23/12/2016 Points West

Hundreds of volunteers in Bristol are getting ready to lay

on a Christmas Day lunch for elderly people who'd otherwise

The charity behind the festive meal says an estimated one million people

in the UK are suffering from chronic loneliness - and the isolation can

And we want to make the hampers just look really nice and lovely.

Amy Perrin and her volunteers getting ready for Christmas Day.

She helped just a handful of lonely people four years ago.

Come Sunday there'll be close to 100 having Christmas lunch at five

different venues in and around Bristol.

I just wanted to give them a nice treat, really,

But realising the effect that that has and the change that can

have afterwards as well, just that one point of contact,

and then being helped into new friendships,

70-year-old Safia Wiggram Christmas lunched with the charity last year.

A former nurse, she's lost contact with her family and now lives

I'm used to being alone, but being lonely is a different thing.

And just missing the sharing, just a little joke or something that

passed by, you want to say, look, that was funny, wasn't it?

Or just the touch of someone, touching your hand or something,

when you're deprived of that, it does, it affects you very much.

Recent studies suggest chronic loneliness is as bad

for you as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

And it can increase a person's chance of suffering diseases

If you feel unhappy and lonely, you don't really feel like looking

after yourself so it can actually make you physically ill

because you're not able to look after your diabetes,

you don't feel like, you're not going out to meet

people, you don't feel like looking after yourself.

The charity ensures those they help at Christmas

None of it would be possible without the hundreds

willing to sacrifice some of their own Christmas Day.

I decided to help because I realised that time spent helping other people

was going to be far more fulfilling than sitting around eating cheese.

Amy, who's an occupational therapist, is always on the look out

for other venues willing to open on Christmas Day.

Since we're all living longer, this looks like a charity that's

Rail passengers are being told to plan ahead over Christmas

and expect significant delays as a number of lines are closed

It means there will be no trains in or out

of Paddington from Christmas Eve until December the 30th.

Instead services will stop at Ealing Broadway.

There'll then be a reduced timetable between December the 30th

Bird flu has been found in a dead wild bird in Somerset.

The UK's chief veterinary officer has confirmed

it was found in a wigeon, and is the same strain

which was found at a poultry farm in Lincolnshire last week.

Public Health England says the risk to public health

from the virus is very low, but farmers are still having

to keep all their poultry inside for 30 days.

Volunteers are working with police to try to make drivers

on Lansdown Lane in Bath slow down, after a crash which killed

One of them was 4-year-old Mitzi Steady- struck by the 32-tonne

truck which had careered out of control on the steep hill.

Now locals are using hand-held cameras to urge

Lansdown Lane in Bath, a steep hill winding past pavements

often filled with pedestrians, close to homes and

Now with its own amateur speeding enforcers.

A new campaign by volunteers aiming to change the way drivers use this

With a 20 mph limit that locals say drivers often ignore.

Traffic is still not moving at 20 miles an hour,

We are starting a community speed watch scheme.

Four-year-old Mitzi Steady was one of four people killed

here in February last year when a tipper truck's brakes failed

Yesterday, the truck's owner and its mechanic were found

Now this community wants to make Lansdown Lane a safer place.

They'll be using cameras and placards as well

It's just a very busy road, a very dangerous road,

and there are lots and lots of children especially

during opening hours for the school coming back and forth.

The area of Weston in Bath, still shocked by the deaths

But determined to change the way people drive here in future.

A woman from Gloucestershire who dreamed of owning her own

reindeer is spending her first Christmas with her pets.

Karen Perrins, who's from Stroud, has been taking Dancer and Blitzen

on visits around the county to get everyone in the Christmas spirit.

They've been to schools, nursing homes and even

Gloucestershire Police's Christmas Community event.

To bring them out and share them with other people is just amazing.

The number of people that haven't seen a

I bet they cause a right commotion. That is about it from us for

tonight. Just time to wish you a real special Christmas Eve.

A very good evening to you as we head now into Christmas Eve.

We should find that for the vast majority it is a dry day.

There might be one or two showers around, particularly

It will remain quite breezy if not rather windy,

but a fair amount of bright or sunny weather about.

By contrast, Christmas Day will be almost extensively

Again, breezy or windy, and there will be some drizzle about -

particularly so out towards the west.

For the rest of tonight, temperatures dropping down

to a range of about three to five Celsius for the majority.

Might just be one or two showers around.

Most areas will start that way as we head into tomorrow.

You see a focus there for a few showers pushing

in at times from the west, but very few of those generally

Many areas will stay dry entirely and it will be a fairly windy day.

Temperatures tomorrow range from about eight to 10 Celsius.

It will feel fairly cool, but turning mild overnight

and through into Christmas Day itself, temperatures perhaps as high

That's it from me, have a great Christmas.

big day? Christmas Day. It will stay mild and temperatures could reach

14, 15. He is down bet that the national picture.

It will be more northern parts of the UK that see the worst of the

weather. Another storm is developing in the Atlantic. This will turn