29/03/2017 South Today - Oxford

Residents are being urgently membership. That's all from

Residents are being urgently relocated. The council pulled out of

a deal to buy their home. Reflecting average lifestyle and experiences,

why Didcot is named most normal town. Later, a medieval story. The

tale of a local superhero for a new generation.

Residents of a care home in Milton Keynes are being suddenly

moved out this week after being told the home will close on Friday.

Five Acres Nursing Home was put up for sale in November.

But late last week decided the purchase was no longer viable.

Uncertain times for residents at Five Acres Nursing Home

Just a few weeks ago, it looked like the council

Now those that live here are in limbo once again.

They have got to be the first concern.

I know the council is working hard at coming up with a transition plan,

making sure there is something safe and managed for every resident

and that is my first concern is ward councillor.

Having said that, I think the council has worked extremely

hard to try to see if there is any way of keeping this

Five Acres was branded inadequate by inspectors in 2015.

The BBC understands Milton Keynes Council

was going to buy the home for 1.2 million.

They wanted to build into the garden and create

They aimed to make a profit within two years.

But ultimately the council decided it couldn't afford it.

The family of one 91-year-old woman with Alzehimer's told me

they thought about taking her out of the home last year.

But didn't because they thought its future was secure.

Now they're worried she might not survive a move.

Age Concern fears the closure could be the thin end of the wedge.

I think we are going to see more and more crises like this

because of the problems there are in the care

There is financial pressure on local authorities who place

about 50% of people into care to bring their costs down.

Care homes are then trying to recover the costs

through residents who are self funding and really the government

The council said it had now found placements for all 17 residents.

A 50-year-old man from Swindon has been arrested and released on bail

after a baby boy suffered life threatening injuries.

The three-month-old was taken to the Great Western Hospital

on Saturday before being transferred to the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

Police are continuing with their enquiries to find out how

The funeral of George Michael has taken place today

The singer was 53 when he died of natural causes at his home

in Goring in South Oxfordshire on Christmas Day.

His family has thanked his fans across the world for their many

Didcot has been named the most normal town in the country.

A data science company looked at the lifestyle,

opinions and experiences of people in different parts of

England and found Didcot - and ten streets in particular -

best represent the country as a whole.

The point of the research is to better inform government

and business about the needs and wishes of the public.

Just another day in your typical English town.

Didcot is the best of the best at being, well, about average.

I don't know about the most normal. I could not commit to that. It is

normal to us. It is obviously right. Centre of the universe. I came

across in a nice way, not your average normal people, but they are

lovely. It depends on what is normal. Based on what I observe. Is

normal good? I think so. Normal? Where has that come from?

The company researched census information and national statistics

They looked at ethnicity, whether people are married, their job, if

they owned property and with that they came up with a definition of

normal. This is Vicarage Road in Didcot. Apparently one of the most

normal roads in the country. Getting opinions from the public,.

Town, in which a man finds a small town that represents a nation's

Big corporations pay a lot to find out what you and I think. The

company says it wants to help Westminster -based politicians

better understand modern Britain. Let's say they genuinely want to

find out about what life is like in regular Britain, where should they

go? Our work is trying to give them an insight. So we can tell them

regions that represent their constituency. It is an interesting

point. For a normal person in a normal town to think about. Do you

think politicians are in touch with what you might call normal people?

Not at all. I do not think they are at all. They do not reach out to the

normal person in the street. A strong opinion that is rather more

normal than some politicians would like to admit.

BMW workers from Oxford and Swindon have travelled to Germany to protest

about plans to end their final salary pension scheme.

The Unite members handed in a petition at the company's

The union is warning industrial action is a possibility -

a ballot result will be known on Friday.

BMW says it provides excellent pensions -

and wants to protect future pension provision.

A campaign to raise money to fix the roof

at Wallingford's Corn Exchange has now raised half the money needed.

The historic venue opened for trade in 1856.

Now it's a theatre, hosts art exhibitions

Volunteers are holding events to raise the rest

It's been in the heart of the town for 160 years,

with some famous alumni running their theatre group.

But now the Corn Exchange in Wallingford has a problem.

In heavy rainm, blowing from the south, we find that certain

Clearly it will be rotting the wooden supports.

