19/01/2017 South Today - Oxford

The campaign to get a fossil of this dinosaur on display in Oxford.

Basingstoke's pride, as the town prepares to commemorate

It would be the biggest political shake up of how services

Plans have been unveiled to abolish all six councils in Oxfordshire

and replace them with a unitary authority, responsible

Supporters claim millions of pounds would be saved every year,

The proposal is at odds with a rival plan being put forward

A plan to abolish six councils and replace them with one.

At the launch, councillors from three political parties called

themselves the turkeys voting for Christmas, but they said

they could save ?20 million a year to provide better services

The savings come because we are joining services

together, so planning would join with highways.

It would be more integrated and we would make sure

the back-office costs like HR, finance, collection services,

Customer services, all under one roof.

Labour county councillors back the plan because it offers

"That is not our problem, it is the county's".

It is difficult for someone vulnerable who is looking for help.

They are offering all sorts of guarantees, particularly

to Labour-run Oxford City Council, that they won't be taken over

But there is a rival plan from the districts,

which involves a combined authority with an elected mayor,

something the government is looking for, to devolve powers

The other five councils say they are more in touch

Talking to local people and businesses, they all say we need

And if we are able to get a devolution deal, we will be able

to get money out of government to put towards infrastructure

improvements, such as improving roads and rail and other services

Both plans are just draft ideas at the moment.

The government will hope agreement can be reached between them

Peter Henley, BBC South Today, Oxford.

A teenager's appeared in court charged with murdering

Police were called to reports of a stabbing at Brompton Close

26-year-old Daniel Lavender was taken to Stoke Mandeville Hospital,

18-year-old Brandon Lavender is accused of killing him.

A family's being supported by specialist officers

after an 11-year-old girl was approached

by two men in Caversham and possibly abducted.

It happened near Caversham Primary School yesterday afternoon.

A letter sent to parents at the school today says the girl's

Extra patrols are being carried out in the area.

The Childcare Minister has visited two nurseries in Oxford to promote

a Government scheme enabling parents to get 30 hours free childcare.

Caroline Dinenage first stopped at Rose Hill Nursey, where she played

with children and discussed the scheme with staff.

Later, she officially launched the Old Station Nursery

We know that for some hard-pressed families,

the cost of childcare is one of their biggest expenses,

and it is often one of the biggest barriers to women being able to get

back to work, or do more hours, which is why we are investing

?6 billion a year by 2020 to roll out this offer of 30 hours childcare

for the working parents of all three and four-year-olds by September.

Scientists in Oxfordshire hope a new ?50 million

project will change the way we produce our energy.

The team, based at Culham Science Centre,

on their latest machine called Mast Upgrade.

When finished it will explore ways in which we can make

Matt Graveling has been to find out more.

Whether you are sending an e-mail, charging your phone or just watching

the news, electricity powers almost every aspect of our lives.

Depleting levels of coal, oil and gas mean we need to find

And the answer to this global problem is being addressed right

We all know about climate change, about the need to find ways

of powering our world which do not produce CO2, carbon.

Fusion offers the potential to be that perfect,

It is low land use, has effectively limitless resources and is very

When you fuse hydrogen atoms together, they give out heat.

This heat is then used to turn water to steam,

It is a topic that has been researched here for decades.

Inside this complex machinery, scientists are trying to make energy

They now hope their latest project can help give an answer

Regular viewers of BBC South Today may remember in 2013

when our reporter went round the fusion experiment.

Well, fast forward four years and I am here on top

It is a third of the size, and more importantly, it is cheaper,

It is hoped this experiment might make fusion technology more

As we saw with the recent Hinkley Point power station,

at ?20 billion, that takes a lot to get off the ground.

If we can reduce the cost of fusion power plants,

it gives more chance to get these up and running and sited in cities

Testing will begin in autumn, when the inside of this machine

will become hotter than the sun, and the team hope the findings

will help to shine new light on their search for affordable

A new workshop warning young people about the dangers of gambling

According to a survey from the Gambling Commission,

rates of problem gambling have increased year on year, and are

The Young Gamblers Education Trust wants to make sure people

More workshops are planned over the coming months.

