:00:00. > :00:00.News at Six, so it's goodbye from me, and on BBC One we now
:00:00. > :00:00.Hello and welcome to Midlands Today. The headlines tonight: Nursing
:00:07. > :00:16.shortage ` hospitals across the region recruiting hundreds of
:00:17. > :00:21.overseas staff to fill posts. The dependency levels of patients have
:00:22. > :00:24.gone up so much in recent times, and that has really caught us unawares.
:00:25. > :00:26.We'll be asking the Royal College of Nursing what this means for patient
:00:27. > :00:29.care. Also tonight: How shoplifting is
:00:30. > :00:34.pushing up the price of Christmas by ?43 million.
:00:35. > :00:42.The blight of abandoned homes. How it can devastate lives. They are not
:00:43. > :00:44.just empty, they are derelict, and a blight communities.
:00:45. > :00:47.Aerial grace, unbelievable athleticism. We follow the twists
:00:48. > :00:52.and turns of a sporting world champion from Gloucestershire.
:00:53. > :00:55.And a stunning photograph taken by one of our viewers, John from
:00:56. > :00:59.Worcestershire, of a storm brewing across the Malvern Hills. Could we
:01:00. > :01:09.be facing the same this weekend? Find out later.
:01:10. > :01:14.Good evening. Hospitals in the region are having to recruit
:01:15. > :01:19.hundreds of nurses from overseas because of a shortage of qualified,
:01:20. > :01:22.experienced staff. It comes as the Government imposes new conditions to
:01:23. > :01:27.ensure there is always a "safe" number of nurses on wards. There'll
:01:28. > :01:31.be up`to 100 overseas recruits in Shropshire, and 300 in the Black
:01:32. > :01:36.Country. Most will be paid a typical nursing salary of around ?21,000.
:01:37. > :01:41.One senior NHS executive says the foreign influx is likely to continue
:01:42. > :01:47.for several years at least. Ben Godfrey has this exclusive report.
:01:48. > :01:51.Spain isn't just popular with holiday`makers, you know! Hospital
:01:52. > :01:56.bosses are booking flights. There's hot competition for nurses. 75 could
:01:57. > :02:05.be heading for Dudley in the New Year ` and some have already arrived
:02:06. > :02:10.in Redditch. We actually managed to recruit 16, and the way in which the
:02:11. > :02:15.Spanish health care works means that nurses don't always get very long
:02:16. > :02:24.assignments in their own Spanish health care system, so they are
:02:25. > :02:28.looking for long`term roles. Has the patient being weighed today? Maria
:02:29. > :02:31.Tan came from further afield. She left the Philippines ten years ago
:02:32. > :02:38.for a nursing role in Wolverhampton. Today, she's managing a ward. Coming
:02:39. > :02:41.over to the United Kingdom and working for the NHS is one of the
:02:42. > :02:43.best decisions I have made in my life, both personally and
:02:44. > :02:47.professionally. Figures we've obtained from many of the region's
:02:48. > :02:50.hospitals suggest a new wave of foreign nurses is reaching the
:02:51. > :02:53.Midlands. New Cross hospitals recruiting locally but say it's not
:02:54. > :03:03.enough ` so they'll recruit 170 nurses from abroad. The dependency
:03:04. > :03:08.levels of patients have gone up so much in recent times, and that has
:03:09. > :03:13.really caught us unawares in terms of the need for more recruitment,
:03:14. > :03:16.and if we were to increase the commission of nurse training now, it
:03:17. > :03:19.would take four or five years for that to come through and we cannot
:03:20. > :03:24.wait that long. So what does this mean for home`grown talent? How are
:03:25. > :03:27.you feeling now? These students at the University of Wolverhampton are
:03:28. > :03:30.on three year degrees. The Royal College of Nursing says, across the
:03:31. > :03:39.UK, more than 3,000 student training places have been axed since 2009.
