08/03/2017 South Today - Oxford

It means Kris's husband has had to move out of their home

More than 200 people were on Cleeve Link's books.

The virtual tour that takes you back to the ancient city.

And award-winning Oxford author Mark Haddon shows

A major care provider has gone into liquidation leaving

councils in Oxfordshire, Swindon and Gloucestershire

struggling to find care for hundreds of elderly people.

Cleeve Link provided a range of services,

including personal care, Meals on Wheels and night-sitting.

Another agency has picked up the work in Swindon,

while in Oxfordshire, the county council has stepped

Kris Felton's husband Ian has needed carers to help him

He has MS and in 2010 broke his back.

Earlier this year the couple were told he only has a year to live

Then, to top it all off, on Friday he was told he would have

to move into a care home, as the company paid to look

He was depressed before that, so it hasn't been something that has

brightened him up in any way, he's turned into himself

He says things like, "What is the point?

In Swindon, the 175 patients that were under Cleeve Link's care

are now being looked after by another company.

In Oxfordshire, the county council's found new permanent home care

for nearly half of the 127 people affected - just two have had to go

Our staff have been covering some of these calls,

family have been supporting and we also have some other care

agencies in Oxfordshire that have been able to step in and either

support people in the short term or they may end up taking

the packages on in the long term as well.

So, it has been a number of different mechanisms that have

allowed us to support people to stay at home.

The council has also spoken to Cleeve Link's staff to help them

It's not known why Cleeve Link went into liquidation but one issue

affecting all care agencies is staff recruitment and the situation

The council says they need an extra 750 new care workers every year

for the next eight years in order to meet the demand

As Ian's bed lays empty, Kris is waiting to hear

The council pays the highest hourly rate for home care in the whole

country and now the local Labour Party want to

bring back home care into the control of the council -

that'll be debated at the next council meeting.

Meanwhile, the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced today

an extra ?2 billion for adult social care funding, though it's

not yet known how much Oxfordshire will receive.

What is clear though is that for people like Ian and Kris,

who need care, a solution can't come soon enough.

A firm has been fined ?600,000 after a sub-contractor hit an 11,000

Steven Brown, from Swindon, suffered serious burns to his hands,

face and arms when he dug into the live cable

He spent two weeks in an induced coma.

Today, Amey LG Ltd admitted breaching health

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder

of a former Hong Kong policewoman in Milton Keynes.

64-year-old Hang Yin Leung died in hospital after she became ill

following a burglary at her home at the end of January.

Police are still appealing for any information about the incident.

Meanwhile, a man being questioned about the murder of a woman

in Ludgershall near Aylesbury has been released on bail.

47-year-old Samantha Blake-Mizen was found at a house on Sunday.

A postmortem examination found she died from a head injury.

It offers the chance to explore ancient Rome through virtual reality

The computer model - which gives 3D panoramic

views of the city - has involved a decade of work

Students who sign up to a free online course will be

able to see the temples, the Colosseum and the back

streets of the city as they appeared in 315 AD.

Up until now, this has been the only way to really explore ancient Rome.

But now, anyone can strap on their virtual sandals.

So, this is us walking into Rome in 315 AD?

We're walking into the city of Rome as it appeared sometime around

the early fourth century, that is right.

This is when the city was arguably at its prime

and of the hundreds of places here, even the fourth-century tourist

Shall we have a look at the Colosseum?

I think everybody likes the Colosseum.

So, let's go the gladiator's-eye view down into the arena.

You can use a variety of modern methods to explore this ancient

city, you can have a look at it on your desktop computer,

or you can go the whole hog and go for full immersive virtual reality.

As they say, all electrodes lead to Rome.

A lot of people are interested in ancient Rome, would like to know

more about it and the ruins are wonderful and you should all go

and see them, but they are not complete, of course.

Sometimes it is a bit hard in the mind's eye to put them back

into the state that they would have been when they were new buildings.

The free course launches next weekend.

So, it is a case of friends, Romans, countrymen...

The Oxford author Mark Haddon started his career as

an illustrator, although it was his novel, turned into a play -

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time -

Now, he's staging his first-ever exhibition of portraits.

