24/04/2012 South Today

Hello I'm Sally Taylor. Welcome to South Today. The region's top

stories tonight: Jobs lost, jobs gained. British Gas workers react

to the loss of 500 call centre posts as Barclays says it's

creating another 300. I worked for British Gas and stenting 81. It is

a disaster. -- since 1981. Tailored to fit the current climate. Small

businesses talk of the challenges they face. You have to work seven-

day weeks, early mornings and all that to just survive. As new

figures say half of young drivers text at the wheel, just how much

does using a smartphone affect their concentration? And the

inspirational racing driver who has battled cancer to get back behind

the wheel. I did not sit there and cried, I said, can you today? --

can you cure me? It's been a mixed day of employment news in the south.

The IT company CSC, which employs around 2,000 people at its

Aldershot headquarters, announced it's cutting 640 jobs across the

country. The news broke less than 24 hours after British Gas said it

was axing up to 550 call centre posts in Southampton. However,

Barclays Bank said it intended to create 300 temporary and permanent

posts in Poole. We'll have more on the Aldershot job losses in a

moment. First, Steve Humphrey has been talking to British Gas workers

who have been talking of their shock at the company's plan. It is

a tough time for British Gas staff in Southampton. It was horrific.

Everybody was crying, horrible. We are still very raw. The plan to axe

up to 550 jobs at this call centre was announced yesterday. I have

worked here since 1981. It is a disaster. Especially at my age, and

may never work again. Finding new jobs is going to be a struggle and

at the moment there are just 6200 people out of work and claiming

benefit in Southampton and currently 1300 vacancies in the

city. At the very least, British Gas should look very seriously at

support for retraining and redeployment and some package that

will assist large numbers of people. British Gas says it is planning to

close the call centre because one in three customers make contact

online. The truth is that we need fewer people in call centres at a

time when trying to keep costs down to help households with bills.

unions said they will fight hard to persuade British Gas to think again.

Unison says it will be rigorously examining the company's business

case with a view to defending members' jobs and trying to avoid

compulsory redundancies. British Gas proposes to transfer 50 staff

in Southampton to an office in Chandler's Ford. The city council

and Jobcentre Plus say everything possible will be done to help the

500 people expected to lose their job. Meanwhile, Barclays Bank

confirmed that it is creating 300 permanent and temporary jobs at

their customer complaints department but 126 jobs will be

lost their after a review of the pensions department based in the

same building. More jobs are under threat at an IT firm based at

Aldershot. Computer Services Corporation is to make 640 staff

redundant in addition to 500 job cuts announced in February. CSC

works from more than 100 locations across the UK and it's not yet

known how many staff will be lost in each location. It hopes to lose

as many posts as possible through redeployment and voluntary

redundancies. Obviously I am concerned at any job losses but it

is important to understand that CSC Corporation is a very large firm

which employs 7000 people across the UK of whom about 1300 are in

Aldershot. It is less than 10% of the overall people working for the

company. In the current economic climate, running your own business

can be a lonely, difficult experience. This week, Salisbury

City Council has joined with the Chamber of Commerce and sponsors to

host a free event aimed at supporting small businesses in the

area. From financial to marketing advice, the aim is to lend support

and give confidence to entrepreneurs who are determined to

succeed in challenging times. Briony Leyland reports. Lift up

your arms... And will measure your chest. Jason is a very modern kind

of Taylor. He measures a wide range of clients, from lords and ladies

to jockeys and actors and his business in Salisbury is seven

years old. He says the last few years have been challenging and the

attitude of the banks have not helped. We had lots of cash flow

problems and a very small shop and banks were saying no to us. You

have to raise your game in this economy at the moment and try over

the odds. We are here late at night, people think businesses work from

nine-to-five, you must work seven- day weeks and those early mornings,

you must deal with that to just survive. Today, Jason joined other

business people in Salisbury for the first big business event. The

chance to make contacts and develop. Elliott Jones has a gardening

business and says that finance is a big issue. It has definitely got

more difficult, they are asking more questions when you are looking

to get finance. Three and four years ago, it was very different

and it was much simpler. It has got more difficult and that is a

problem for many businesses. I need somebody to help me in that

direction. Edward makes children's furniture and he is here to find

out more about marketing after a tricky time. He is beginning to

feel more confident. I am starting to see the light at the end of the

tunnel but if you asked me this one year ago, I would say, what am I

doing? Organisers say there is no doubt that businesses in Salisbury

and beyond are facing challenges but they hope that extra support

will help to make that hard work paid off. The climate is mixed,

there are businesses struggling but a lot are very ready to do business

and invest but they just want more confidence in the market. They

wanted that people are there for them and there is a sense that

something is happening. It is beginning to turn. We really need

more confidence and for the business community to rally

together. Of course, banks are a key part of that business community.