:03:40. > :03:44.There is lots more people out there, lots more students who want
:03:45. > :03:48.to get into the University but get disappointed they do not get picked,
:03:49. > :03:54.as there are only so many places. It is a shame that we cannot increase
:03:55. > :03:57.the places. We have had assurances from our local trust partners that
:03:58. > :04:01.there will be jobs available for all of our students when they complete
:04:02. > :04:03.their studies. Nursing care has arguably never been under more
:04:04. > :04:08.scrutiny following the Stafford Hospital scandal. Hospitals are to
:04:09. > :04:13.be made to publish monthly details of whether they have enough nurses
:04:14. > :04:16.on wards. So the new recruits are helping maintain safe staffing
:04:17. > :04:19.levels at least in the short term. It's a mixed picture. Some
:04:20. > :04:21.hospitals, like the George Eliot and University Hospital Coventry, told
:04:22. > :04:29.us they're not looking abroad because the pool of talent here is
:04:30. > :04:33.sufficient. It is obviously necessary now because of winter
:04:34. > :04:40.pressures, but it wasn't me `` doesn't worry me in the long run.
:04:41. > :04:45.Despite the difficult headlines, people are queueing up to be nurses.
:04:46. > :04:51.But they are facing competition from around the world.
:04:52. > :04:57.And I'm joined now by Paul Vaughn from the Royal College of Nursing.
:04:58. > :05:01.Good evening. Does it actually matter whether a nurses trained in
:05:02. > :05:07.Seville or Stourbridge ` as long as patients get good care? That is
:05:08. > :05:10.exactly what we would say. Right now what we need is the nurses on the
:05:11. > :05:16.wards in a community delivering the right care. What we need to reassure
:05:17. > :05:19.the public about is that nurses coming from European countries are
:05:20. > :05:23.trained to the right level. We have to make sure that when they come
:05:24. > :05:26.they are inducted properly into the hospital procedures or the community
:05:27. > :05:30.procedures, and that they have a good command of the English
:05:31. > :05:35.language. Why is there a shortage of locally trained nurses? We had an
:05:36. > :05:46.issue number of years ago where one the deans and myself raised, the
:05:47. > :05:49.decommissioned a number of the nursing places. We saw this
:05:50. > :05:54.happening across the country, not just in the West Midlands. We keep
:05:55. > :05:58.getting into this room and bust approach around planning workforce,
:05:59. > :06:05.and what we need to get better at is planning that workforce better.
:06:06. > :06:11.How'd you do that? Some of it will be about how we clicked the data
:06:12. > :06:14.better. With health and education in England now they are working hard to
:06:15. > :06:18.try to get good data, to try and manage that better and move forward.
:06:19. > :06:25.As the population gets older, they have more care needed, we need more
:06:26. > :06:29.people to be doing that care. With saving 20 billion in the NHS by
:06:30. > :06:38.2015, one of the things a lot of organisations that is frozen nursing
:06:39. > :06:41.posts. We had big gaps. Isn't part of the problem that it takes three
:06:42. > :06:45.years for a nurse to graduate because they go through a university
:06:46. > :06:50.programme, and an interesting part of the report that came after the
:06:51. > :06:54.problems at Stafford Hospital was for nurses to spend more time on the
:06:55. > :06:59.wards. Wouldn't that help, act to the shop floor and less time in the
:07:00. > :07:04.classroom? They already spend 50% of their time on the wards in their
:07:05. > :07:09.training. I don't think that is so much the issue. We did move to an
:07:10. > :07:12.all degree profession in the West Midlands. Earlier than other parts
:07:13. > :07:18.of the country. That is absolutely the right move. We have other
:07:19. > :07:21.professions trained to degree level, you need people with the right
:07:22. > :07:25.competence and skill to be able to deliver the complex care we need
:07:26. > :07:32.delivering. You do need people with those skills. That again is
:07:33. > :07:37.something that Robert Francis made, one of the recommendations he made
:07:38. > :07:40.in his report, change of culture? He did, but let's be clear about what
:07:41. > :07:46.happened at Stafford Hospital. One of the big changes is, there were
:07:47. > :07:50.not enough nurses. The reviews from all the others coming out now are
:07:51. > :07:53.all saying the same thing, which is what we have been saying for a
:07:54. > :07:57.number of years. Thank you very much.
:07:58. > :08:00.Coming up later in the programme: From blot on the landscape to
:08:01. > :08:06.des`res. Turning derelict houses back into homes. They need to have
:08:07. > :08:09.people in them. They have to be lived in. The street looks a mess,
:08:10. > :08:12.everybody just dumps everything on it.
