06/04/2017 Spotlight

Good evening, welcome to Spotlight. and on BBC One we now join the BBC's

Tonight, how term-time holiday fines will affect one

We would urge, yet again, to look at other countries and see

how they get a buoyant tourism sector, more affordable holidays

for hard-pressed families and having no negative impact on education.

We're in Fowey, speaking to holiday makers to see how they feel

Also tonight, the future of Drakes Island in Plymouth Sound.

After years of planning wrangles, permission has finally been given

Paying the price of dishonesty - why there's anger over new pay

And Really angry - we're on a park of natural beauty and we've

And the Caymen connection with Cornwall, could your family be

linked to the first settler on the Carribean Islands?

A law that needs changing - the message from the south-west

tourism industry tonight, following a ruling on fines

The Supreme Court's ruled against a father who took his

daughter out of school on an unauthorised holiday.

But in a region dependent on tourism all year round,

there's a call for the Government to take a different

approach to the issue, as Tamsin Melville reports.

Holiday season getting into full swing.

Families taking their breaks here have been reacting to today's

ruling on fines for taking children out of school without permission.

I think that's the wrong way to go, identity and encourages or inhibits

Before he started school we came down twice to

Cornwall in a year, and once he started school we could only

And it's the impact on tourism, particularly in the

so-called shoulder months, that's been an issue

Visit Cornwall claims the policy's cost the Cornish tourism economy

There is a call to replace fines with staggered school holidays.

This would be the triple win and I think that's where

the Government we would urge, yet again, to look

at other countries and see how they get a buoyant tourism

sector, more affordable holidays for hard-pressed families,

and having no negative impact on education.

I think that could be part of the answer, and schools

already have the freedom to set their own terms.

I don't think it will ever be the full answer.

I just think, fundamentally, it's not the job of the Government

to dictate to parents in this way and therefore we need to change

Staying in these cottages this week compared to last could cost you

up to double, and some say it's these price hikes that are the

And then click to this week and the next three weeks and

But those at the sharp end say it is simply a case of supply

We could definitely not survive as a business on the ten

weeks of the school holiday trade - no way.

I would be happy as a lark to charge the same price every week.

Happy, and if everyone was available to come every week, brilliant.

Obviously you would have winter and summer, but I don't

want to put the prices up - I just know that I have

to get my income for the year when I know people can come.

The Government says the ruling removes uncertainty

But while Cornwall Council says it won't affect its policy of head

teachers taking overall attendance into account, other

south-west councils say they are waiting

for further guidance from the Department for Education.

It's been at the centre of a planning battle for more

than 14 years years, but tonight the development

of Drake's Island in Plymouth Sound has moved a step forward.

Over the years plans have been submitted for a hotel on the island,

but they've been rejected because of concerns over

But today Plymouth City Council finally unanimously agreed

to the development of a ?10 million luxury hotel and spa

Scott Bingham has been talking to those behind the plans.

two people and it is a landmark, dominating the entrance to Plymouth

Sound. Today is a historic decision for the city. After 14 years the

City Council finally approved plans to transform Drakes Island into a

?10 million luxury hotel and resort. Fantastic news that the committee

have agreed the application. It has been months of hard work

behind-the-scenes in negotiation with the applicant, so we are all

delighted we can give a thumbs up to this planning application. A colony

of roosting birds which have held up the Project for the last few years

will be given a new home at nearby Mount Edgecumbe. Visitors will

arrive to find luxury rooms and suites with a bar and restaurant

area, spa, gym and swimming pool. Drakes Island is iconic, it is in an

important part of Plymouth Sound and it is long overdue. The regeneration

of the island is going to be a jewel implements's crown. Local

seem genuinely excited. On a day seem genuinely excited. On a day

like this? As long as they restored properly, pay testament to the

south-west. It stood vacant for far too long. A good thing the Plymouth.