From my experience, having spoken to people with gambling problems,

there is definitely a stigma attached to coming out

and being openly honest about having a problem with gambling.

It is that stigma which prevents people from asking for help,

which is a big problem because there is a lot

Having come through the process of dealing with my addiction

to gambling and treatment, I wanted to turn around

A museum in Oxford's secured ?90,000 to help display the fossil

The long-necked plesiosaur roamed the oceans 165 million years ago.

The Museum of Natural History still needs more money though before

visitors will get a chance to see it.

This monster of the deep could soon be on show in Oxford.

Seen here in this reconstruction, it weighed more than 600lbs and fed

on marine animals such as fish and shellfish.

Behind closed doors, Juliet has the painstaking task

of scraping away clay, millimetre by millimetre, in order

For me, to just scrape off the clay matrix and reveal bones

after 165 million years is quite extraordinary, like opening

Christmas presents, revealing a little bit more and a bit more.

Archaeologists discovered the 165 million-year-old

reptile bones at a quarry in Cambridgeshire in 2014.

Now, museum bosses want to display the bones next to another plesiosaur

It had a neck of 2.5 metres and a body of five metres,

with large wing shaped flippers and a stubby tail.

We don't have anything like that today so it would make a striking

display and something that would catch people's eyes

and get them engaged with our amazing fossil heritage.

They have already received ?90,000 to help them complete the project.

But they still need another 20,000 to buy new cases,

artwork and digital screens, in order to bring

For now, this Jurassic giant lies in waiting before the time

An 80-year-old man from Harwell could be the oldest

paperboy in Oxfordshire, and possibly in Britain.

John Hunt delivers papers around the village five days a week.

Lucy Bickerton joined him on his round this morning.

An early start, and John doesn't look like your average paperboy

arriving to work. Unlike most, he is not doing the round before a day at

school. So how did a retired engineer get onto this unlikely

career path? I used to walk around the village to pick up my paper in

the morning anyway, and one morning I came into the paper shop and I

think it was the lady in the shop who was saying that one of the boys

wasn't available to take the papers out. So I said, I will take them

around, I know where to go. And the next day it was, you wouldn't mind

doing it again, would you? So it started and I've done it ever since.

For the past five years, John has delivered the papers five mornings a

week. And by doing the job in a tight-knit community, he has become

well-known at almost a celebrity in the village. I meet people walking

their dogs, jogging, driving off to school in their cars. One particular

lady who comes to that almost mornings to say hello, and we chat.

She gives me a pot of marmalade every now and then, which is rather

nice. Hello. Good morning. Here we are again. Are you OK? He is lovely.

He comes every day. He never lets us down. If anybody takes a day off, he

does an extra round at short notice. John says that the hour and a half

walk around the village keeps him fit and helps him wake up in the

morning. His boss will be pleased to hear that for now, he has no plans

to stop. I'll have the headlines at 8pm

and a full bulletin at 10.30pm. Council says it carried out a survey

to ask residents how much extra council tax they could afford to

pay. Two thirds of residents survey said they would accept a 3.75

increase because they understood the challenges that are before us, and I

am grateful for that. We are just 2.5 over that. We know costs are

increasing and petrol prices are going up, food prices are going up,

but also the demands on this council and the lack of central funding is

also putting huge pressures on us. Some opposition councils are warning

that some of the social care reductions could cause problems in

future years. Despite all this, tens of millions more savings will be

needed in the next couple of years. The budget proposal will be

discussed at a council meeting next month. Thames Valley Police is

considering redeveloping its traffic base. The proposal appeared on

Slough Borough Council's website. The document was written by the

Berkshire property partnership, a consortium consisting of local NHS

Trust 's, Thames Valley Police, and all of the world county's councils.

Crews from Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service have taken part in training

for how they would respond to a terror attack or a chemical spill.