:08:13. > :08:16.Just two shopping weeks to Christmas, and that also means two
:08:17. > :08:21.shoplifting weeks. Thefts cost retailers of course, but customers
:08:22. > :08:24.pay too ` in higher prices. In the West Midlands that adds up to an
:08:25. > :08:29.estimated ?43 million over the festive season. It works out at ?16
:08:30. > :08:34.per shopper on an average Christmas shopping basket. On expensive items,
:08:35. > :08:41.such as games consoles, the extra cost could be more than ?12. Bob
:08:42. > :08:45.Hockenhull has been investigating. He might blend into the shop
:08:46. > :08:48.surroundings easily enough. But that means this customer can brazenly
:08:49. > :08:57.walk out with a box of lager without paying. And watch closely, as this
:08:58. > :09:01.man bends down and swiftly removes items of jewellery, throwing them
:09:02. > :09:06.into a bag with no thought of parting with his cash. West Midlands
:09:07. > :09:09.Police released the footage today ` with a warning that loan criminals
:09:10. > :09:12.and organised gangs are targeting the region's shops in the run`up to
:09:13. > :09:19.Christmas. At the moment we are experiencing a lot of gift sets like
:09:20. > :09:23.perfume boxes, we suspect it is being stolen to order, and then gets
:09:24. > :09:26.traded on. It's a crime we're all paying for. Research suggests
:09:27. > :09:34.shoplifting adds ?16 to the average person's Christmas shopping bill as
:09:35. > :09:38.stores recoup the cost of theft. But while the big chain stores can
:09:39. > :09:42.absorb the cost of shoplifting, for small independent traders it is not
:09:43. > :09:45.so easy. I spike in thefts can even put staff's jobs in jeopardy. This
:09:46. > :09:49.independent jewellers in Solihull has fallen victim to opportunist
:09:50. > :09:53.shoplifters in the past. Margins are tighter than they are for the
:09:54. > :10:02.nationwide superstores. So the repercussions are felt more keenly.
:10:03. > :10:07.It does make the staff feel nervous. But also just the financial
:10:08. > :10:13.implications, we don't have anything to absorb it. We are small company,
:10:14. > :10:16.so we take the hit quite badly. If we don't catch the people who are
:10:17. > :10:18.stealing it will add to the cost of shopping. At Solihull's Touchwood
:10:19. > :10:25.Shopping Centre, they're using more store detectives and multiple
:10:26. > :10:28.cameras to help thwart shoplifting. There was a crew operating
:10:29. > :10:32.nationally, I believe they came down from Glasgow, they were targeting
:10:33. > :10:35.shopping centres all over the country and we managed to catch them
:10:36. > :10:41.here. It shows you the level of security we can implement what we
:10:42. > :10:43.need to. With an estimated 2 million shoplifting cases in the UK in a
:10:44. > :10:49.year, such vigilance is certainly needed.
:10:50. > :10:52.A new report from the education watchdog Ofsted puts Wolverhampton
:10:53. > :10:55.at the bottom of a league table for primary schools. Just over half the
:10:56. > :10:58.city's primaries are rated good or better ` that's the lowest
:10:59. > :11:01.percentage in the country. Walsall also fares badly, but in Solihull,
:11:02. > :11:06.Sandwell and Birmingham, four out of five primary pupils attend schools
:11:07. > :11:09.rated good. Wesley Williams was jailed for a
:11:10. > :11:14.minimum of 29 years today for strangling his ex`partner and her
:11:15. > :11:17.baby son. The bodies of Yvonne Walsh and seven month old Harrison were
:11:18. > :11:20.found at their home in Birmingham in June. Williams, a habitual cannabis
:11:21. > :11:25.user, had previously been in a relationship with Rebecca
:11:26. > :11:30.Shuttleworth. She was jailed in June for killing her son Keanu Williams.