And visitors. It's about time they started using waterfront

capabilities. I've never been there. And not many people have. But these

plans will allow public access to the island for the first time in

more than 30 years. And of course the only way to get there is by

boat. People are already starting to pay

the price for dishonesty on Dartmoor as honesty boxes are being replaced

by parking metres. The national park says

following a trial in Princetown, it now wants to install pay

and display after discovering the average donation

was just 15 pence per car. Honesty boxes have been a feature

here on Dartmoor for years. But soon, instead of

being asked to make a donation, you might have to pay

and display instead. How does it make you

feel, looking at this? Really angry. Really angry. We are

on a part of natural beauty and we've got this. The honesty boxes

could all be replaced. I don't like the idea of having a parking machine

will stop is probably going to have to have parking meter attendants

checking regularly to make sure people have paid. I like the charm

of the honesty box. It's a lot less of the honesty box. It's a lot less

impersonal than the pay and display machine. The honesty box, I don't

So they have to do something. If we So they have to do something. If we

want to preserve this magnificent asset we have. The Olsen the honesty

box here wet generated ?5,000 a year, but this went up to ?23,000

year when the parking meters went in. From our research, the average

voluntary donation is about 15p per car. It isn't sustainable in this

day and age of keeping car parks and visitors centres and so forth

maintained for the public. The proposed charges would be ?1 for up

to three hours or ?2 for the whole day. The national park is hoping

that is not too steep. Now a brief round-up of other

stories making the news A soldier serving in Plymouth

with 29 Commando Regiment has been sentenced to life in prison

for murdering his girlfriend. Jay Nava stabbed Natasha Wake

to death last October while their children slept upstairs

in their home in Bournemouth. North Devon jockey Lizzy Kelly

is celebrating a huge win at Aintree The 23-year-old beat

the favourite Cue Card, trained by Dorset trainer

Colin Tizzard in the Betway Bowl. It comes after her disappointing

fall at the second fence in the Cheltenham Gold Cup last

month. A male otter has been

caught on candid camera stealing fish from a pond

at The Lost Gardens of Heligan. Staff set up secret night time

cameras after fish started to go missing from the Italian Garden pond

back in November. They say to finally see

him was a rare treat. After a gap of 30 years,

drilling for tin has got under At this stage it's just test

drilling, so the mining company can see if it would make sense to reopen

the long-defunct Redmoor mine It'd not the only attempt to restart

tin mining in the region, a Canadian firm is trying to reopen

South Crofty near Camborne. And mining for tungsten

is already under way Our business correspondent

Neil Gallacher has been to see the work now taking place

at Kelly Bray. It's the first time for a generation

that drilling for tin has The price of tin is at

near record levels. In Victorian times there

was a mine here, now an Anglo-Australian firm is spending

?1 million over six months to see This isn't commercial mining -

if they want to do that they'll need planning consent and tens

of millions of pounds more. But if the views of

the nearest homeowner are anything to go by, they might not

face a great deal of opposition. There's minimal traffic -

with modern mining techniques - minimal dust,

minimal noise disturbance. I think it will be

great for the area. It's going to bring all kinds

of people into the area and they do have a policy of employing locals,

which they've done on the If it brings work to

the county, I'm all for it. It'll bring work

for others, won't it? That's a bit of copper ore

coming through there. Test trilling doesn't usually

lead to an actual mine. But then tin prices have usually

been nowhere near this high. What happens next depends

on these samples. And a lot of samples

need a lot of storage. We estimate around 7000

metres' worth of drilling. So, yeah, I'm assuming we'll have

1200 worth of boxes that You're going to have

to assemble 1000 boxes? I'm sure I can do it, but I've got

some help from the team so I've spoken to a dozen

or so other people here today Some said they weren't worried

about it, others said they could see One or two made the

point that they had seen this idea come and go before

and they doubted that it would come Neil Gallacher, BBC

Spotlight, Kelly Bray. They're very hard to spot

and in danger of dying out altogether because of changes

in land management and But the Devon Willow Tit Project

is trying to do something to help We sent our environment

Correspondent Adrian Campbell These are willow tits

and they're very rare. So rare, in fact, they're

on what is called the red list of species which indicates

they are globally threatened. There's been a decline

in their numbers across the country, and in Devon a steep

decline since the 1980s. Devon Biodiversity

Records Centre has mapped areas where

they've been cited. Back in the 1980s there was evidence

of these tiny bird started But it was a very different

story last year, when a This is one way to try and track

the elusive willow tit. Emily Stallworthy,

from the Devon wildlife trust, has been working

with Devon Birds to try using a speaker which

mimics their call. We left our camera running for half

an hour on the feeder. There was plenty of

activity, including this nuthatch, but no willow

tits were cited at all. Toni and Kevin Littleford live

near the Meath Nature Reserve. They think they've seen