He told Angela Walker how he's always been fascinated by faces.

The multi-award winning book and stage play,

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, has been

But Mark Haddon has been drawing for a living for longer

It seems obvious to me that people's faces are the most interesting

He's currently exhibiting his portrait collection

This is a picture of Paul Farley, the poet, and whose work I love, one

One of the things I particularly love about this painting is that

I often improve people's wardrobes when I am painting them,

and he had a rather dull brown jacket on that day,

but there's a rather intricate pattern on it now.

And when Paul first saw the picture - Paul is a very avid bird-watcher -

and he said, "You've given me teal plummage!"

One of his subjects is fellow Oxford artist Tom Croft,

Was there a reason why you drew me without eyebrows?

Is there some significance behind that?

There are these odd little weird technical things, aren't there?

If you're using a line of a certain thickness,

As well as Mark's portrait of Tom, you can see Tom's

I chose the kind of dingier lower lighting, not to suggest

..other than a subdued palette to create this kind of...

You've got an inquisitive personality and therefore I kind

of wanted to communicate that a little bit.

The annual boat race between Oxford and Cambridge

Cambridge won last year and the Oxford crew are determined

Sinead Carroll went to meet them training

Sometimes working for BBC South Today is pretty tough.

Looking out over some glorious South Oxfordshire countryside,

the feel of the sunshine on my face and the sound of oars hitting

Seriously, though, others have had today a lot tougher.

We get up early in the mornings at about 5:40am, 5:50am.

We have an ergo session on the machines in the morning

and then, after that, you get some breakfast,

and try to get a four-hour shift in the lab -

four, five hours - and then after that quickly try

and eat some lunch and then back down here.

Last year saw Cambridge beat the Dark Blues for the first

The president of the Oxford Boat Club rowed for Team USA

He's bringing some of that spirit to the Oxford boat.

Last year was just so ruthless and cut-throat and you get knocked down.

I mean, everyone got knocked down a number of times and you have

Will's rowed in the boat race before, only the last time

It is pretty strange coming from one side,

where you are sort of brainwashed to hate the other side,

to come to the other side and, you know, have a very similar

Oxford have three and a half weeks to turn this training on the Thames

The boat race is on the BBC on April 2.

Sarah Farmer is on the way with the weather forecast.

Hello and a very good evening to you.

Now, the worst of the wet weather is behind us for today.

Still one or two patchy bursts of light rain here and there,

but in the most part, it is looking like a

We will have some breaks in that cloud at times as well.

Temperature-wise, we are looking at lows of 8 or 9 degrees

through the overnight period, so a pretty mild night all in all.

We start tomorrow then with a little bit of cloud in the picture,

yes, but it is a dry day and a fine day too.

We will see some brightness and indeed some good sunny

And feeling warm in that sunshine, temperatures likely

to creep up to 13 or 14, possibly touching 15 degrees

So a pleasantly mild day for the time of the year.

Taking a look ahead to Friday and it is a settled day,

but it will start on a bit of a gloomy note.

Some drizzle and quite a bit of cloud around,

we will see one or two brighter breaks at times but predominately

a cloudy day but a little bit of light rain here and there.

Some nice sunny breaks to enjoy at times.

It looks like Friday will be a gloomy day and then rain starts

today on Saturday but we cheer up a little later.

outlook, staying mild and Nick has the bigger picture across the UK.

Hello. Spring is in the air with temperatures reaching 14 or 15 in a

few spots today as they will again over the next few days. Very

pleasant in the sun. The daffodils were loving that in York. More

places under blue sky tomorrow and dry. Tonight heavy showers moving

across Scotland on strong to gale force winds, some may clip Northern

Ireland. It's a mild night in southern England and South Wales but

damp and drizzly, misty with coastal and hill fog elsewhere. Temperatures

in between and dry: This damp weather hangs on from parts of the

Channel Islands, to Cornwall. Elsewhere, it's getting brighter in

South Wales and southern England. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland

some sunny spells around from the word go. The further north there is

a stronger wind