Actors were used in exercises at Gibraltar barracks along with

emergency services. Scenarios included a chlorine gas attack at a

leisure centre and an unidentified white powder being spilt. The

training looked at how the crew would cope in vital minutes before

specialist teams arrive. It is 200 years since the death of

one of Britain's's most celebrated authors. Jane Austen was a Hampshire

girl, born and bred. Her anniversary will be marked with a number of

events near where she lived for many years, and in Winchester, where she

died. She is also getting a permanent memorial in Basingstoke,

just a few miles from where she was born.

I am in the library, the octagonal room, at Farley house. Quite a crowd

has gathered and they are here to see this, the model of what we

believe will be the first public statue of Jane Austin in the world.

As you mentioned, plenty of places lay claim to the author. Alton,

Bath, Winchester, but it is Basingstoke where she was born.

How quick come the reasons for approving what we like, wrote Jane

Austen in her novel Persuasion. It is hoped that Basingstoke will echo

that sentiment over a bronze of the world renowned Hampshire author. My

vision is that she is walking in the square and it is as though someone

has said good morning and she has said it back. She was a real person.

She was a headstrong woman of her time, living in her time, but she is

relevant for us today walking past her, because her novels are still

there. The statue has certainly taken shape from early sketches but

finding a real likeness of Jane Austin has been a problem as only

two portraits were ever done. I have to study from life, so I have to

read between the lines of what was written about her and pulled

together a real face. Jane Austen was born a few miles outside

Basingstoke. The house is long gone, but 200 years later, Basingstoke is

staking its claim. Jane Austen new Basingstoke well, attending social

gatherings at the assembly halls that stood here in Market Square,

where her statue will be. It was all such a great influence on her that

while she was here, she wrote the first draft to Pride And Prejudice.

Many other places have been better at trying to claim Jane Austen, so

on the 200th anniversary of her death, we want to have a permanent

memorial to the fact that she is our most famous of residence. The final,

rather in delicate, work on the main statue has begun and it will be cast

in April. It will leave the town with a sense of pride, not

prejudice. Well, the real statue will be

unveiled quite quickly, in July 2017, in the marketplace in

Basingstoke Centre. Basingstoke say it is re-claiming its favourite

daughter, and as Jane Austin wrote in, there is nothing like staying at

home for real comfort. He was one of the country's greatest

pilots. Eric Winkle Brown holds the world record for the most aircraft

carrier take-offs, as well as being the first pilot to and land a jet

aircraft on a seat carrier. He died last year aged 97 and now his log

and medals have been saved for posterity, thanks in part to the

efforts of an 11-year-old from Dorchester who launched a letter

writing campaign after striking up a friendship with the pilot. I thought

he would never write back but luckily he did, so I thought I could

exchange letters with him, I could write to him and he would write

back. And then I would write to him. And he would write back. What was he

saying? ICU want to be a test pilot. On to sport.

