20/12/2016 South Today

Tonight, Berlin's Brandenberg Gate is illuminated with the colours

On the programme tonight, calculating the continuing cost of

strike action on Southern Rail. 27 days in, it is already hundreds of

billions of pounds in lost business. And a candlelit vigil in Portsmouth

tonight, as donations pouring as the city centre hope and support to

refugees fleeing conflict in Syria. Today's the 27th day of industrial

action on the Southern Rail network. Strikes have already forced

some commuters to change jobs or even move house,

as they struggle to Beyond the impact on peoples'

lives, though, what's A new study puts the loss

at around ?11 million a day. The University of Chichester has

based its calculation on the thousands of passengers

who are late, have missed work, or had to work from home

on strike days. It estimates the industrial

action has already cost And with nine more strike days

scheduled, the total is likely to reach 400 million

by the end of next month. This from our Business

Correspondent Alastair Fee. Ladies and gentlemen,

we do apologise for That is due to too many people

being on this train. At a Sussex comedy night,

there is only one joke in town - but it is becoming harder

to laugh at. Quite honestly, it is not a joke

any more, it isn't a joke. We can laugh so much,

but when it comes to affecting people's lives and livelihoods,

then that is not a joke. At the University of Chichester

they have been looking at the impact of the strikes in terms of lost GDP,

the value of goods and services produced

as a measure of the economy. The total impact per strike day

is probably 9.5 million at a conservative level,

and perhaps as high as 11 million if we look

at a broader level of impact. In a nearby warehouse,

they have been losing as much as This company is among the largest

manufacturers and distributors When we've got

limited staff here, obviously, that productivity is reduced,

so we're trying to do the same amount of volume

of work with less people, One of the biggest concerns is

that it reduces the attractiveness of this region as a place to do

business, so the risk is that investment is discouraged

and ultimately goes elsewhere. With the rail going out,

that knocks out connection, puts pressure on to the road

network, and the road network is failing as well,

and so that is saying to people, there is not enough

resilience, we should not be They say laughter is the best

medicine, but the jokes are getting This study into lost productivity

suggests it has cost the economy It is likely to be much higher,

and doesn't account for the loss of sales or the impact on

personal finances for people # Every day's an endless

stream of cancelled trains A candlelit vigil was held

in Portsmouth this evening as people gathered to show solidarity

with refugees who've left the war-ravaged

Syrian city of Aleppo. Hundreds of people came together

at Guildhall square - to donate aid to be sent to those

whose lives have been Hundreds of people have gathered

here in Portsmouth to show solidarity with people

across in Syria. At 7pm, there was

a minute's silence. People have also been

showing their generosity, donating hundreds of bags full

of relief supplies. Things like clothes,

bedding and food, and also It's amazing, it's amazing, it gives

you faith in humanity, doesn't it? It shows Portsmouth is an awesome

place, it's full of great people, It shows that people are prepared

to get together and help people in a terrible situation,

and to me that's really heartening. I've seen things that

have obviously... People have obviously gone out

and bought a whole lot of stuff It's not just people discarding

things that they don't want to know, it's people really thinking,

what can I do to help? It's really important

to think about, locally, in our country, what's going on,

but at the same time The charity, Don't Hate, Donate

has already delivered 150 tonnes of

relief supplies to Syria. They say it will take two or three

weeks to get these supplies Next tonight, closing the BBC

Monitoring Centre at Caversham and places the operation

in jeopardy. That's according to

an influential group of MPs. The Defence Select Committee says

moving the work from Reading to London risks losing specialist

staff, undermining national security, and should be of great

concern to the Government. Our reporter, Joe Campbell,

is at Caversham tonight. Joe, what goes on there,

and why is its future a worry Caversham Park was set up as a

sister station to Bletchley Park, and the job of people there was to

crack codes, but the job of people at Caversham Park was to read

between the lines of what was said publicly. A radio station is run

publicly by an ally of the country's president. What you are hearing is

the President's view of the world. All very useful for negotiating a

trade deal with them, more concerned when he sends tanks across the