:11:31. > :11:33.Photographs of the Queen and her sister Princess Margaret on stage in
:11:34. > :11:39.pantomime at Windsor Castle have been sold for more than ?3,000. They
:11:40. > :11:43.were in two scrap books, auctioned in Gloucestershire today. Some of
:11:44. > :11:49.the pictures were even signed by the young princesses. The final auction
:11:50. > :11:51.price? ?3,200. Derelict or empty homes can blight
:11:52. > :11:57.neighbourhoods, driving down property values and becoming targets
:11:58. > :12:00.for vandalism. Now one council, Walsall, is trying to tackle the
:12:01. > :12:05.problem head on. It wants to compulsorily purchase some of the
:12:06. > :12:09.worst, abandoned houses. The reasons why homes end up in such a state can
:12:10. > :12:13.be complicated ` and even tragic. Joanne Writtle begins her report at
:12:14. > :12:18.one house, left to decay for a decade.
:12:19. > :12:22.Tony Cockayne is doing up his childhood home in Walsall. But it's
:12:23. > :12:31.taken him years to even face it. These slides hold happy memories.
:12:32. > :12:36.That was me when I was a precociously doughboy, in the back
:12:37. > :12:40.garden here. `` precocious little boy. His father died 22 years ago.
:12:41. > :12:43.But when his mother died a decade ago, Tony found visits here
:12:44. > :12:47.agonising. I came back here but I couldn't touch anything, I think it
:12:48. > :12:53.was just the emotional ties, I couldn't change anything. But it was
:12:54. > :12:59.hard to lose your parents and become an orphan. As a result, the house
:13:00. > :13:02.fell into disrepair. But now Tony is renovating it with the help of a
:13:03. > :13:07.grant and interest free loan from Walsall Council. No longer a blight
:13:08. > :13:14.for his neighbours. Before, it was a bit of an eyesore. It was all
:13:15. > :13:18.boarded up with broken glass and teenagers coming around, so it is
:13:19. > :13:21.nice to have some work done. Back to what it was. Elsewhere, these are
:13:22. > :13:24.among six dilapidated houses the council wants to forcibly buy
:13:25. > :13:28.through compulsory purchase powers. They've been empty for around five
:13:29. > :13:36.years. The authority will then sell them on. It could be a good
:13:37. > :13:40.opportunity for first`time buyers in order to take a property on like
:13:41. > :13:44.this and do the map, particularly somebody who is quite handy, or a
:13:45. > :13:51.local builder. But it will bring these homes back into use for people
:13:52. > :13:55.who need a home. It is a shame, it could be a nice house. The street is
:13:56. > :14:02.a mess, everybody just dumps everything on it. There are 710,000
:14:03. > :14:09.empty homes nationally. 72,000 of them in the West Midlands. And here
:14:10. > :14:12.in Walsall, there are 1000, many of them simply empty, others completely
:14:13. > :14:17.derelict like this one. Meanwhile, Tony is hoping to rent his house
:14:18. > :14:20.out. It is an opportunity to give somebody a chance of a lovely house.
:14:21. > :14:25.I wish I'd have done it years ago. Tony was an only child. He plans to
:14:26. > :14:30.rent out the home he once cherished by Christmas.
:14:31. > :14:33.This is our top story tonight: Nursing shortage ` hospitals across
:14:34. > :14:38.the Midlands recruiting hundreds of overseas staff to fill posts.
:14:39. > :14:42.Your detailed weather forecast to come shortly. Also in tonight's
:14:43. > :14:45.programme, how this hard working student brings a scientific approach
:14:46. > :14:51.to mastering a spectacular sport ` he's now world champion.
:14:52. > :14:55.And from little saplings, charity funds grow. The Christmas tree
:14:56. > :14:58.planted in a Worcestershire village 35 years ago that's pulling in the
:14:59. > :15:10.crowds We've reported on this programme about rural crimes
:15:11. > :15:13.including sheep and castle rustling. But police in Warwickshire are
:15:14. > :15:16.investigating a case of bee rustling. Thieves made two separate
:15:17. > :15:22.attempts to steal bee hives from Compton Verney art Gallery. Kevin
:15:23. > :15:26.Reide has more. In the last six weeks there have
:15:27. > :15:33.been two attempts to steal Bee hives from the grounds of Compton Verney
:15:34. > :15:37.art Gallery and Museum. In the first, thieves got away with one of
:15:38. > :15:41.two hives, but they damaged the second when they tripped on a tree
:15:42. > :15:45.stump as they tried to flee. They returned four weeks later damaging
:15:46. > :15:49.it again. They carried it out through the same route, then
:15:50. > :15:54.stumbled trying to lift it over a wire fence. And so when I arrived on
:15:55. > :16:00.the scene, there were just broken components of the high lying on the
:16:01. > :16:07.ground. What is left on the colony `` of the colony is in this high.
