27/02/2017 Points West

Our headlines tonight. for the news where you are.

Facing the man who killed her boyfriend.

Meg Williamson wants to highlight the dangers of phoning and driving.

Could the new metro mayor loosen the rules

And winter hasn't quite done with us yet.

The threat of icy stretches on roads by tomorrow morning.

A Swindon woman has met the man who caused the car crash

Gavin Roberts died last June, when a car ploughed into his -

the driver was on the phone at the time.

Well, Meg Williamson now wants to highlight the dangers

of using a phone while driving and is determined to make sure other

This is the moment that Meg Williamson came face

to face with the man who killed her boyfriend.

Lewis Stratford caused a car crash while talking on his mobile phone.

He was an Australian living in Swindon.

In June last year he was driving to work on the A34.

Lewis Stratford was driving the other way arguing on the phone

He lost control, went through the central

I wish I could turn back time, change, obviously,

I feel like I've been kept here to pay for the mistake I made.

For Meg, it was important for the meeting to take place.

What possessed him to pick up his mobile phone behind the wheel?

And to let him know how I'm feeling, how Gavin's family are feeling.

I'll never forget it, ever, and I'll never be sorry

Every time I say sorry, I'm thinking it's a bit cheap.

I, I don't want to hate you forever, I'm not that type of person.

And eventually I'll probably be able to forgive you.

But I just needed some questions answering first.

Lewis pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving.

She now wants all school children to be taught about the dangers

Police divers searching for a missing Bristol man have found

26-year-old Lewis Ball hadn't been seen since the 5th of February,

The police say that the body has yet to be formally identified,

but that Lewis' family have been told.

Now could green belt land be the answer to the West's

Well a thinktank called the Centre for Cities admits

it's controversial - but it wants the area's

new Metro mayor to consider building more homes on green fields.

Housing will be one of the Metro mayor's

key responsibilities when he or she is elected in May.

House prices soared 10% last year alone.

But is it pricing people out of living here altogether?

She used to work part-time for the council.

A sharp rise in rents means she can no longer afford to make ends meet,

It's a real bad divide between people who were able to buy,

you know, a couple of decades ago, and people who now can't

afford to buy and they're priced out of renting.

The four local councils have all pledged to up

They're aiming for another 85,000 in the next 20 years.

It's the equivalent of building two cities the size of Bath.

But a new report says even that doesn't come close and it's time

to start thinking what some say is unthinkable and build

We think it has to be one of the options on the table.

Actually, the West of England is quite unusual that much

of the brownfield land that is available is quite small

So about 4300 houses could be built on brownfield land.

Clearly that's nowhere near what's needed.

She thinks building on the green belt should be considered,

as it takes up half of South Gloucestershire

and over two thirds of Bath and North East Somerset.

And it's not always glorious rolling hills.

A lot of green-belt land is low landscape value,

it's not a high-quality environmental value,

but because it's called green belt politicians really run scared of it.

We were looking at the maps on the walls, and Mary's house

was under a warehouse, and my farm was completely

Any talk of building on protected land, though,

All this, every bit of green you can see before your eyes is green belt.

Farmer Jill Britton and her neighbour Mary Walsh have fought off

developers from Whitchurch, south of Bristol, before.

With 3500 homes in the planning pipeline, they're preparing

Well, if they want to label me a Nimby, so be it.

I can cope with it, I've got broad shoulders.

But I love my farm and I want it to stay as a farm.

We've been told we're Lambys, looking after my backyard.

Nimbys, Lambys - whatever the terminology,

the debate is set to hot up, as pressure grows on the Metro Mayor

elected in May to put house building at the top of the to-do list.

Well James Petherick works for an organisation that advises

house-builders on how to put forward plans to build on green belt land.

I asked him if more developments ought to be allowed.

I think it will be increasingly necessary to look at green belt land

as a way of relieving the housing shortage.

Do you feel an element of sympathy for people who do try and campaign

against building on what they see is land that should be protected?

But not all of green belt land is beautiful, rolling hills.

There's some pretty low great land that could be used to relieve

For example land that probably couldn't be used

It may have pylons, it may have once been polluted.

The green belt in Bristol was drawn up and allocated in 1974,

So we're very much hemmed in by green belt.

As you say, there a population growth, but there's also a lot

of properties that are not really housing people, they're boarded up.

That would only be a very small percentage of the houses we need.

We need up to 100,000 new houses over the next 20 years.

Which can't be provided through vacant property.

So you advise property developers on how to best tackle the councils

It's incredibly difficult to build on green belt

The strategy would involve looking at local plans which set out how

many houses and where they're going to be built in each

When they're redrawn periodically, and looking at strategically

altering the green belt to allow more housing.

So basically, making it easier for them.

Do you think in the future it's going to become much easier

We cannot satisfy the housing need purely on Brownfield sites

We have to look at not getting rid of green belt,

but just strategically reviewing it to see if there's any

land that could be used for new residential housing.

You say not getting rid of it, but there won't be any

There's a huge amount of green belt land.

There's more green belt than built-up areas.

And therefore, we could look at a very small proportion,

could help deliver those 100,000 plus homes we need over

We're back tomorrow morning with the breakfast news.

A number of showers around, particularly in western areas

With a cold night in store, there will be a risk of some

Tomorrow will be chilly, it will be turning windy throughout

As we head into the second half of the day, this

Of again seeing some showery outbreaks of rain.

We have a Met Office warning out tonight and stretching

on into tomorrow morning for the risk of some ice

That'll be a combination of showers falling of both rain,

some hail and in some places perhaps some sleet and snow

But either way, temperatures somewhere close to freezing

or indeed just below, there will certainly be a cold start

That said, it looks largely dry and certainly a bright start.

Through lunchtime, in runs another frontal system,

Most of that looks like it will be of rain, maybe a little bit

Through the afternoon, some further showers continuing

You will see the wind speed ticking round here,

it will be turning quite windy through the second half of the day.

Now, it will exacerbate an already cold feel,

temperatures generally about six to eight degrees.

A quiet start to Wednesday, some rain moving through the afternoon.

John Hammond has the weather for the rest of the