border. This was traditionally paid border. This was traditionally paid

for by us all as part of more general taxes. In 2010, the

government got the BBC to pay for it. That is where the problem lies,

according to the select committee. If the government had not

stopped the funding, then I don't think this crisis

would have arisen, and that's why we recommend that the government

needs to restore the funding. The local MP, who is also a

government minister, brought the select amity to look at the site. He

agrees with their concerns about national security, and pours scorn

on the BBC's idea that this is the best way it can save ?4 million per

year. The BBC clearly has enough funds

to cover the small amount of money I would say the best place for BBC

Monitoring is within the BBC family. However, it needs to be funded

properly, and with ?5.5 billion, that is possible to do if the BBC

has the will to do it. Of course, the BBC might have been

hoping for more than ?4 million in savings, this is prime real estate

overlooking the Thames. But the select committee has poured scorn on

that idea, saying that the site was effectively bought with tax payers'

money, so if there's going to be sold, it should be the taxpayer who

benefits. It should not be used to plug gaps in the licence fee.

Thank you. It's been free to park in some

market towns in West Sussex the district council says it can no

longer subsidise rural town As Matt Treacy reports,

some residents in Steyning are so worried about the potential

impact of parking fees, they're calling for their

taxes to go up instead. These Dickensian

demonstrators are angry. A great big bag of

car parking charges! They want to keep their car park

free, and they are willing to pay Allow us to put a little bit

on the precept to keep car You don't often get many

stories about people wanting to pay more tax,

but people want to keep this high-street, and they know that car

parking charges will have a serious detrimental effect, not

just on the businesses, but also in the parking

restrictions as well. At the moment it's free

to stay in Steyning - just pop to a local shop,

get a free cardboard clock, Horsham District Council has

a ?4 million black hole in its budget and says it cannot

keep spending over ?300,000 running car parks in towns

like this for free. From April, it will cost 75p

per hour, and locals can buy a ?12 pass that lets them park

all year round. Parking charges will not

kill the high-street, but they will kill three or four

businesses, and those three or four go, and then

you lose another couple, Coming from Worthing,

where it's more expensive, I'd say that's fairly cheap,

but it has the perks of having free parking,

it was one of the reasons Well, if we had to, I suppose

we would, but we'd rather not. Horsham District Council says

it does not want to make this town an exception

to their new parking charges. People here say they

are just being Scrooge. That's it from the news team

for this evening. We're back during

BBC Breakfast tomorrow. Meanwhile Alexis Green is here

with the regional weather forecast. Thank you, a dry day for some today,

with some sunny spells, but MacLeod is increasing, and overnight tonight

we're expecting light rain and patchy drizzle -- the cloud. By

dawn, it will affect many places. Temperatures tonight falling to

round 2-3 C in the countryside. Chilly start tomorrow, wet start

with this band of rain moving eastwards. Once it clears, we're

looking a dry interlude before rain arrives during the afternoon. Some

brighter spells to be had, but heavier rain through the afternoon

and into the evening, with temperatures into double figures

with a high of 9-12 C, and a south-westerly breeze. The rain will

eventually clear tomorrow night, and the skies will clear with light

winds, a touch of frost possible first thing on Thursday morning, as

well as mist and fog patches. High pressure starts to build it on

Thursday, the outside chance of a shower, high cloud will start to

feed in over the course of the day, and that will turn the sunshine

hazy. But a deep area of low pressure is heading towards us

through the latter part of Friday, into Saturday. As a result, that

means we're going to see some very strong winds.

country it's worth knowing the national forecast. Over now to

Tomasz. So, the weather's going to blow a

few cobwebs away in the coming days and maybe a few other things, as

well. How stormy is it going to get? For most of us probably not too

terrible. It is, however, going to be very nasty across parts of

Scotland on Friday. The clouds are racing across the Atlantic and we

will see a storm by the time we get to around about Friday and then

Friday night. At the moment we have a weather

front crossing the country, we have had dreadful weather in the

north-west, it was cold and raining in Northern Ireland