Earlier, I spoke to Peter Ibbetson, chairman of small business for the

Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest. I asked him whether banks were

being generally unhelpful in lending money. I will be at the

Salisbury business event tonight and I am talking to businesses to

make sure that we are doing everything we can to make sure we

can help them with start-ups and make sure that the help businesses

trade out of the down cycle and one of the questions will be, how can I

access finance? NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland bend about �100

million every day but we ask a lot of questions and it is our

responsibility to make sure that businesses can repay. That optimism

goes against what the Bank of England figures show, that lending

to small and medium businesses continues to fall, 3.9% lower in

February this year. What the Bank of England report tells us is that

we are lending the same amount of new money to businesses and we are

lending about �100 million every day to businesses but what is

happening is those businesses are repaying that borrowing much faster

so the amount of money that businesses borrow is reducing as

the total amount but we are still lending a new money and that is all

about confidence. People say there is no confidence, the economy is

fragile. How do you give businesses optimism? It is about confidence

and research that we have done tells us that about one-third of

the businesses in the country do not want to borrow and invest

because they are nervous. It is quite a small number, about him %

at one not invest because they cannot get the money from banks so

most of the time we lend the money but we need those businesses to be

confident. In my 38 years, we are seeing finance at the cheapest

price it has been. So some people say that there are fees and

commissions are going up? They are not. NatWest and Royal Bank, if you

take good, secure credit, we lend to that business on a three-year

fixed rate at just over 3.5%, including fees. Rates are very low

in relation to what they were. Thank you. Poole's new �37 million

Twin Sails Bridge will be closed overnight tomorrow for a series of

tests and adjustments to be carried out, just weeks after it opened.

Transport bosses say some minor issues have arisen since the

lifting bridge opened to traffic following emergency repairs to the

road surface. The bridge, which links Poole Harbour with Hamworthy,

was originally due to open at the end of February. It will reopen on

Thursday. Still to come in this evening's South Today: Sarah Farmer

has the weather forecast and is attempting to stay dry. Brollies at

the ready. We have got lots of rain in the forecast tonight and

tomorrow. In fact, there is a weather warning in place. I'll have

more later on... A Dorset postman who claimed he was forced out of

his job has lost his employment tribunal. William Blight from Corfe

Castle said he felt bullied when he was ordered to abandon his bicycle

and deliver mail by trolley. Royal Mail told the tribunal it has gone

out of its way to resolve the situation. Ambulances had to be

diverted away from a Sussex hospital this afternoon after it

ran out of water. Tanks at the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards

Heath ran dry after the system that should have automatically refilled

them failed. South East Water has pumped enough water into them to

supply the site for 24 hours while it investigates what went wrong. A

drugs company is mounting a legal challenge against four health

trusts here in the South who have been reducing costs by using a

cheaper alternative treatment for a common eye condition. Novartis,

based in Frimley, makes the more expensive officially licensed drug

and wants to put a stop to doctors prescribing the more affordable

medicine. Allen Sinclair reports. This company has spent years and

money researching and developing drugs to treat age-related macular

degeneration, and that effort was rewarded when the National

Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence licensed Lucentis but

that is expensive at �740 for a dose and some doctors in the area

believe another drug is as effective at a fraction of the cost.

Eileen's sight was failing but for the vast number of years the slow

degeneration has been stopped and she does not mind which drug

doctors prescribe. I have not noticed any difference between both

of them. As long as it was still treating my condition, I would not

mind. Unsurprisingly, the makers of Lucentis are angry to lose business

to this cut-price alternative and they lunched at judicial review,

saying... It is unacceptable to put the safety of patients at risk to

the widespread use of unlicensed treatment when the licensed

medicine is available. It undermines the process that was

introduced to safeguard patients. The cheaper drug it is approved to

treat cancer but its wider properties and price mean that

Primary Care Trust in Hampshire want the freedom to use this as an

alternative and in a joint Immaculate disease Society in

Andover says this by one and evidently very patient. If experts

cannot agree, then this hardly seems reasonable to pass the

decision to the patients. A legal challenge will undoubtedly

influence what drugs patients are offered in the future. A court has

heard the friend of a man accused of strangling his girlfriend feared

he would kill her on the night she died. Emily Longley lived in New

Zealand but was studying at Brockenhurst College. The 17-year-

old's body was found in Elliot Turner's bed at his parents' house

in Bournemouth. Tom Hepworth reports. Tom Crow, on the left of

the picture, told Winchester Crown Court that Elliot Turner had become

suspicious that Emily was having an affair after finding messages on

her phone. He said that he fantasised about killing the

aspiring model and at one point asked him, how should I do it?

