12/02/2017 South Today

Good evening, I'm Edward Sault with the news in the south.

A 40-year-old woman has died after falling from a third floor

It happened at 9.40 this morning at Clarendon House

The woman was taken to Southampton General Hospital

Meanwhile, a woman in her twenties is in a critical condition

after falling from a block of flats in Southampton.

The woman was discovered on the ground by police

at Mede House in Salisbury Street yesterday morning.

Hampshire Police say they're not linking the two

A Royal Navy warship based in Portsmouth has rescued 14 sailors

after they became stranded in the Atlantic ocean.

The Clyde Challenger was returning to the UK when strong winds

HMS Dragon was diverted 500 miles and reached the yacht

She provided what's been described as "life-saving

assistance" to the 14 sailors - 13 of whom were British.

We got hit with a wave which knocked us over.

Basically the top of the mast hit the water and snapped.

The crew just did what we are trained to do.

It was quite a big swell so every time the boat went away,

we'd lose sight of it before we could see what was going

on with our own boat, so it was really quite rough.

A woman from Sussex has been given a 15 month sentence

after threatening to kill horses at a yard in Shoreham.

Kirsty Geoghegan, who's 25 and from Hove, tried to blackmail

stable owners at Buddies Yard into paying her ?5000.

The horses had previously had their tails and manes cut off

The stable owners say they're relieved the judge handed out

Absolutely gobsmacked that she got a prison sentence but very ecstatic

We went through a horrendous, absolutely horrendous...

The messages we received and everything we went through.

Ambitious plans to completely change the structure of local government

in Dorset have been condemned by one of the county's most

Six of the county's nine local authorities have backed plans

to replace the current set-up with two unitary authorities.

But the other three councils want to keep things as they are.

This is a very crude map of Dorset's current nine council areas,

with the economic powerhouse of Bournemouth and Poole keen

to merge with their neighbour Christchurch, and the other five

councils lumped together to form a separate unitary

However, three of the smaller councils have all voted no to being

Cheers greeted the merger plans being rejected

People want to be able to keep control of their own destiny.

Bournemouth and Poole can join together if they want

to and meanwhile we have a combined authority which is a strong

There will be less councillors so less representatives of people,

But it also freezes out diversity of opinion.

It works well in Cornwall, Wiltshire.

It's not a ground-breaking proposal we've got here.

Nine councils cannot be the best optimal arrangement of delivering

public service in a county the size of Dorset.

The final decision rests with the secretary of state

If he says yes, there's calls from Greens, Lib Dems and Ukip

Now for a look at the weather with Jennifer Bartram.

Some cloud and showers through the first part of this

We will see some clear spells first thing on Monday morning.

And the temperatures down to around three or four degrees,

That wind is going to be a feature through Monday.

We should see plenty of dry and fine weather through the morning,

some sunshine coming through after that cold

But that breeze is really going to take the edge

Around nine or 10 degrees on the thermometer,

Through the rest of the week, it stays mild, with a few

Our next updates are in BBC Breakfast.

I'm sure most of us are glad to see the back of this weekend. It's been

cold, bleak and at times wintry. It provided some beautiful weather

Watchers photos, like Sheffield earlier today. I suspect some of the

lying snow will be blown around by strong winds starting to develop.

The odd spot of drizzle into the far