The battle on the water in the vendee Globe is now over. Alex

Thompson put up such a fight. As we speak, down in France, the man who

has one is addressing the media. We can see live pictures from France

right now. That is the man has delivered the victory. He was the

favourite and he is speaking to the media now, on dry land. But if we

look at the pictures of him finishing this afternoon, this

happened after he completed the voyage into western France. What

pictures, as he approached the finish line. This was just after

3:35pm. After 74 days, 35mm and 43 seconds at sea, he won, and admitted

he had faced a formidable rival in Alex Thompson. He did a very good

race. He has a good boat. It was very, very difficult with him. He

was very near to me. I am very happy to win, and it is a very good

second. A good second. Let's talk to Natalie Pirks. A remarkable welcome

for the French winner, first of all. We have had fireworks, music and

tears earlier. It is a very, very popular win here, because he is a

Frenchman. And no one other than a Frenchman has ever won this race in

27 years. Not only were their 100,000 people estimated to be

around port waiting for him, but people were piled onto boats and

they went out to see him cross the finish line. A very popular winner,

but wouldn't Alex Thompson do well and didn't he give him a run for his

money? As for Alex, when are we expecting to see him finish? We are

expecting him at 6am UK time. At times, the gap was a lot closer. At

one point yesterday it was 34 nautical miles separating them. To

put it into context, Alex is only the second British sailor to come

second in this race, after Dame Ellen MacArthur in 2001. Three

people have died trying to do this race in its 27 years. It is both

physically and mentally draining. His wife, Kate, told me earlier that

she had to put that to the back of her mind, to not think about how

dangerous it is, in the three months he has not been around. He has

missed his six-year-old son's birthday. He missed Christmas as

well. She is very much looking forward to getting him back on dry

land, giving him a hug. And he is looking forward to having a burger

and a much deserved cold beer. I bet! Thank you for joining us live

from France, Natalie Pirks. Southampton are through to the

fourth round of the FA Cup after what many described as a diary play

against Norwich last night, setting up a home tie with Arsenal, in what

has become one of the busiest seasons in the club's history.

This was not an FA Cup tie to capture the imagination,

particularly with Southampton so close to the EFL Cup final. Less

than 14,000 were in the stadium as the Saints boss rotated his squad

again. Southampton had six Academy graduates in the starting line-up

and enjoy the bulk of the -- possession, but chances were at a

premium. Championship opposition Norwich, whose season is sinking

fast, failed to land a blow on goal, not managing a shot on target all

evening. On a freezing night, no one fancied extra time with another 30

minutes looming, Shane Long bundled home the winner. It was an ugly goal

to settle an ugly game, but something to celebrate on his 100th

appearance. I just headed it down. I think I was in a headlock, but it

was still in. We are in with a shout. They face Leicester on Sunday

and then go to Liverpool for the EFL Cup second leg. It is a season being

fought on multiple fronts. A Hampshire goal for Scott Gregory,

who remains on course for another major victory in a year which will

see him take part in the US Masters and Open Championship softer winning

the British amateur title. He reached the last 32 of the matchplay

part of the tournament in Australia and will now play a local player

overnight. Meanwhile, the Hampshire player also plays at the same stage

of the competition. It has all been about the end of the

sailing and tomorrow we hope to speak to Alex Thompson. You can see

the scenes in France. You know what a popular winner he is. He is hugely

popular in France and they were delighted. There are more French

sailors in this race than any other nationality and they absolutely love

it in France, because it begins and ends in France. And there is a

hugely popular winner. Record-breaker, first-time winner

and keeping the French domination going in the race.

Shall we get onto the weather, because it is looking a little cold.

I like this weather. Blue skies for many places across

the South. Cast your mind back to the early hours of the morning when

it was minus six Celsius. Tonight, it could be colder. Through tonight,

we expect a widespread hard frost to develop. Freezing fog as well during

the early hours of the morning. Slightly more cloud further north

but generally clear skies for most with freezing fog more likely for

areas north of Berkshire. In towns and cities, down to -2-macro, but in

the countryside, possibly minus seven. Tomorrow will be cold, very

like today. Temperatures will struggle to rise to a high of six

Celsius. With light wind, we are looking at lots of sunshine. Iggy

cloud for some, Fairweather cloud building during the afternoon. All

in all, a much better day than originally thought earlier this

week. More sunshine on offer. Clear skies tomorrow and another

widespread frost. To start the weekend, each day over the weekend

will be frosty at first perhaps with freezing fog as well. The difference

on Saturday, slightly more cloud for south-western parts. Further east

and further north, more in the way of sunshine. Cloud syncing south and

east across the region. Low pressure starting to swing in from the

Atlantic. It will stay settled over the Atlantic. The high pressure will

hold on through Saturday and into Sunday. Bitterly cold to start the

day tomorrow. Widespread sharp frost with some freezing fog patches, and

that might linger through the morning until lunchtime. Saturday

and Sunday, it will feel bitterly cold. The wind will be variable and

light over the weekend. More cloud on Sunday but some bright spells and

we expect some freezing fog first thing on Monday.

Gosh, it is getting cold. That's it from us. Thanks for

watching tonight. Goodbye.