04/01/2017 South Today

us, you can keep up to date throughout the night with the BBC

Hello and welcome to South Today, I'm Jo Kent.

Calls for businesses to review the way they treat smokers

Southern discomfort - some strike days have been cancelled

but now it's been announced there'll be more misery on the way.

And back to an era when trains made you smile -

rare footage of a railway which once covered the Isle of Wight.

More than a million people in the UK have completely given up smoking

because they started using e-cigarettes -

But it's been revealed that, across the South, many workers

who vape could be facing a daily temptation, because their bosses

expect them to use smoking areas alongside cigarette smokers.

That's despite Public Health England saying firms should "make a clear

Phil from Southampton was a smoker for 24 years before he discovered

Since he made the change, he says he feels fitter,

his sense of smell and taste have returned and he got a surprise

I said I'd stopped smoking about a year ago,

he said, you're now a nonsmoker, so since then all my

have been filled out as a nonsmoker, which is

brilliant, it saves me a fortune.

Public Health England estimates that vaping is 95% less

Last summer, it produced a set of guidelines for

employers which said they should support

smokers to stop smoking and stay smoke-free

and make clear the distinction between vaping and smoking.

But Phil's employer, like most in the South,

It's classed the same as smoking, so we smoke in the same shed

It's the same thing, they don't see any difference between them.

Ian Green runs the Southampton Vaping Centre.

He says it isn't right that many of his new customers will

return to work this week to find a lack of support from their bosses.

It would be very positive if councils or larger employers could

work with the vapers and define an area where they can,

whether it be indoor or outdoor, to allow them to vape

without actually being next to the smokers.

For the time being, anyone trying to make

an informed decision on vaping may find their judgment's being clouded.

Not everyone is as persuaded by the merits of vaping.

Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard is chair of the Royal College of GPs.

I spoke to her earlier, and I started by asking her

whether she agreed with Public Health England

that people using e-cigarettes should be found a place to smoke

Well, it's up to individual employees what is realistic

For many employers, they just say, please don't smoke in the building,

For those employers that do provide space for smokers,

which they are not obliged to do, but they do, then if they have

facilities to provide separate spaces, that's great,

because certainly, some vapers say that the smell of cigarette smoke

is tempting them back when they have already cut down.

Not many employers will be in a position to provide that.

A case study we have spoken to was told by his GP that

after a year of smoking e-cigarettes he was then classified

Is that something you would tell your patients?

No, personally, that is not something I would tell my patientss

because with e-cigarettes, you are still using an addictive

And while it is safer than using a tar-based product,

which is cigarette smoking, there are still some risks

although we can't quantify them as clearly as smoking.

We have got 50 years of evidence about smoking.

The e-cigarettes evidence has only been building over

And that's where the uncertainty lies at the moment.

What would you like to see the advice about vaping change to?

Well, as far as I can see, from a health professional's point

of view, by all means, if you have patients

who want to quit or cut down on smoking and would like to try

It's a helpful adjunct to cutting down.

But I would not see it, would not want to see vaping

encouraged as a healthy way of life because we just don't

Train drivers on Southern Railway have announced they'll

cut their planned strike next week, from six days to three.

Members of the union Aslef were due to walk out from Monday.

The industrial action will now be held on three days next week -

But the union has also announced a further three days

Southern says it's a cynical ploy to reduce the impact

It will lay on 200 buses on each strike day.

The advice from Southern yesterday was not to travel next week.

Now the strikes have been cut back, the advice is,

But for many who use the network, travel is always essential.

I work at Gatwick Airport and literally, trains

I am always late and you run out of excuses eventually.

I heard it's because somebody doesn't want to have to open doors

But I very think people should just be thankful that they have a job.

Southern's parent firm, Govia Thameslink, is in dispute

with the unions over the introduction of

There have been disruption and strikes since April and Aslef,

which represents nearly 1,000 Southern drivers, has signalled

No trains will run at all during next week's strike.

Southern is laying on 200 coaches instead which can carry

With three days of strikes likely to affect a fourth,

Southern says Aslef is showing contempt for the travelling public.

It's shameful, the action being taken by the union leaders here.

This is disproportionate and unreasonable for the changes

We are making these changes to improve the quality of service

that we can offer to our passengers that we desperately need

So, for passengers, frustration on the daily commute

and as of this week, the annual fare increase has

A Hampshire mother accused of plotting to topple the Iranian

government has had her appeal heard in court.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is a British-Iranian charity worker

Her husband Richard, whose family lives in Fleet in Hampshire,

says their daughter Gabriella is having to cope without her mum.

She is getting older, and as she gets older,

about when we are going back to London and where

She talks about prison as being Mummy's bedroom.

She doesn't really understand things in the big

sense and she's still young enough to live in the moment.

She is in a place where she's loved and she's looked after.

Cases of fly-tipping in Reading have gone up by 20%

since a new permit scheme was introduced for dumping waste.

Last year, West Berkshire Council withdrew funding

for its tip near Reading - leaving some residents

travelling up to 20 miles to the nearest council facility.

Since then there's been a rise in scenes like this.

It costs Reading Borough Council more than ?100,000

It's 50 years since the last British rail steam train ran

Today, there's just one short line from Ryde Pier to Shanklin.

But the railways used to crisscross the island.

With archive film never before seen, our transport correspondent

Paul Clifton has taken a look at how the end of the steam era changed

The Isle of Wight once had 55 miles of railways.

This is 1928, when trains linked most towns and villages.

From the 1950s onwards, the lines gradually closed.

At the end of 1966, Ventnor died because the line from Ryde

to Ventnor served the principal holiday resorts on the island,

Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor - and it took Ventnor about 30 years

The island always had old, worn-out trains, second-hand

The last steam train ran on New Year's Eve, 1966.

The last train was packed to the gunnels.

The trains were probably much busier than an average New Year's Eve,

and as ever, people were very much coming for their last trip.

The final seven miles of railway from right

to Shankland were electrified, ready for a more cast-offs.

This time, former London underground trains still soldiering

In reality, the island has two heritage railways.

That's all from the South Today news team this evening.

Here's Alexis Green with our regional weather forecast.

Temperatures overnight tonight will drop like a stone.

We may have freezing fog patches and there

will be a widespread frost so you will need your

In the countryside, temperatures could fall as low as -7C

Even in towns and cities, lows of -2C.

So a bitterly cold start to the day tomorrow.

That freezing fog will lift and we will see plenty of sunshine.

Barely a cloud in the sky but temperatures will struggle

to rise because of the light northerly winds.

We are expecting highs in some areas of just 2C.

For southern coastal counties, a high of 4C to 6C.

Tomorrow night, eastern parts we may have the odd pocket

Cloud will increase in the early hours of Friday morning

It's a band of rain moving southwards and eastwards and that

will arrive from lunchtime onwards on Friday.

The rain could be heavy in the afternoon and into the evening

but it will clear overnight Friday into Saturday morning.

So, as we look ahead to the rest of the week,

tomorrow will be bitterly cold at first.

Quite a lot of cloud around on Friday with rain from lunchtime.

Temperatures creeping up a notch or two and turning milder into the

weekend. A guarantee on your journey to work

tomorrow, if you are nipping out to the shop for a paper, somebody will

talk about how cold it is. Looking at today, the weather