18/12/2016 North West Tonight

A man's been charged with the murder of Paul Groom

The 48-year-old from Fazackley suffered head injuries

in a suspected assault a few days earlier.

Michael Hill, who is 32 and from Kirkby,

will appear before magistrates tomorrow.

Some schools in the North West look set to lose as much as 10%

of their income after the Government changed its funding formula.

It means jobs could be lost in West Cheshire and Manchester

but, in other places, budgets will increase.

It's trigonometry time for this year nine maths class at Burnage Academy,

but it's sums of a different type bothering the head.

He thinks up to 10% could be cut from his school's budget

from the running costs of the school -

it is going to affect staffing, more than likely.

And that will, of course, affect what happens in the class

There are winners and losers across our region

Amongst the winners are Blackpool, Knowsley and Bury,

who will all see a 2% increase in their funding.

The biggest losers are schools like this one in Manchester -

Also losing out is Cheshire West and Chester schools.

Those figures are just for the first year under this new formula.

The Government says the settlement does make things fairer.

I think, over time, there's been an increasing imbalance

between inner city schools and other schools.

that there is a more reasonable balance.

The changes may be welcome in Trafford,

but not in Ellesmere Port and Neston,

I think there is a slight weighting towards rural areas,

but I think the core problem, really,

is that school funding has not been keeping up with inflation.

The National Audit Office warned this week

that there was a ?3 billion gap in funding for schools.

That means in Burnage and beyond, whether you are a winner or loser

this week, more pressure on budgets appears inevitable.

Hundreds attended a Christmas carol concert in Chester

It's the second year the cathedral has held such an event

to help civilians in the war-torn country.

From parishioners and politicians to people out Christmas shopping,

they came with Syria in their thoughts.

It's believed half the population of Syria have fled their homes

since the war began, and there were songs and prayers

something that's on our screens daily at the moment,

as it was in Bethlehem when Jesus was born.

"How can we help the Christ child this Christmas,

and those especially in Aleppo, Yemen and across the world?"

The concert was free, but people were asked

to make a donation to the charity Christian Aid,

one of many working to ease the suffering.

Been very upsetting, really, hasn't it?

we thought we'd give some contribution.

We should all be thinking about people over there

and doing what we can, the little we can.

It's all we can do, you know, try and support them as much as we can.

Some of the money will also support Syrian refugees

Here's Alex with a look ahead to next week's weather.

Here's Alex with a look ahead to next week's weather.

Well, we did have quite a misty, murky day today.

And we've got more mist and murk on the way this evening.

High pressure still broadly in charge of our weather,

but with that occluded front coming towards us, we are expecting

some drizzly conditions at times throughout the day.

Now, looking at the detail for the rest of tonight,

there some mist and fog patches in places.

Where there are a few breaks in the cloud this evening,

you may see just a sparkle of frost in rural spots,

Tomorrow morning, some of those patches of mist and fog may

take some time to clear, so quite a grey start.

But some drizzly conditions as well, and highs of 10 Celsius.

Rather cloudy weather on the way for the next few days.

From all of us on the late team, goodbye.

Good evening. It's a big week for pre-Christmas travel plans and the

weather can be quite challenging at times, too. We start the week with

the issue of fog once again. Just about anywhere on the hills on

Monday morning but at its most extensive at lower levels across

parts of western England and Wales, particularly towards the south-west,

it could hamper your morning journey and some of the airports. Maybe not

as extensive as it has been through the weekend in East Anglia and the

south-east but fairly great start for many. Damp, too, in parts of

Scotland and Northern Ireland but brightening up later. Subtle hints

of brightness through the cloud elsewhere. It does stay rather grey

and misty and all in all, a fairly cool day. We finish Monday with

patchy rain and drizzle in eastern England which will push westward,

some heavy bursts in and around the English Channel but clear skies

through Monday night into Tuesday