:16:08. > :16:11.The bees cluster around the Queen to keep her temperature up, but with
:16:12. > :16:21.fewer bees, it is more difficult to do, and that endangers the whole
:16:22. > :16:25.colony. Bee thefts are rare but with the population of honey bees in
:16:26. > :16:28.decline their value has gone up. A complete hive is worth around three
:16:29. > :16:31.hundred pounds, but in this tight knit community it's a mystery as to
:16:32. > :16:34.who would buy stolen goods. I can only assume it is people who did not
:16:35. > :16:37.really know anything about beekeeping. But new somebody who
:16:38. > :16:39.would give them a few pounds for the bees and the equipment. The
:16:40. > :16:45.remaining hive is now in a safer place, and Warwickshire Police are
:16:46. > :16:48.investigating. There was very little for them to follow up in the end,
:16:49. > :16:54.but we have now relocated what is remaining of the hives. We have CCTV
:16:55. > :16:57.coverage for them. This colony may struggle to survive this winter but
:16:58. > :17:02.Compton Verney hope they can continue to keep bees for years to
:17:03. > :17:06.come. Earlier in the programme we were
:17:07. > :17:10.looking at the problem of derelict homes. Here's an example of one on a
:17:11. > :17:13.grand scale. A Georgian town house built by the Wedgwood family of
:17:14. > :17:17.pottery fame is in danger of falling into terminal disrepair. The
:17:18. > :17:20.Wedgwood Big House is thought to be the oldest surviving example of a
:17:21. > :17:24.pottery manufacturer's home in the country. But water's getting inside
:17:25. > :17:28.the listed building, and its owners are blaming the local council.
:17:29. > :17:32.Here's our Staffordshire reporter Liz Copper.
:17:33. > :17:36.In the heart of Burslem, the Mother Town of the Potteries, stands the
:17:37. > :17:41.Wedgwood Big House. Built by the Wedgwood family in 1751, Josiah
:17:42. > :17:45.Wedgwood was a regular visitor here. And the company he founded was to
:17:46. > :17:50.become famous worldwide. Inside, the house is a Georgian gem, with many
:17:51. > :17:53.original features. But water's getting in ` it's already destroyed
:17:54. > :18:02.floorboards and there are other structural problems. The rear corner
:18:03. > :18:06.has turned and sunk, and there is a massive crack forming at the side of
:18:07. > :18:11.it. Unless urgent action is taken, the big house will be lost. When
:18:12. > :18:14.historic buildings like this are lost, they are lost forever. And the
:18:15. > :18:17.cause of this rot is thought to be the pavement outside. This picture
:18:18. > :18:20.from the 1950s shows the contrast with the building today. But on
:18:21. > :18:24.closer inspection the two pictures show how the pavement on the left
:18:25. > :18:31.hand side of the building has clearly been raised. The owners of
:18:32. > :18:35.the building have commissioned several independent reports which
:18:36. > :18:37.they have shown to us. Each one concludes the root cause of the
:18:38. > :18:42.problem is the high pavement outside. This report, for example,
:18:43. > :18:49.which was completed earlier this year, concludes, until the point ``
:18:50. > :18:58.the pavement is lowered, what will continue to flow into the Bakehouse.
:18:59. > :19:02.The insurance claim is an ongoing issue, and it is unable to comment
:19:03. > :19:06.further at this stage. In the meantime, a campaign has begun a
:19:07. > :19:15.group who want to see urgent action. It is upsetting. It could so easily
:19:16. > :19:25.have been prevented. Darwin has walked them floorboards. I despair.
:19:26. > :19:28.It's hoped this building, with its distinguished history could become a
:19:29. > :19:31.museum. But until the rot is stopped, its future is uncertain.
:19:32. > :19:35.Kristof Willerton is a hard working 20`year`old biochemistry student. He
:19:36. > :19:39.excels in a sport in which a scientific approach is a real bonus.