willowtits in their garden. They think human

activity and changes to the landscape are harming

the birds's natural habitat. It's an awful shame if we lose these

beautiful creatures, really. We've had studies

coming out in the last few years that show that 50%

of our wildlife is disappearing. And willow tits is once PCs

protected by European legislation - it's protected

by the Birds Directive. So without that sort

of legislation in place we need to think about how we are protecting

our birds and our other wildlife On this nature reserve,

managed by the Devon Wildlife Trust, the willow tit

manages to hang on, and that is because the habitat

here really is ideal - there's plenty of grassland and wet

woodland to help the birds. But things across the rest of the

south-west are not so favourable. Adrian Campbell, BBC

Spotlight, Meath. Later in the programme -

stand-by for blast off. One of the slowest vehicles

on the road has been given And could you be the person

they're looking for - the search for a Cornishman

with links to the Carribbean. Two sisters who've campaigned

to raise awareness of the need for mental health support

for teenagers in Cornwall are to be Their brother Ben Cowburn

took his own life when he was just At the time there were no

specialist units in Following Ben's death,

his sisters Amber and Sophia were determined to change that

as Jane Chandler now reports. They've achieved a lot in seven

years, including running a charity The Cowburn sisters -

this is Ben's twin, Sophia - have came pained relentlessly ever

since he died to get specialist support for young adults with mental

health problems in Cornwall. We'd never been spoken

to about mental health. Certainly didn't have

an understanding of some of the terminology that was being thrown

at us regarding Ben. And actually we felt

that the education around mental health really needed to be

changed and challenged. The Invictus Trust was set

up by their parents and now the family's first big

objective has been achieved. Last week the Government

agreed to fund a specialist mental health

unit for children specialist mental health unit

for children and adolescents up The charity's also

raised over ?100,000 for So many people now want

to talk about mental health, want to run

their own events. And that's great, we've got so many

young people involved now. And to be recognised

nationally is incredible. And Ben was the most

incredible character. I think there's such

a stereotype of people who get depressed and that's one of

the reasons we go into the schools, me and my sisters, to talk

and to really try and get across to them, our brother

was a party animal, the life and soul of the

party, he was a fashion student, he was very popular,

he was just the greatest person. The sisters' work in

the community will receive national recognition

when they are given the prestigious Rotary Young Citizens Award this

weekend. He would be so excited

for us, and just proud of what we've managed to achieve -

because he was someone that stood up for what was right and

that's what we've done. It is the tenth anniversary and the

BBC News Channel will cover those awards live on Saturday.

Now one man from Plymouth is no stranger to slightly

We have featured his exploits on the programme before but he is taking

things to a new level. You haven't seen anything yet. Is it a bird? Is

it a plane? No. Some of you will remember back in

2013 the man broke the record for the fastest shopping trolley. Now he

is attempting another. It can reach a top speed in excess of 200 mph.

Its driver, by day he runs a karting Centre, in his spare time he is

adrenaline junkie. His vehicle of choice was not originally bitten to

the speed but with an ex-RAF jet powered engine in it, this is no

normal hearse. Matt says it is errors in and steady but can the

aptly named Dead Quick become the fastest hearse in the world? It's a

prototype and so far we've put 300 hours into it. We are probably

halfway through. We have to do lots of suspension and brakes changes.

Errored and Amex have not been done yet. There is a lot to do still. And

now it is all systems go. Surely though you have to be slightly mad

to want to do it. This is my art form. This is what I enjoy doing,

mixing them to create something mixing them to create something

ridiculous. I think if it is what you are destined to do, you have to

do it, mad or not. I'm sorry, but I will carry on. I don't know what is

coming next, whatever comes into my head. We will have to wait until the

summer to see if it makes the world record.

Now what do you think the Caribbean and Cornwall have in common?

Well, a representative from the Caribbean is in Cornwall

looking for descendants of the first inhabitant of their island.

It was a Cornishman who set foot on the Cayman Islands 363 years ago

and now the Islands representative in the UK is seeking direct

descendants of the man who was called Bodden or Bawden.

The islanders are hoping to promote business and cultural

Spotlights Cornwall reporter David George wishes we'd sent him

sent him to the Carribean, but instead we sent

The Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory, south of Cuba

There are around 60,000 inhabitants and the

first one in 1654 was apparently a Cornishman named Issac Bodden,

whose grandfather had gone to the Caribbean as part

What we're here to do essentially is to start the dialogue

and start the research to see if we can actually

find the individual who

left Cornwall, who went to the Caribbean,

and finally settled in

We took the Cayman Islands' top man in the UK to

People are here on Easter break and stop they

are enjoying the natural beauty of the Sun, the sand and the sea.