Should I centre on fire? Or drown her? The jury were told that Mr

Turner had found out that MLA planned to meet another man at a

night club in Bournemouth on the night before she died. Tom Crone

said that Elliot Turner went looking for them armed with a

hammer, saying he was going to back to her. He returned later, saying

that he had killed her and dumped her body in a nearby car park.

Picture, Elliot Turner told him he was joking. In cross-examination,

the judge asked him, he did absolutely nothing and you say you

believe in? Tom replied, no, I stayed with them. Why? I felt

intimidated. At this point, he broke down in tears. The court

heard that Tom Crone said the following night, she and Mr Turner

were at his home and Mr Turner asked him to kill her. He refused.

When the couple had gone inside and started fighting, he told his

neighbour, I think he is going to kill him money. Her body was found

in his bed the next morning. The prosecution alleges that Elliot

Turner strangled her. He denies murder. His parents are accused of

covering up for their son and all three deny attempting to pervert

the course of justice and the trial continues. Last year at least 26

people died in crashes caused by drivers using a mobile phone. This

internet campaign produced by Gwent Police is designed to warn young

people of the dangers of using the new generation of smartphones while

Research carried out in Berkshire for the Institute of Advanced

Motorists has found that half of young drivers have used their

phones to text while at the wheel and one in four even check Facebook

pages and emails. Our transport correspondent has been finding out

what impact that has on the way they drive. This is a driving some

later near Crowthorne. At the wheel, 17 year-old Calvin Cotton. He

passed his driving test for less than one month ago. We have sent

you a Facebook message saying, don't worry... This woman is

measuring his reaction times when he is distracted by Updating his

Facebook status or sending texts. You don't really have much control

over the car. I was not really in my only end. I was all over the

place. Research has found that more than half of all young drivers have

sent texts at the wheel and one in four of them have read e-mails were

checked Facebook. On the test track, members of the under 17 Car Club

try manoeuvring into a series of parking bays whilst texting. An

instructor sits in the car for safety. By an just asking Kelvyn to

send me the names of all the planets in the solar system.

almost at once, his driving sufferers. I am not asking him to

tell his friends on Facebook what he is doing. You look down to type.

You look back up and you are in the wrong place. It is very distracting,

especially at high speed. A we saw him knock over some road cones and

we saw him looking down more at his son. Ang Lee also saw him taking

longer to complete the circuit. All these things together mean that his

driving was worse. A number of people using the internet on their

phones has doubled in the last three years. The consequences of

doing that behind the wheel are obvious. But, unlike drink-driving,

it isn't seen by many young drivers as socially unacceptable. The

warnings are clearly there. It's a small island in the middle of the

Atlantic Ocean made famous when Napoleon was exiled there. The

British overseas territory of St Helena is home to 4,000 islanders.

But 7,000 of its descendants live here in the South. The highest

concentration in the UK. At the moment, the only way to travel to

the island is by ship and can take weeks. But now, the British

Government has agreed to pay �250 million to build an airport.

Rachael Canter has been finding out what this means for the South's St

Helenian community. Sandie hasn't seen her six-year-old son, Pascal,

for seven months. She came here to work as a housekeeper in Fording

Bridge in Hampshire. I had to go away to find work, to pay be enough

money to keep myself and my son. It was very difficult. I know that a

lot of people do this on St Helena. I never thought I could but I had

to, but many times I wanted to turn back. When put in this position,

you will do it. April is a student in Portsmouth. This is the most her

family have seen of her in two years. Usually once a week and will

catch up with my family on the island. St Helena's remoteness is

part of its charm. Sailings from Portland ended last year. Now you

have to catch the ship from Cape Town. Environmental campaigners say

the airport will impact the ecology and go but the plans on hold,

saying �250 million was too much. The Coalition government disagrees.

The UK is giving �24 million each year just for the life support to

keep the island going. By investing in the airport, we will not have to

do that because the island will become self-sufficient. When the

airport opens in 2015, 35,000 visitors are expected each year. A

recent poll showed more than half of the islanders living in the UK

will return. Sandy is now living. She does not want to miss the boat

when it comes to future opportunities for her and her son.

It will create jobs. So he has a chance to stay put on the island.

And do something for the island, instead of having to come away.