:19:40. > :19:42.Any mistake could mean a serious injury ` and the margin of error is
:19:43. > :19:48.split seconds and fractions of an inch. Our reporter Alistair Durden
:19:49. > :19:50.has been talking to Gloucester's world champion in "tumbling" ` an
:19:51. > :19:54.altogether inadequate word to describe what he does.
:19:55. > :19:58.They call it the 100 metres sprint of gymnastics ` but you dont see
:19:59. > :20:03.Usain Bolt doing flips and twists like this. Kristof Willerton has
:20:04. > :20:09.been tumbling since he was ten. He's broken his foot three times and also
:20:10. > :20:18.his arm. He tried other gymnastic disciplines, but nothing to beat the
:20:19. > :20:22.thrill of this. A lot of it is being a bit of a daredevil, I think. If
:20:23. > :20:26.you have got an ability to throw yourself without questioning it,
:20:27. > :20:29.that makes you a good tumbler. You get a lot of adrenaline because you
:20:30. > :20:34.have to throw yourself across the room, so it is a lot of fun. There
:20:35. > :20:41.has never been another Kristof Willerton. He just knows where he is
:20:42. > :20:44.at all times, he knows where the floor is instinctively without being
:20:45. > :20:47.told or tort. Kristof is a full`time student at Oxford University, in the
:20:48. > :20:51.third year of a biochemistry degree. It means spending time in lectures
:20:52. > :20:56.and the lab during the day, then travelling nearly two hours to
:20:57. > :21:03.training five days a week. But the two sides of his life compliment
:21:04. > :21:08.each other well. In gymnastics, there is a tiny margin of error, if
:21:09. > :21:12.you make a small mistake, that changes the result completely. It is
:21:13. > :21:15.the same with biochemistry. You have the pressure of doing results well,
:21:16. > :21:22.and if you make a small mistake there, you can ruin weeks of
:21:23. > :21:28.results. I think that is white I like driving off the pressure. ``
:21:29. > :21:31.that is why I like driving off the pressure. He's been national
:21:32. > :21:34.champion for the last four years, and has just become the first
:21:35. > :21:38.British man to win the World Title in Bulagria, winning gold by the
:21:39. > :21:42.narrowest of margins. Going into it, I knew I had to do a perfect run,
:21:43. > :21:47.and I was very happy because I thought I had possibly gotten the
:21:48. > :21:51.silver, and just getting the gold was a great relief. Tumbling was an
:21:52. > :21:54.olympic sport back in 1932 but hasn't featured since. It means
:21:55. > :21:58.Kristof wont get to compete at Rio in 2016, but he says he'd love to
:21:59. > :22:10.coach gymnastics when his own career has taken its final twist.
:22:11. > :22:13.Don't try that at home. In 1978, a couple planted a small Christmas
:22:14. > :22:17.tree in their Worcestershire front garden. 35 years later and the tree
:22:18. > :22:21.is now 45 feet tall. Decorating it is quite a job. Hundreds of people
:22:22. > :22:24.travel to see it and help raise thousands of pounds for charity, as
:22:25. > :22:26.Ben Sidwell's been finding out. In the Worcestershire village of
:22:27. > :22:34.Inkberrow, Christmas doesn't officially begin until the lights on
:22:35. > :22:50.a certain tree are switched on. Five, four, three, two, one.
:22:51. > :22:55.Somebody said to me it is one of the highlights of Christmas, I always
:22:56. > :22:59.look forward to it, which is a lovely thing to say. Standing at a
:23:00. > :23:01.towering 45 feet tall, this isn't actually the village's official
:23:02. > :23:04.Christmas tree. In fact it's privately owned and sits in the
:23:05. > :23:11.garden of Avril and Chris Rowlands' house. People start asking us in
:23:12. > :23:16.August whether we're going to put the lights on our tree. And when
:23:17. > :23:20.Chris had his heart attack, as I went round the village, people were
:23:21. > :23:25.saying to me, how is Chris? He is going to be able to do the tree,
:23:26. > :23:30.isn't he? When they first bought the tree it was just four feet tall and
:23:31. > :23:36.took six lights. 35 years later, there is 1050 on it. Taking more
:23:37. > :23:39.than eight hours to decorate. With the tree's help, Avril and Chris
:23:40. > :23:42.have raised thousands of pounds for charity. This year over two hundred
:23:43. > :23:46.people gathered in their front garden to see the big switch on. I
:23:47. > :23:53.have been wanting to come to the putting it on the lights ever since
:23:54. > :23:57.I have known them. The tree is huge, so that is a number of years.