But for the immediate problem, it drips on the customers.

The leaking roof isn't the only thing volunteers want to fix.

We are taking the opportunity to put in new air conditioning

and ventilation and we will revise the staging structure to take

Seats will come out, they will be refurbished

and the place will be redecorated and when people come

in hopefully they will see a nice new Corn Exchange.

It's not the first time work has been done on the Corn Exchange -

the glass roof was covered in 1975 when the venue first became

Today's refurbishment will cost half a million pounds and half

of that has already been raised since January.

It's got a great history and we're very proud of that.

However, what we are looking at now is future proofing this

place so that in 25 years it is still somewhere

that is vibrant, that the local community can use and that

will carry on attracting a wide range of people

The Corn Exchange will close in June for work to begin.

It is hoped the lights will come back up on a refurbished

When former England goalkeper David Seaman took part in the TV

show Dancing On Ice more than a decade ago,

He met his wife - and developed a passion for skating.

Now he's supporting an appeal to raise funds that would help

Britain's number one figure skating pair to train.

They're competing in the World Championships -

Will Glennon went to see them practising in Swindon.

They are the current British pairs champions in figure skating.

Zoe Jones and Christopher Boyadji have been a pair

We are trying a new element called a triple twist.

So I throw the girl in the air - the girl being Zoe!

This is a new element we will introduce in Helsinki.

They have to work full-time and train as well and there's not

enough funding to have a full-time coach, so when they launched

an appeal, former footballer David Seaman and his ice-skating

They met through the show Dancing On Ice.

We knew what they were up to and when we found out

they were struggling with the money side, we thought,

It was great to see them in the Europeans, as well.

Getting to a world-class standard is expensive and we wanted to give

them the best start they could have on their path to world and hopefully

After a 13-year career break to have children,

I was coaching, but I wasn't doing anything physical on the ice.

It was very hard to get back into it.

I got myself at a certain fitness level before I started the pairs.

They are not expecting a medal at the World Championships,

but they hope the experience will be invaluable.

I can't believe it was 2006 when David Seaman was in Dancing On Ice.

The goals from Oxford's match last night are coming

Now more of today's stories with Sally Taylor.

