10/03/2017 South Today

They're the ships which will transform the Royal Navy,

and they've already boosted Portsmouth's economy.

The first of the two new Queen Elizabeth class

aircraft carriers is due to arrive in Portsmouth later this year.

More than ?100 million of government money has been spent readying

Portsmouth's dockyard for her arrival, and today marked

They are just putting the finishing touches to the ?100 million project

to prepare Portsmouth's naval base for the arrival of

A huge jetty has been rebuilt, buildings have been upgraded

and shipping channels are being dredged,

It is all giving the city and economic boost.

The whole of Portsmouth is going to benefit from these carriers.

I mean, people are going to want to come from miles around to see it.

So I hope everybody benefits from that, you know,

and these are an amazing feat of engineering and I think they will

These computer-generated images show what the new aircraft carriers

will look like when they come into Portsmouth.

The decision to base the new ships here means a steady flow of work

It is estimated around 2000 people across the region will be involved

That extends around the Solent region, the companies around

with the various technologies, their supply chains going further

and further back, but also, a much larger and much more skilled

workforce that is going to be coming into the naval base each day.

This really is a significant sea change for Portsmouth.

We now know, with the majority of the surface fleet being based

here, Portsmouth Naval Base is in a good, strong position.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is in the final stages of being fitted out

Today, the Navy said that she will arrive

here in Portsmouth later in the year.

Steve Humphrey, BBC South Today, Portsmouth.

A former vicar who abused a choirboy more than 35 years ago has been

jailed for four years after his victim gave evidence,

using eye-tracking technology which turned his blinks into words.

Cyril Rowe, who's 78, was sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court today

after being found guilty of three counts of indecent assault

The victim died of motor neurone disease before

hearing that his abuser had been found guilty.

A care worker from West Sussex who stole from a vulnerable

pensioner she was looking after has been given a suspended

39-year-old Theresa Stratton from Littlehampton was caught

on a CCTV camera stealing money from David Skerritt's wallet.

Stratton was sentenced at Chichester Crown Court

to 12 months in prison, suspended for 18 months.

She will also have to do 260 hours of unpaid work.

Three new road upgrades have been announced for our region.

They're aimed at tackling some of the worst bottleneck

junctions in the South, where tens of thousands of drivers

find themselves stuck in long queues day after day.

The announcement comes a little more than a week since a scheme

to upgrade the A27 at Chichester was suddenly ditched

The big winner - or loser, depending on your point of view -

is Guildford, with two junctions off the A3 both getting upgrades.

They are the northbound off-slip at the University interchange

and the southbound off-slip at the Stoke interchange.

The schemes will cost a little over ?4 million pounds in total.

The schemes will cost a little over ?4 million in total.

Both are notorious traffic hotspots getting in and out of the town.

This is what people who drove into Guildford today made of it.

I think the town centre needs more attention.

There is too much traffic going through the town centre.

We could do with a bypass, to be honest.

I'd appreciate it, but I would like them to work on it quickly,

Even my uncle talks about it having been an issue

for about the last 20 years, so, yeah, it's long time

that something was done, really, so hopefully,

we can sort it out, because it's a complete bottleneck

So, yeah, I hope they get on with it quickly.

The other scheme getting money are improvements to the M27

?2.5 million pounds will be spent here.

Now, this comes just over a week since a scheme to upgrade the A27

So is the 250 million earmarked for that now going to smaller

This is what the Secretary of State for Transport,

The decision in Chichester was a difficult one.

The divisions in the local community about what is the right solution

for Chichester are so pronounced that I felt it better not to go

We are making improvements at Arundel, and we are not simply

diverting the money into today's announcement, we will spend

the money thoughtfully and carefully that isn't

Well, West Sussex County Council has got together with other interested

parties to lobby to get the scheme reinstated.

So far, they've written to the Secretary of State

to try to get him to reconsider the decision, requested a meeting

to talk about the way forward, and are arranging community

workshops to build a case to get the scheme back on the agenda.

Chris Grayling did sound pretty resolute though,

so we'll have to wait to see if that is really a road to nowhere.

The road schemes announced today are due to be completed

Football, and Brighton took a step nearer to

The Seagulls beat Derby County 3-0 at the Amex.

The first goal coming from Anthony Knockaert

This was followed by a second from Sam Baldock,

Brighton remain in second place in the Championship table

on goal difference, but are now level

Do you remember the Summertime Specials of the 1980s?

This was it - it was, of course, a TV variety show featuring song

The show moved around various seaside towns and some

Today, there was something of an '80s revival as one

of those opening sequences was faithfully recreated.

It's all part of the 35th anniversary

of the Bournemouth Bay Run, and this year's has an '80s theme.

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

We're back tomorrow at 5:50pm and there's more

Alexis is here with our regional weather forecast.

It is going to be quite a mild night tonight, and through the course of

the night we will see some mist and fog patches develop, and already

there is some dense fog in a few places, particularly over the hill

tops and for the coast. Tonight, temperatures dropping to eight or

nine, and the mist and fog will be with us first thing tomorrow. It

might be stubborn to clear here and there but once it does with the dry

air coming from France, we will see the southerly breeze break the cloud

up to allow decent amount of sunshine. In the sunny spells, we

may see highs of 14 or potentially around 15 or 16 Celsius. Cast your

mind back to Thursday, temperatures could be similar and it could be a

similar feeling day. The rest of the weekend, tanning and settled on

Sunday, a lot of cloud and ad breaks of rain at times. Monday

Where the sunshine broke through to the North of Cornwall temperatures

rose to 17 degrees under the blue skies. For many of us the cloud

didn't break up through the day, keeping temperatures pegged at

around about 13 degrees. That was the high today in the London region.

Mild over night with the blanket of cloud around. Most places dry. Rain

will work into parts of Northern Ireland and Scotland through the

early hours of Saturday. It will be mild. Temperatures six to ten

degrees. Frost-free to start off your