:23:58. > :24:07.Finally this year I was free to come along, and Christmas has started. It
:24:08. > :24:10.is wonderful. It looks amazing. It is a whole village event, and the
:24:11. > :24:13.village is so supportive for something so worthwhile. Having
:24:14. > :24:16.become such a Christmas tradition in the village, Avril and Chris know
:24:17. > :24:21.they have to keep lighting their tree. I think, if we decided we
:24:22. > :24:28.became too old and a crepe it and we couldn't do it, we would have to
:24:29. > :24:36.move. And possibly if we sold the house, the other people would have
:24:37. > :24:42.two keep lighting it. The tree is free to view, but all donations this
:24:43. > :24:46.year will go to Acorns Hospice. And we'd like to hear from you if
:24:47. > :24:49.your home or your street is bringing an extra sparkle to Christmas this
:24:50. > :24:52.year. Is your house the most festively festooned in the Midlands?
:24:53. > :25:02.We'd love to hear from you so do drop us a line. All very festive
:25:03. > :25:07.apart from the weather? It is far too mild this week. We
:25:08. > :25:10.have got a few changes ahead over the next few days, mainly to do with
:25:11. > :25:15.rain and also strengthening winds. Nothing to do with the temperatures.
:25:16. > :25:19.Temperatures could rise slightly. The rain will be produced by two
:25:20. > :25:25.fronts, coming through for tomorrow and Friday. The second of these
:25:26. > :25:28.fronts is going to be more active, low pressure will have more of a
:25:29. > :25:36.pool on it, rolling across the North, so Sunday is when we see rain
:25:37. > :25:39.and also strengthening winds. Those tightly packed isobars wrapped
:25:40. > :25:45.around it, responsible for the wind strengthening. Back to tonight, and
:25:46. > :25:49.this evening and tonight, we start off with clear skies, and jeering
:25:50. > :25:53.this time we can see is dense patches of fog developing. More
:25:54. > :26:00.particularly towards the western fringes on the border with Wales.
:26:01. > :26:07.The fog will lift and disperse into low cloud. Lows of around three or
:26:08. > :26:16.four Celsius tonight, not too bad. No frost tonight. `` fog is going to
:26:17. > :26:19.be less of a problem tonight. A dull start the day, dry initially, but we
:26:20. > :26:24.will start to see developing through the afternoon. This is only going to
:26:25. > :26:29.be liked and patchy to begin with. Temperatures very mild tomorrow, ten
:26:30. > :26:32.or 11 Celsius, with a light or moderate south`westerly wind.
:26:33. > :26:38.Tomorrow evening and night, as rain becomes heavier, those temperatures
:26:39. > :26:43.will drop only by a degree or two, marginally cooler than the day. Lows
:26:44. > :26:48.of around eight to 10 Celsius tomorrow night, very balmy and not
:26:49. > :26:51.bad at all apart from the rain. The winds will be strengthening slightly
:26:52. > :26:57.as we head into Friday. Very mild once again, highs of 11 to 12
:26:58. > :27:00.Celsius. Tonight's headlines from the BBC: A
:27:01. > :27:03.record fine for Lloyds ` ?28 million for putting staff under too much
:27:04. > :27:06.pressure to sell financial products. Nursing shortage ` hospitals across
:27:07. > :27:13.the region recruiting hundreds of overseas staff to fill posts.
:27:14. > :27:16.Finally tonight, More than 700 people turned out to help break a
:27:17. > :27:20.world record in Birmingham today. They were taking part in an attempt
:27:21. > :27:24.on the record for the longest Christmas cracker pulling chain. It
:27:25. > :27:29.had stood at 603, but 749 people pulled crackers in Brindley Place
:27:30. > :27:31.today. The organisers are now waiting for official confirmation
:27:32. > :27:43.that they've broken the Guinness World Record. And that is an awful
:27:44. > :27:47.lot of very bad jokes. That was the Midlands Today. I'll be
:27:48. > :27:48.back at 10pm with more on the increase in