22/10/2013 Spotlight

pretty soggy. Thank you. That is all from the BBC. We can now

Good evening. The international maritime organisation is preparing

to introduce a ban oont discharge of PIB at sea around the world. The

chemical killed thousands of seabirds around our coastline from

Dorset to Cornwall in two incidents earlier this year. Our Environment

Correspondent Adrian Campbell reports. Today at this school in

south`east Cornwall, pupils were chatting about a real and important

change they have helped to bring about in environmental protection at

sea around the world. PIB claimed the lives of thousands of see birds

from Dorset to Cornwall on two occasions earlier this year. But now

after a campaign involving thousands of people from the South West,

including many school`children, it seems there is to be a global ban on

discharging this harmful chemical at sea. It shows that people take their

natural environment seriously. 25,000 people contributed to

petitions and that has had an effect and the work of people like the PB

contributed to that and we have got this stuff banned in double quick

time. We are delighted. This is a horrible substance. We sea it `` we

saw it coating these birds and it has been banned and ships can no

longer discharge it. Children, shocked by what they saw on the

region's beaches, wrote directly to ministers. This is a letter I'm

writing, dear Sir and madam, I am a student in Cornwall, I am writing,

because I'm annoyed at you for making it legal for ships to dump

PIB. One parent apt this school who helped to campaign says it is time

to make sure the international maritime organisation enforces

tougher new rules on the Kem wall. `` Chemical. If the ships carried a

vile of what they were `` file of what they were carrying, it could be

easier to find where the source of it. This school produced its own

anti`PIB wrap and for them it has been a positive experience. They

have made posters and stuck them all up along here. And they have tried

to stop it and it now has stopped. Hopefully with the change in the

international regulation of PIB at sea, scenes such as this will

finally come to an end. Cornwall Councillors today rejected calls for

a possible 6% Council Tax rise. A group of backbenchers wanted the

option investigated as the authority battles with spending cuts of ?42

million next year. But opponents argued it would lead to a costly and

risky referendum. Earlier I spoke to our reporter Tamsin Melville who was

at the full council debate in Truro today and asked her why the option

was thrown out. ??FORCEYELLOW Well a particular figure loomed quite large

over proceedings at County Hall today and that was the Communities

and Local Government Secretary, Eric Pickles. Now Cornwall Council, like

other authorities, are facing cuts to its budget handed down by central

government. And this also governs under a policy brought in under Mr

Pickles for any attempts to mitigate these cuts by putting Council Tax up

by more than 2% has to be put to a public vote and a referendum. Today,

the majority of Cornwall Councillors argued this referendum would be too

costly. Up to possibly ?1 million to stage. They also argued that it

wouldn't be justified to ask the Cornish public to dip into their own

pockets to pay what would be on average about ?75 a year more to

protect services. Now, the cabinet's answer to it all is to put the

Council Tax up next year by nearly 2%. I spoke to the leader, John

Pollard after today's vote. I believe that 2% is acceptable to the

majority. I believe those who want to freeze will come to see that 2%

is a good decision and a relevant decision and gives us a reasonable

budget to work with and I believe that those who want it higher will

recognise that 2% is acceptable to most. So what happens now, Tamzin?

Well, Cornwall Councillors will meet again next month to discuss this

budget for next year and this possible nearly 2% tax rise. A

bigger hike could be brought back up again then, but there didn't seem to

be much appetite for it today, so that is quite unlikely. In the

meantime, those that did support it are warning those that didn't that

once the cuts start to kick in next year to things like children's

service, buses, adult social care, that they might have some explaining

to do. Thank you. An 80`year`old woman is recovering after the car

she was driving came off the road and crashed in front of a house near

Exeter. Firefighters used cutting equipment to release the woman who

was later taken to hospital. The incident happened in Bradninch last

night. John Danks reports. The Vauxhall hatchback ended up inches

away from this house, but what is more remarkable is the journey it

made to get here. ?? FORCEDYELLOW This lady was coming from practicing

at the church, she is in the choir, and then she got up over the hill.

As she was driving down, she lost control of the car and the car just

ended up landing on the tree, hit the tree, and just came across the

fence and landed down by the window. The elderly driver was trapped, with

firefighters having to cut her free. She was lucky that she survived.

Because you won't imagine when you see the picture of the car that

someone came out. She was walking when she came out. Police say the

80`year`old driver was not seriously injured. Meanwhile the cause of last

night's accident is yet to be explained. Justine, whose partner

was in the room near the crash, was relieved there was no loss of life.