Very much like Cayman, Cornwall has a lot

of natural beauty, similar to Cayman.

Time for some proper protocol - a gift of food for the

visiting dignitary it looks very much like a big version of what we

It looks very much like a big version of what we

call in Cayman a patty, with your pastry and some sort of meat or

This is either a breakfast or a lunch favourite for us back home.

Some of these go back to the 1530s where they were first ordered to be

This is Cornwall's County records archive.

Somewhere in here could be the details of Cayman's

Some of the parish registers for some of the Cornish

parishes do not survive much before 1700.

But if it has survived we will find it, I promise that.

The hope is to set up a joint research project.

Apparently some Cayman dialect words have links to Cornish ones like

We do have a saying in Cayman called "coming a reckly",

The one-man Cayman delegation will visit the Cornish

Pirates rugby team and a brewery, "dreckly".

David George, BBC Spotlight, Perranporth.

Well, Roy Bodden is the President of the University of

And I asked him how obvious the connections with Cornwall

are on the Cayman Islands themselves.

That's a good question because I don't think there has been

any kind of examination of the connection with Cornwall.

I know that many Caymanians trace their ancestor

back to different places in the UK, but I don't think any of them,

certainly that I can recall, previously delved to any great

extent into their ancestral connections.

What you hope will come out of this search

Cornwall to find members of the family that were the founding

family, if you like, of the Cayman Islands?

I sense, when I go to the archives, I see Caymanians

trying to trace their genealogical roots.

They want to find out who we really are.

As I understand it, the first Bodden was an old man called

Isaac Bodden who settled in a place in East End named

So, now, how do you get people of my colour being born?

Well, the simple explanation for that is that

when these people came they came with their slaves,

and the nature of slavery in the Cayman Islands -

the nature of slavery probably in the Caribbean -

was in many instances the slaves took the names of their masters.

So that's how come you have Boddens who were white, Boddens

who were black and all shades of the spectrum.

I'm hoping one day I can come and visit you and explore the link

between Cornwall and the Cayman Islands even more.

In the meantime, it's been a real pleasure to talk to you.

It is so interesting. And if you are hardly dating with us in the

south-west at the moment, who leads the Caribbean? It has been glorious

today. Same temperatures. There is quite a big difference.

27 degrees in the Cayman Islands to today. For us, not quite so much. We

have struggled with temperatures, 11 or 12, our best today was 15. It is

fine and dry we have had glorious sunshine. This is Dorset. Further

along the other side of the Somerset coast, glorious sunshine. Not

everyone has been warm, though. It will be quite cold overnight and

night. Fine and dry tomorrow with some sunshine and

winds. Unfortunately the sun has winds. Unfortunately the sun has

tree pollen is affecting some of our tree pollen is affecting some of our

hay fever sufferers. It will be high right across southern Britain to

borrow. The cloud will stay away and with the high pressure in charge we

should get plenty of sunshine. The sun is quite strong but the UV index

is very top. High pressure directly over the UK. It will move to the

east. Allowing warm as come from the south. Eventually this cold frontal

approach from the West and that will get to us at some point on Monday.

That was the satellite picture from earlier today and we have just had a

there. Not just along the coastline there. Not just along the coastline

is the sunshine, also inland. Plenty of water coming down our rivers

despite the dry weather. And also of course in the sunshine it has been

south-west of England. The winds south-west of England. The winds

will change direction as we head towards the weekend. We will see

higher temperatures. But with clear skies and light winds overnight, the

nights are long enough to allow the temperatures to dip down to six goal

of frost. Tomorrow another lovely of frost. Tomorrow another lovely

day. Plenty of sunshine, the UV index at four or five. Temperatures

possibly as high as 15 or 16 degrees. For the Isles of Scilly,

decent sun. Here are the times of decent sun. Here are the times of

high water. And the waves. Have a good evening.

We are enjoying the lovely weather, but we thought we would leave you

tonight with a tantalising glimpse of the Caribbean. Good night.

Stacey and Chris are preparing for marriage by spending

a few days living alone with their in-laws to be,

and asking them all kinds of questions.

Did you get a kiss on the first date? No.

What does their in-laws' marriage tell them about each other's

I expect you'll want to become a schoolmaster, sir.

That's what most of the gentlemen does that get sent down

for indecent behaviour. Evelyn Waugh's classic novel.