Hopefully, it will create a future for i-Generation, the young

generation. It will be quite right. He might be a pilot! That is a good

idea! Bringing families together. By the sport... We will meet a

young man who has beaten the odds but we start with football. I was

at a charity event last night and quite a lot of people were on their

telephones checking the score from West Ham? Absolutely. I was

debating on Twitter. What is the scenario for Southampton? If they

get promoted with the crowd, that would be the best way. But they

have some work to do. To guarantee that place. Closest rivals West Ham

won at Leicester last night, which means the Hammers could still pip

Southampton to second spot. West Ham came from behind to seal a 2-1

win, thanks to Jack Collison's strike. That was a good night for

Sam. He is still in the race. Southampton know a win on Saturday

against Coventry will guarantee them promotion. Anything less and

West Ham could claim second. Goal difference and goals scored could

come into play. If they were level on all those, Saints would go up

due to a better head-to-head record. We hope it does not come to that.

You can watch the drama unfold here on BBC One this Saturday lunchtime,

Southampton versus Coventry is live here and on BBC Radio Solent.

Tonight we bring the story of a motor racing champion who's battle

against cancer we reported a year ago here on South Today. In 2011,

Dean Stoneman should have been impressing Formula One scouts. In

fact, he was having treatment to save his life. The Southampton

driver has spoken exclusively to us about the challenges he's faced and

his hopes for the future. Here's Emma Vardy. He was the rising star

on the brink of a promising new chapter. Dean Stoneman, at 20 years

old, worked his way through the ranks to win the Formula Two World

Championship. And after that test drive at the pinnacle of his sport,

he was, it seemed, destined for more success. I was training very

hard for the test, to get myself ready. Then... In 20th January 11,

I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. It was a big shock to the

family. It spread to my liver, lungs and chest. I was told that it

was not nice. The cancer was so advanced that when he saw a

specialist, he was taken to hospital and started chemotherapy

the same day. He was told that had been one week later, he could have

lost his life. I didn't sit there and cried, I said, there is a 40%

chance of survival. It's hard to take. But I just dealt with it. The

number one goal was to survive. Dean withdrew from racing and began

undergoing intensive treatment followed by four operations. 14

months since diagnosis, he is free from cancer and has been back

behind the wheel, testing his strength, despite still feeling the

side effects of treatment. first time coming out of the pit

lane, there were some tears in his eyes and the whole pit lane watch

and drive, and that was a special day. To get behind the car was very

tough. After being out for the season, and my hands and feet are

affected by one of the drugs I have been given. But I am determined and

I want to race. One year on from now, Deane hopes to raise

professionally but the next few months will be about getting back

to that level of debt does he wants had that is needed for the demands

of racing. I struggled with that this but I am chipping away and I

am in the gym every day, just to get that back. After what I have

been through, I want to get back to racing. Those close to Dean say

that as in his racing, he has shown the same determination and desire

in fighting cancer. He still has some way to go but with belief, he

will recover and return to the racetrack. And we wish him all the

best. Lots more of that story online on our website. Thank you.

Now the weather. Sarah is with us. And for the final time, you're

going off to have your baby? Here is, my last one! Make it a good

Anni Stevens took this dramatic looking sky above it will happen

today. Nick Edwards said this picture of showers over Cowes

harbour. Out with a bang. We have the odd shower but they are drying

out and for a time we will have some dry weather, this slice of

clear skies in store but not for long. This is what is waiting in

the wings. Low-pressure working its way end and that brings rather

hefty downpours through the course of tonight. And then to tomorrow as

well. The showers are around for this evening and they will slowly

fade away, clear skies for some time and then the cloud builds and

the wind picks up and you will see that band of Balloo sweeping in.

Heavy downpours and temperatures at seven or eight degrees under the

cloud and were we see the clear skies, 5 and 6. Tomorrow morning,

there is an Met Office yellow warning. That is for the wet

weather. We will see some torrential downpours but also some

really crusty went, particularly for the rush hour tomorrow morning.

Gusts of 50 mph inland and along the coast, 60 mph. It is a blustery

start. The afternoon, some showery conditions develop but these could

be rather sharp with some hailstones and thunder.

Temperatures, if you see any slice of sunshine, up to around 13 or 14

degrees. But that brightness will be quite limited. Tomorrow,

overnight there will be wet weather and try intervals here and there

but still some rather heavy bursts and overnight temperatures of

between eight degrees and 10 degrees and that showery theme

continues into Thursday and you can see that low pressure gradually

going northwards, we are left with that unsettled weather. Still

showery conditions, isobars tightly packed with strong, gusting wind

and blustery showers for Thursday and there will be some brighter

skies at times. Friday, things settled down and it will add for a

short while, still some showers and lighter wind but perhaps more