This morning she surveyed the damage. ??FORCEYELLOW That can be

replaced. But you can't replace someone's life. The NHS in Devon has

pledged to improve health care for gay people. Research shows many

experience discrimination and poorer health care than other people. Now

Devon's health commissioners are among the first in the country

working with the charity Stonewall to ensure lesbian, gay and bisexual

people get the services they need. Our Health Correspondent Sally

Mountjoy has this report. The Intercom Trust has given Scott the

help and support he says he's struggled to find from the NHS. His

work mates don't know he's gay, so he doesn't want to be identified and

Scott's not his real name. Accepting his sexuality has been at the heart

of long`standing anxiety and depression. But at a recent

appointment, the clinician didn't know. The psychotherapist was

actually unaware that I was gay. Which I find quite shocking really.

Just feels like a key point that is going to be connected to my

treatment and my therapy has been missed out. Now the NHS in Devon has

been accepted as one of just five health commissioning groups in the

country to work the charity Stonewall as champions for lesbian,

gay and bisexual people. It's about ensuring that health services are

sensitive and responsive and they understand how people might feel

about accessing health services, or perhaps openly saying they're

lesbian, gay or bisexual and if we can reduce some of that stigma and

discrimination, people would be more willing to access health services

locally. ?? FORCEDWHITE Research by the charity Stonewall has thrown up

a number of health inequalities. For example, lesbian and bisexual women

are twice as likely as others never to have had a cervical smear test

and they're much more likely than others to self`harm. 3% of gay and

bisexual men have tried to take their own lives in the last year,

compared to 0.4% of men generally. Sam Holden's job is dealing with

patients' feedback and complaints. He said, unlike some of his previous

employers, the NHS is supportive of him as a gay man, but he's glad

Devon has pledged to make things easier for patients. We would like

to lead by example and show other clinical commissioning groups how

it's done, how they can interact with their gay, lesbian, bisexual

population and certainly change attitudes. The Intercom Trust is

helping the clinical commissioning group identify the changes needed.

They say making lesbian, gay and bisexual people feel accepted when

they need health care will make a difference. Just by opening up the

conversation by the CCGB and accepted by Stonewall as a Stonewall

champion will start off lots of different conversations which can

only lead to positive things. Police investigating abuse at Devon care

homes have arrested seven peoplement four men and three women were

arrested at the new defunct Atlas Project. Two men and a 26`year`old

woman and two men aged 38 and 42 and two women 24 and 28 had been bailed

until March. A nine`year investigation into the sinking of a

French trawler with the loss of five fishermen off the Lizard has been

closed by two French judges. Campaigners have always claimed a

submarine was to blame for the loss of the Bugaled Breizh in 2004, but

that's never been proven. Lawyers for the families of the crew have

announced they will launch an appeal for the investigation to be resumed.

There's an increasing number of new homes being built and sold in the

South West after a number of years in which projects were put on hold

by developers. The latest construction survey from the royal

institution of chartered surveyors shows growth in building and sales.

Johnny Rutherford reports. Checking out the new build as a possible new

home. Here we have got a third bedroom. This development of 13

houses in Plymouth shows how the market for house building is picking

up. Just over half of these houses have been sold before completion

after a viewing of the show home. All of the homes have the standard

finish. The market isn't quite back to the days of selling off plan, but

it has had a significant increase in production. The Royal Institution

for Chartered Surveyors welcomes the growth in the construction market.

Of course the last six years we have seen very little building and it's

widely analysed that we need more houses. And to see this rise in new

home construction is very, very good news and not before time. The

improvement in the financial market has allowed more people to make

decisions about buying property. House builders are now embarking on

projects that they may have been sitting on for a while, with the

confidence they're going to sell. The market is confident at the

moment, buyers have confidence, the level of available mortgages has

improved and we have seen rents increasing, therefore we have seen

buyers that have been holding off buying and waiting to see which way

the market is going to go come out and buy. However, there are reports

of shortages of some building materials, such as bricks.

After months of suffering major losses, pig producers in the South

West are finally being paid more than the cost of production. Factors

such as high feed costs have seen many farmers go out of business. The

South West is the third largest English region in terms of pig

production. Anna Varle has been finding out more. Jeremy has been

farming pigs for nearly 30 years, but in recent times he's barely made

a profit. But the future is now starting to look brighter. I am

feeling more positive, I think with pig prices a bit more static, but

there is a long way to go. We still need a margin in that pig price. We

need to be investing, we need to be moving forward. After years of

losing money, many farmers are starting to get paid the price it

takes to produce pork, but it's come at a cost. The pig industry lost 7%

of its national herd in the last six months of 2012 alone, due to so many

farmers going out of business and it's cost the UK millions of pounds.

