weimann.

:20:33.:20:36.

But Stoke equalised in the second half through Robert Huth, leaving

:20:36.:20:43.

Villa on 35 points, and still not quite safe from relegation. Home

:20:43.:20:50.

game, three points, and that would be a huge plus for us and the last

:20:50.:20:56.

few games. We knew Stoke Wake that type of team to put them away. They

:20:56.:21:02.

are very difficult to stop. There were contrasting fortunes for our

:21:02.:21:05.

two Championship sides over the Easter weekend. Coventry City are

:21:05.:21:08.

now four points adrift of safety after losing 3-1 at relegation

:21:08.:21:10.

rivals Bristol City yesterday. But Birmingham City are on course for

:21:10.:21:20.
:21:20.:21:21.

the play-offs. They led 3-1 at half-time at West Ham yesterday.

:21:21.:21:24.

They were denied victory when West Ham earned a late penalty for

:21:24.:21:30.

handball against Chris Burke. And Ricardo Vaz Te scored to draw the

:21:30.:21:35.

game 3-3. But the Blues they remain upbeat after consolidating their

:21:35.:21:45.
:21:45.:21:50.

position in fourth place. Go to the BBC's Board website for more.

:21:50.:21:54.

-- BBC Sport website. A self balancing unicycle, new

:21:54.:21:57.

innovative bus stop adverts and hundreds of new ways to use your

:21:57.:22:04.

smart phone. It's all on display at this year's Gadget Show at the NEC.

:22:04.:22:07.

Advances in technology are making it easier and cheaper for everyone

:22:07.:22:10.

to own the latest gadgets and our Business Correspondent, the

:22:10.:22:12.

ultimate gadget anorak, has been sampling some of the products on

:22:12.:22:15.

show. As usual packed full of the latest

:22:15.:22:18.

hi-tech gadgets and gizmos including a new way of advertising

:22:18.:22:22.

at bus stops. It is giving you technology in the palm of your hand

:22:22.:22:26.

and you can choose different buttons at the top of your screen.

:22:26.:22:32.

If I go for through animation, there is a close-up of all of your

:22:32.:22:42.
:22:42.:22:45.

dogs jumping into the back of the car. Press this button and all of a

:22:45.:22:48.

sudden you get the smell of their product, in this case a baked

:22:48.:22:55.

potato. It adds fund to a normal.. They can be quite dreary first

:22:55.:23:04.

thing in the morning. Got a smart phone? Then you'll love the latest

:23:04.:23:08.

in so called Augmented Reality. They led to bring together the

:23:08.:23:12.

physical and virtual worlds. We are familiar with the internet. In 20

:23:12.:23:15.

years, it has changed the way we live and work. Now what we are

:23:15.:23:21.

looking at is the outer net. Fat content will be woven into the

:23:21.:23:25.

fabric of the real world. We will use our smart phones to see and

:23:25.:23:30.

interact with it. It is evidence that the mobile phone is changing

:23:30.:23:39.

our lives. They have accelerometers, gyroscopes, GPS, biosensors and

:23:39.:23:46.

with all of these sensors in a inexpensive price, it makes the

:23:46.:23:52.

software that goes on it... It makes it do so much more than just

:23:52.:23:55.

handle phone calls. But my favourite gagdet at this year's

:23:55.:23:57.

show has to be the self balancing unicycle. Costing nearly �2,000,

:23:57.:24:05.

it's expensive but great fun. How does it work? It is simple. You

:24:05.:24:09.

lean forward to go forward, lean back to go back. The gyroscope

:24:09.:24:14.

takes care of the balance and off you go. Easier to ride than a

:24:14.:24:17.

conventional unicyle but as you can see it too takes a bit of getting

:24:17.:24:25.

used to. I'm still anxious about a tin-

:24:25.:24:34.

opener! We've been storing up these showers

:24:34.:24:37.

for months and now April's here, they all come tumbling down. That's

:24:37.:24:40.

the overriding theme this week, sunshine and showers, and these

:24:40.:24:44.

showers are likely to be quite heavy on occasion. It should be a

:24:44.:24:47.

good week for looking out for those thunder clouds, they could be quite

:24:47.:24:55.

impressive. Low pressure's going to be dominating, the centre of which

:24:55.:24:59.

is over the North Sea, the showers are caught within those rings but

:24:59.:25:02.

it's the unstable air that's going to be setting off the thunder

:25:02.:25:12.
:25:12.:25:12.

lightening. But the template for the week is set by these first two

:25:12.:25:15.

days. So during the nights, the showers die out, the skies clear

:25:15.:25:18.

and in the coldest, sheltered spots we could see a touch of frost. But

:25:18.:25:27.

in towns and cities, values are a little higher at four Celsius. So a

:25:27.:25:31.

lovely sunny start to the day but it won't be long before we see the

:25:31.:25:33.

showers piling in from the north west, the deeper blue centres

:25:33.:25:37.

indicating where the heavy ones are going to be. They may last a while

:25:37.:25:41.

with the winds being lighter tomorrow. Temperatures are similar

:25:41.:25:49.

tomorrow but again, it'll feel colder in the winds. So that's the

:25:49.:25:52.

drill this week, sunshine and showers by day, drier, clearer and

:25:52.:25:58.

colder by night with a touch of frost. And very little change in

:25:58.:26:00.

maximum temperatures through the week until we get to Friday and

:26:00.:26:10.
:26:10.:26:17.

A look at tonight's main headlines: Britain can extradite the radical

:26:17.:26:20.

muslim cleric Abu Hamza to the United States to face terrorism

:26:20.:26:23.

charges. And as Severn Trent consider

:26:23.:26:26.

selling water to other regions, rural communities are increasingly

:26:26.:26:31.

concerned about the impact of the drought this summer.

:26:31.:26:35.

And just time to tell you before we go tonight, that BBC Radio

:26:35.:26:37.

Shropshire's talking tomorrow about how the county's getting ready for

:26:37.:26:40.

the Olympic Games this summer. But are the councils doing enough to

:26:40.:26:43.

cash in on the tourism opportunities?

:26:43.:26:46.

BBC Hereford and Worcester will be speaking to the Route Managing

:26:46.:26:48.

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