Later the cricket season is just round the corner

We will be assessing Hampshire's prospects for the new campaign

shortly. It's internationally renowned and,

here in the UK, is widely recognised as our leading centre

for the teaching of deaf children. But Mary Hare School in Newbury

also has a problem - its primary and secondary school

sites operate from some less than ideal buildings,

which are several miles apart. They want to amalgamate,

by building a new primary school. It'll cost millions, and,

as Allen Sinclair reports, they'll have to raise

every penny themselves. Small class sizes and expert

tuition come at a price. Deaf children from up and down

the country are boarders here with the ?51,000 pound annual fee

paid by their home council. It means that, unlike schools run

by their local education authority, Anything it wants to do,

any improvements it wants to make, Moving the primary school four miles

across town to the secondary school We're already looking at various

architects' plans and finding these things cost a lot of money and it

will mean a big fundraising push. The school has thought

outside the box to make The Arlington Arts Centre is a space

for the pupils during school time, but outside those hours,

it's a business, making money back for the school -

money that in recent years has helped fund new accommodation blocks

for the older children, and recently a refurbished and much

improved swimming pool. In the water we don't have any

of our hearing aids or cochlears in, so it's hard to lip-read,

whereas now we can lip-read The pool also brings in money -

hired out to the wider community. But it's perhaps here

where the school's lateral Mary Hare set up its own hearing aid

repair shop 15 years ago. But it's now fixing hearing

aids sent in from Another stand-alone business set up

by and for the school, uses state of the art technology

and 3D printers to manufacture the individually moulded earpieces

for tens of thousands Half of the profits made by these

spin-off companies are ploughed My predecessors recognised

that there was a real need for schools like ours to diversify

if they were to survive and we always have plenty of good

things we want to spend more money on for the sake of the

children's education. There's a long road yet before

the new primary school is even granted planning permission

but the hope is to open by 2010. And this school has proven time

and again that where there's Last week we revealed

Southampton City Council's plans for a factory,

building prefabricated homes on the site of the former

Ford Transit plant to help solve Well, it seems prefabs -

a quicker alternative to bricks and mortar -

are sprouting all over. A new factory which makes

modular homes has opened It's creating more

than 150 new jobs. At first glance it looks

like any other building site across the South,

but these homes are being The modular units are built in here,

then decorated and fitted out on-site too before being transported

to anywhere in the UK. The company has recently moved

from London to West Sussex The numbers of staff

are increasing monthly now. We've gone from a workforce

of about 45, we're in excess of 100 now, it will be 150

in a couple of months. The company has won a ?250 million

contract for student These 110 units will

go to Nottingham. Modular units can be fitted together

to create a variety of different style properties up to 25 storeys

high, including houses or hotels. Among the new staff are many

trainees and apprentices. As I'm kind of working

with the finance and admin department mainly, I'm learning

all the different areas, so I work with lots of great people

that teach me all sorts of things. I put everything I have learned

from college into practice, It's a fledging business

so it will only go up, I'm in the window

fitting department. We need to train people up

in the skills that are required This is not like laying

bricks and the older forms of construction which have been

around for centuries. Proponents believe prefabricated

homes offer a cheaper and quicker solution

to Britain's housing problems. The two-bedroom show home

on side would cost ?130,000 However, they still need land

on which to be placed, and face the traditional matter

of requiring planning permission. it's new players and new hope

for the summer ahead. The new season just around

the corner and for Hampshire it's new players and new hope

for the summer ahead. Let's join Kris Temple

live at the Aegis Bowl. Yes, the new county cricket season

just nine days away and preparations for the Radio Solent crack forum.

Lots of talk this week about the T 20s side, although the blue ribbon

remains the County Championship. Here at the Ageas Bowl, Hampshire

held their media day today, to talk through the hopes

for the campaign ahead. Fresh from a preseason trip

to Barbados, the English spring felt doubly harsh for photocalls today

but with the additions of South African signings

Kyle Abbott and Riley Russo, hopes are high that Hampshire can

blossom after last year's I think we're going to have a really

good crack at the championship. The vibe amongst the guys

is good towards that. Having a real experienced squad,

the bowlers and the batsmen, you look around you and you say

there's not too much inexperience so there's no reason why we can't

have a run at the championship. Australian batsmen George Bailey

arrives in a month to assume the four-day captaincy

while James Vince will lead Using George's experience

and giving myself a bit of a break in the season

will hopefully work well. He's got a lot of

captaincy experience. I'm sure I'll learn off him and it

will be good for the other guys do With Liam Dawson developing

on the international scene, and West Indian fast bowler

Fidel Edwards still to arrive, Hampshire's squad looks capable

of launching plausible bids for silverware in all

forms of the game. names in the Hampshire squad this

season. Much talk about the future of the game TV 20 wise. The

Hampshire chairman joins us now. You have been a supporter of this new

competition, how significant a few days has up Dean for the game? An

amazing couple of days, I'm sure releases in the county chairmen are

about to take will change the face of English cricket for decades.

