30/12/2016 South East Today

Now it's time for the news where you are.

Dozens of flights have been cancelled at Gatwick

airport due to heavy fog across the South East and Europe.

Air traffic control have imposed restrictions causing delays

to inward and outbound flights and some cancellations.

Well, we can join our reporter Amanda Akass overlooking

And, Amanda, what are the conditions like there?

It is more a case of what you cannot see behind me. Italy is covered in

thick fog and flights began been cancelled earlier this afternoon we

understand from easyJet, they are the ground 56 flights. -- the runway

is covered in thick fog. Many other flights to Europe have been

cancelled as well. We have just heard one fight at was heading from

Turkey has had to be diverted to Birmingham. We know from social

media there are many people waiting at the airport for their flights and

had been told by staff they should go home for the evening and any

state and Gatwick Airport told us the restrictions have been brought

in by air traffic control and anyone who wants to travel should check

with the ailing before setting out. -- in a statement. To we know how

long this will go on for? The Met office issued EU weather warning for

freezing conditions across the south-east in place until 10am

tomorrow morning so this should be expected to carry on well until the

middle of the morning tomorrow for people setting off a New Year's you.

Gatwick via -- say they're working hard to keep people living and have

brought in additional staff at the airport.

Within the last hour we've also heard that the Brighton's home game

against Cardiff has been postponed due to the fog.

But the Gillingham game at Millwall is due to go ahead.

Southern Rail is warning of severe disruption

on its network once again, as train conductors stage

The company says some routes will have no service

at all tomorrow, New Year's Day and Monday the 2nd,

while the majority of others will have a very limited service.

It's the traditional way to see in the new year,

but could the London fireworks fall flat for south-east partygoers?

Another train strike means services home

It is a bit of a disgrace that it has gone on for as long as it has.

You would have thought something would have been sorted by now.

They have a right to go on strike, even though it will inconvenience

other people, but in a way I am kind of with them.

It is not great because it is New Year's Eve.

I mean, I fully appreciate everything going on with

This is Britain's worst train strike in 20 years.

It is over Southern's plans to make drivers solely

responsible for train safety, using CCTV cameras to monitor doors.

The proposals we made were entirely reasonable and we think the union's

reaction has been unreasonable and disproportionate and we think

strikes are absolutely unnecessary and I call upon the trade unions

to consider calling off the strikes, even at this late moment.

But the unions say they have the public on their side.

We did cancel the strikes on Christmas Eve and the day

We have done everything we can to recognise that the public have

been wonderful supporting our position on maintaining

the safety and critical role of the guard on the train.

This strike will start tomorrow for three days,

with another planned for January the 9th.

Many will be hoping for a New Year's resolution to the ongoing crisis.

And just a reminder that BBC South East Today is hosting

a special Question Time-style debate about the ongoing crisis

on Southern rail services on Sunday the 8th of January.

If you live or work in the south-east and want to be

in the audience, send an email to [email protected]

with your details and how you've been affected.

Hospital emergency departments in the south-east say

they're experiencing extremely high demand with the A department

at the Medway Maritime Hospital saying it has more patients coming

Patients in East Kent have had to wait up to four

In Sussex, hospitals say they are under

Our health Correspondent Mark Norman is outside the Medway Maritime

in Gillingham - Mark, was this expected?

No, this is traditionally a quiet week. It began with the Ambulance

Service over Christmas who five found an emergency call and said

they were struggling to reach some emergency calls -- 5000 emergency

calls. In East Kent there were more than four hour waiting times at both

of the major A's. Brighton are seen large numbers of acutely unwell

patients and the same situation in Surrey and other places and fewer in

Medway, as you say, the worrying situation of more patients coming in

at the door than they have beds available. We have been speaking to

the matron in charge of A here today.

For the past few weeks we have seen a really high numbers of patients

attending the emergency department of Medway.

We're usually very busy in the run-up to Christmas

but we usually see a lull over the few days of Christmas

and we just have not seen that this year,

so the department has been under constant pressure

What is the advice from hospital? The problem is this weekend will be

one of the busiest of the year at the advice is, have you called NHS

111 and checked for out of hours GP service or minor injuries unit? But

if you turn up at A you will be seen and treated but if it is not an

emergency you will have wait. Now let's get the weather. That fog

has been a real problem today but the difference has been it has not

moved so for most of us we have had seemed like this for much of the

day. However, one of our weather Watchers got above the fog and we

had this beautiful picture. There was some clear skies somewhere

across the south-east today but that Met Office warning stays through

tonight and into tomorrow so we are expecting some further disruption

with poor visibility. You can see hot it thickens through the early

hours, combined with temperatures at around freezing we will see freezing

fog patches and it will be a chilly start. Much of that mist and fog

should lift into low cloud but it will take its time and into the

afternoon where we might see some brightness but predominantly cloudy

and temperatures around six Celsius throughout the afternoon. Through

the evening it stays dry, quite cloudy skies but at least it will be

dry as we head towards New Year and those temperatures through the

evening will not change a great deal from daytime temperatures soar still

we are looking at temperatures of six Celsius. For anyone heading out

around midnight. He will change by Sunday because a weather front is

moving down and it will be cloudy with outbreaks of rain, some of

which will be heavy in the afternoon. Even in the evening still

cloudy and damp with temperatures around seven Celsius. Once that

clears, Monday and Tuesday were dry and bright with some sunshine but

timing Calder once again. We are back at 10:50pm tonight. Have

a good evening. Good night. Good evening, fog has been a problem

in recent days, slow