Pig producers have been been losing money since 2010, so they need a

sustained period of profitability to be able to recoup their losses and

then be able to reinvest in their businesses for the future. So for

the moment it is positive, but we need retailers to maintain their

support for pig producers. But this news is of little comfort to those

who have already called it a day. Lester farmed pigs for 21 years, but

after such little return, he decided to sell this unit as a going concern

last year. He's now focussing on his Christmas business. You're trying to

keep people employed, we are trying to make a margin for ourselves so we

have personal drawings from that business and for the last three

years that was at a position of really just breaking even and

perhaps a little bit better. And that's not really good enough,

because you want the investment. You want sufficient margin to enable you

to reinvest in the business and so it was a reluctant decision, because

I enjoyed outdoor pig farming and it's quite a wrench to change

direction. But for now it is good news for those like Jeremy who have

decided to stay in, but the question is how sustainable are these prices

in the long`term. He rode his first winner at Exeter racecourse 19 years

ago. Today, Britain's top jockey was back where he started his rise to

fame and fortune. AP McCoy is a household name and Exeter have

honoured the Irishman by naming a bar after him. Dave Gibbins has the

story. He's 22 winners from the 4,000 milestone and he has been

champion jockey on 18 occasions and won the Grand National three years

ago. Tony McCoy, or if you prefer, AP is the attraction for race goers

up and down the country and he was back at the track where it started

for him to open a bar in his name and remember the first success in

Exeter in 1994. The trainer, Edward, still lives in the area. I didn't

know him until until I rode the horse. He doesn't train that many

horses, but the ones he did train he was successful with. I will be

forever grateful to him for giving me that ride. He has riden a few

more winners for me since that and also we have had a few skirmishes

with the Stewarts at Taunton one `` stewards at Taunton one day between

us. He always remembers, yeah, I like to think that I'm just a very

small part in his career. Despite the fact that Tony McCoy fell in his

first race today, wouldn't it be fitting if he does record his

4,000th winner at the course where he made his name? At least he was

able to walk away. Yes, it is good to see. Now, the village of

Dulverton on the edge of Exmoor was home to a world championship at the

weekend. Bolving is the art of imitating a stag during the mating

season. This is what it should sound like: URGH! Excuse me. My stomach

usually does make that kind of noise at this time of the evening! The

idea is to trick a stag into answering your call ` and this year,

almost 50 competitors took part. Andrew Plant was there. Right good

evening and welcome to the tenth annual World Bolving Competition

here on Exmoor. You're going to be judged on how well you imitate a

stag. The start of this annual competition and a demonstration in

the art of exactly how bolving should be done. Urgh! Urgh! Urgh!

Somewhere between Tarzan of the Apes and a roar of pain ` an impassion of

Exmoor stags, in this their mating season. `` imitation. Competitors

need a call loud enough to carry across the rolling countryside and

perhaps persuade a real stag to answer back. It's the October rut,

so it's the mating season for the red deer stags and, yeah, this call

that they do, the bolve, it sends out a challenge, "I have got some

hinds here, I'm a big, ruthless stag, high on testosterone."

Word`of`mouth has made the bizarre world of bolving increasingly

popular and crowds now come from miles around to test their tonsils

and pick up some tips. Right. OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! Jane Colman from

Ilfracombe training hard for her first bolving Championship. And so

as darkness begins to fall, the bolving finally begins. Quiet,

quiet, quiet. URGH! Between calls, everyone listens for the sound of a

response from the countryside below. OH! OH! OH! OH! Bolving clearly open

to interpretation. WOAH! WOAH! With some surprising variation in each

attempt. WURGH! It is the most resounding that's seen to be most

successful. URGH! URGH! URGH! Each attempt is marked by torch light by

a panel of judges. Jane didn't take the title this time around, but says

she'll be back to do it all again this time next year. Urgh! URGH!

URGH! URGH! Natalie makes a similar noise when she wants a cup of tea in

the afternoon. I am sure I have heard the that. They sound like him

from Star Wars. A unique collection of pictures taken by four

generations of photographers from the same family is to be sold at

auction. More than 200 photos of shipwrecks taken by the Gibsons of

the Isles of Scilly will go under the hammer next month. Spotlight's

David George has been looking at the collection. Now The raging sea in

the South West has caused the enof many a fine ship. More than 200 have

been photographed in their dying throes by generations of Gibsons.

