30/12/2016 South East Today

Dozens of flights have been cancelled at Gatwick

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

Air traffic control have imposed safety restrictions causing delays

to inward and outbound flights and some cancellations.

The new year travel plans of hundreds of passengers cancelled

or delayed in and out of Gatwick Airport.

I live quite far away from here so I can't really do

anything or go anywhere until I know what is going on.

I do not know if I have to stay at the airport

I have friends waiting for me in Prague for the New Year

so I cannot let them know what is going on, so it is a bit

We're waiting the daughter and brother and son-in-law

and we got here at five o'clockm expecting them to land at six

and they said they had been taken to Birmingham,

we rang again half and hour ago and they are still sitting

on the plane at Birmingham waiting for coaches to come to bring them

Some will spent a night waiting in terminals,

EasyJet alone, one of the largest carriers at Gatwick,

The weather is mainly affecting journeys to and from mainland

Europe such as France, Italy and Spain.

In a statement Gatwick Airport say they are working extremely hard

to keep passengers moving and extra staff have been brought in to help.

The fog is here to stay, though, until tomorrow at least.

Very poor visibility is expected overnight and into the morning.

However the winds should pick up a little bit and that should

help to shift the fog so I think from late morning onwards

The airlines affected told us anyone whose flight has been cancelled

today could be eligible to claim a full refund.

But the main advice for travellers is to check before you set out.

Southern Rail is warning of severe disruption

across its network once again - as train conductors stage

The company says some routes will have no service

at all tomorrow, New Years 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.

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 "severe

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

Kent Olympic medalists Tom Ransley and Susannah Townsend are to receive

MBEs in the New Year's Honours for their services to sport.

Susannah, who plays for Canterbury, was part of the Team GB women's

hockey team which won gold at the Rio Olympics.

Tom, from Ashford, was part of the champion gold-winning men's

rowing eight team this summer and says it's an honour

to have his - and the team's achievement recognised.

What you see in the boat with the athletes and some

of the coaches, it's a much wider team and that's why it is really

nice to receive this sort of almost on behalf of the wider community

Onto football and tonight's Brighton and Hove Albion game

was cancelled because of the fog, but

Gillingham's match at Millwall went ahead.

The national weather forecast in a moment,

but first the picture here in the south-east with Nina Ridge.

It is foggy out there and has been all day and that is starting to

thicken up. The Met office have a yellow weather warning in place

until 10am tomorrow morning. It will be particularly nasty with poor

visibility and some freezing fog tonight. Through the night you can

see how the fog continues to thicken up as temperatures fall and bygone

very slippery indeed. A cold start tomorrow, very grey and it takes its

time for that mist and fog to lift into low cloud and by the afternoon

we may seek someone breaks giving the odd bit of brightness in the

afternoon. Not quite as cool as recent days, eight Celsius. In two

New Year's TV it the cloud stays with us, it should be dry and

temperatures will not fall away too much. They are very different fuel

as we wake up on New Year's Day, cloudy, outbreaks of rain, some of

which will be heavy and not clearly until later in the

Good evening. Looking ahead to 2017 it looks like we will start off on a

cold note. This weather front will move south in the next day or so

bringing rain with it, but also much colder air following a lull behind.

It will sweep the fog away. It's grey for some places this afternoon.

You could hardly see across the river in the Greater London area.

Met Office warnings are in force. Stay tuned to