There will be eight venues for this tournament. Will this be one of

them? The IGS bowl and other facilities should be among those

being the silk -- considered, but I will leave it to the committee to

decide. What do you say to those who are worried that a new tournament

might kill off the current domestic game? They will have nothing to

worry about, the competition will continue as it is. This is the form

of cricket that young people want. You have a lot of power. As this

season. We want to keep everybody fit and then have a fight for the

top, which we haven't done for some time, so fingers crossed. Rob, thank

you. Rob will join the panel for the Radio Solent cricket forum which is

live from 7pm. Oxford United warmed up

for Wembley in an emphatic fashion, and in doing so,

boosted their League Followed by a smart

finish from Joe Rothwell. Everton loanee Conor McAleny then

scored either side of half time And after Bury's consolation,

McAleny completed his second Oxford Oxford face Coventry in Sunday's EFL

Trophy final at Wembley. Non-league Basingstoke Town

Football Club have announced plans to groundshare

with Farnborough next season. Basingstoke's Camrose Ground

is to be sold off for development, when owner Razi Raffak departs

at the end of this campaign. Funds will be put into a new home,

but a site in the town Short-term they will

co-habit with Farnborough, but Basingstoke are also talking

to Whitchurch United about Four school rugby teams

from the South today experienced the thrill of a lifetime,

by playing at the home There were mixed results, two wins

and two defeats. Thomas Hardye School

from Dorchester had a great day, This try from Thomas Reid

in the 62-7 win over Dr Challoner's. Wellington College from

Crowthorne Royal Latin College, But Bishop 's word worse were

unfortunately defeated. We've all heard of King

Arthur and Robin Hood - He's another medieval

legendand his escapades He also founded the

city of Southampton! Hollywood may not have come calling

yet for this particular hero - but his story's now being told

in a exciting new way. David Allard is in

Eastleigh to tell us more. Everyone is here tonight to

celebrate that local legend at the lodge of a graphic novel funded by

Eastleigh Borough Council telling the story of Serb Beavers, so budge

up, Batman, the world has a new superhero and it has more back story

than all the X-Men put together -- serve beavers.

In ancient England, a land of warriors and monsters,

in the city of Hampton, wrapped in celebration and morning,

Forget Game of Thrones - this is a hero that's home-grown.

The joy of storytelling is in this boy who grows up and goes

through terrible things and becomes everything he's

It's a tale of knights and maidens and dragons and swords

He finally comes home again and reclaims his birthright

The medieval legend of Sir Bevis has been chronicled

through the centuries by minstrels and storytellers.

He's said to have inspired King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt.

His fabled sword Mortglay now hangs in Arundel Castle.

There are echoes of the legend throughout Southampton -

the Bevis Valley area of the city for example, and then the stone

lions at the Bargate that represent those slain by Sir Bevis in defence

Creating the comic book was its own epic challenge.

It can literally be a painful journey and when we got there,

to have it in our hands and when you flick the pages

for the first time that are professionally done,

It's difficult to separate fact from fantasy in the story of serve

beavers, and someone who knows that well is Lynne Forrest. You are

written a book about him. What have the guys got into this book that

impressed to? They managed to get the whole feeling of the violence,

the fantasy, the extraordinary power of that time as it was represented

in the original stories, they have captured that very well. They

brought it to life in a way that hopefully will be as appealing to

the modern audience as it was to the original audiences because there

were so many different versions of it. But one thing that remains

constant is the role of Southampton. Yes, that is the one real element in

this story and it never very right from the beginnings in the

Anglo-Norman version. Blood And Valour, the website is the place to

go to find out how you can get a copy of this or the online version.

Now onto the weather. It was chilly today. More cloud than originally

thought that tomorrow may be the warmest day of the year so far.

Plenty of sunshine although it might be hazy. Many of you have been

taking photos but it has been a great day and blue sky bob, he

didn't catch the blue skies in Portsmouth, they were grey skies

overhead and also some cloudy conditions on the Isle of Wight but

we had one or two brighter spells to the day and this was the scene at

Warfield in Berkshire, blue skies to be seen. Tonight the cloud will

increase and like last night we will see some light rain at times but

there could be the odd heavy burst, especially in the second part of the

night with some showers turning into longer spells of rain. The further

south and east you are, the clearer the skies, temperatures remaining in

double figures for many so quite a mild night. We may see single

figures in the countryside, so when wet start to tomorrow, but once that

showers clear and the weather front moves away West, the sunshine will

make an appearance and in light winds we could see the highs up to

20 Celsius. These are temperatures in towns and cities but sunshine in

places may be hazy with medium and high level cloud feeding in.

Tomorrow is a pleasant evening and tomorrow night we could have one or

two showers from the West but clear skies initially, the breeze will

increase to start Friday, temperatures tomorrow night some of

two tonight, those between ten and 11 Celsius, so some rain at first on

Friday blood and improving picture and winds fall lighter with a

widening of isobars in the afternoon, so this showers will

clear and we will see patchy cloud and sunny spells and it will feel

pleasant although Friday not as warm as tomorrow, so on Friday a high of

15 Celsius and temperatures over the weekend will drop back down to the

seasonal average. A good deal of clothes to start the day, a

potential high of 18 or 19 Celsius, rain on Friday and thunderstorms

possible on Saturday. Just to remind Hampshire cricket fans the forum

starts in a few minutes on BBC Radio stolen. We're back