The business began in 1869. Many were taken in difficult conditions,

with the photographers carrying heavy equipment over the rocks to

capture the dramatic shots. The collection was started by John

Gibson, the family say he obtained his first camera at sea. Each

generation carried on the work and continued to photograph wrecks in

the area. San ra Gibson ` Sandra Gibson still runs the business. We

have always photographed a huge diversion `` diverse range of things

that have been happening in the area. Ship wrecks were just a part

of that, but in that day and age there were a huge amount of ship

wreck and disasters in the area. So you they took those pictures

alongside everything else and over the years as the collection has

built, we have made a particular effort to continue with the ship

wreck archive. In many cases these pictures were made using glass

negatives, which allow us to see detail, even by modern standards. My

favourite is a picture of the wreck of the Enterprise, after the drama

was over and they took a picture of the rigging and the broken masts and

broken wood. For that day and age, it was what you would call a very

arty picture. The last really big wreck on the area was in 1997 and

Frank Gibson was there. He was supposed to be retired. I was

running the business, but he ran faster than I ever could go and get

pictures of that wreck. We took pictures of it together and it

seemed, as it was the last big wreck in the area, it seemed the right

place to close the ship wreck archive really. The action of the

archive is expected to make around ?150,000. Some fantastic

photographs. And some were taken right at the start of photography.

Gibsons, a family name and very famous. Sorry about some of the

sound in that. Now time for the weather and hopefully we are hearing

David loud and clear. And we have some lighting tonight. Sound and

lighting, it is a miracle. This television business will catch on!

We have some reasonable weather tomorrow. Probably the best day of

the week. A lot of dry weather and some sunshine. The problem is the

wet weather we will see tonight. Not op some wet weather, but some gusty

winds. That is a summary for tomorrow, much quieter and lighter

winds and some respite from the wet weather with some sunshine in the

afternoon. How far, we have got tonight to get away with first.

Tonight we will have some strong winds and also some heavy rain in

the form of thundery showers. Those showers will be around later on

tonight. There is some now particularly across parts of Dorset

and Somerset. You can see some over Dartmoor as well. But to the west we

will see some heavy and thundery down pours. Is in these showers we

could have gusts of wind 50 to 60mph. The brighter colours showing

where the heavy showers will develop. By the small hours they are

beginning to move away. But they are still around by the morning and

still a brisk south`westerly wind. The winds though easing tomorrow.

Tonight temperatures cooler than they have been with temperature

between 11 and 14 Teggs `` degrees. Warmest along the coast. Tomorrow,

the showers will be around first thing. But through the day there is

some lengthy spells of sunshine. It is probably going to be the best day

of the week. So make the most of it. And much lighter winds. The lavs two

days the `` last two days the winds have been very strong and we have

had rain as well. So it would be nice to get a dry day. A brisk

westerly wind and a top temperature of around 16 degrees. But feeling

warm and pleasant in the sunshine. It is however short`lived. I will

come to the forecast later in the week in a second. For the Isles of

Scilly, some showers in the afternoon, but they will clear in

the later afternoon. A top temperature of 16 degrees. The times

of high water: Now for our surfers the surf's been

quite choppy along the south coast. Very messy conditions. The north

coast after some clean waves today, the waves tomorrow will be on the

choppy side. Not as strong a wind as they have been. Not as big on the

south coast. But also cleaner than it has been for the last two days.

The sea temperatures are around 16 degrees and if you're hetdest

heading out to `` heading out to sea, the wind are lively first thing

tomorrow morning. South`westerly force five to six. Veering westerly

force four, showers or fair with mainly good viz griblt. ``

visibility. Now looking further ahead. This clutch of cloud here is

the cloud that will produce the showers tonight. We are keeping a

closy `` eye on that. It is one area of low pressure and does move out of

way come the middle of day we have got high pressure and fewer isobars

on the the chart. But by Thursday we have a weather system coming in from

the south`west and Thursday night it becomes windy and wet again. Some of

the rain on Thursday is going to be quite heavy. Particularly in the

evening. Friday is a mixture of sunshine and showers. And we

continue unsettled as we head into the weekend. Thank you. And we leave

you tonight with memories of the singer Noel Harrison, who has died

at his Devon home at the age of 79. The son of the late Rex Harrison,

Noel lived and worked for most of his life in America, but he returned

to Devon ten years ago. Here he is performing his best known song,

Windmills of your Mind. Goodnight. # A circle in a spiral, a wheel

within a wheel # Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning wheel,

as the images that unwind in the wind mills of your mind! #