Hello and good evening to you coming up on the program a warning Council debts are reaching staggering levels we look at what it could mean for our local Services we’re currently at about1 million this year we need to find before the end of March and next year we’re
Looking at about £23 million to to fund the Gap also ahead tonight as temperatures plunge we speak to the residents of one lewisham block who’ve been without Heating for three months plus is this Britain’s most bizarre bus route we take a ride on the so-called ghost
Bus and could this lift the mood on Long Dark Nights we check out the free Festival lighting up London a very warm welcome to you they provide many of our day-to-day services from roads to rubbish Leisure centers to libraries but many of our councils are grappling with Rising debt and struggling to balance the books what this means is that there’s a real risk to the local Services we receive the BBC
Has found half the local authorities in the country with the most debt per person are in and around the capital our political correspondent kmer starts his report in barking it’s just another day at the community Hub opposite barking Town Hall it’s busy but it always is there’s
Plenty on offer here a charity run Food Bank help with clothing Council advisors on hand to offer help on jobs on housing and on money the cost of living crisis is properly felt here by local residents and by the local Council i’ say we’re in a fairly dire sort of situation like
Many councils up and down the land um we receive less funding than we’ve ever received uh over the last 14 years our demand has gone up exponentially so actually it doesn’t match at all so that Gap is growing we’re currently at about1 million this year we need to find before
The end of March and next year we’re looking at about 23 million to to fund the gap which means there’ll be some tough decisions ahead we unfortunately are looking at redundancies next year we’re looking at all of our non-statutory services we’re of course Consulting over a 4.99% increase in
Council tax we’ve put um spending freeze on everything so it means that absolutely everything is being looked into and where we can make savings we will do that’s one of the reasons why I had to close really is the need to save money has already seen Cuts this
Building used to be home to something called the warehouse it offered Woodworking and cooking spaces for locals and a community garden it gave me a lot me and my son and other families and and other friends and and children oh my God the children love this place a lot of community groups and
Organizations and just people in general would come and uh use the space really for anything that they wanted to do whether it’s to make friends cook food for for each other yeah Grand surroundings but um not for much longer a couple of miles south of the river
Tory Bromley council is also cutting its cloth saving 15 million with a move out of its current ornate Civic Center and planning rises in council tax and rents as well as having to use its savings or reserves to keep things going compared to other times they’re grim and
Getting Grimmer by the week it is not the right way to run an economy it is not the right way to run a council but we’re now at that stage bromy is at that stage where we are having to reduce our reserves to keep our Revenue budgets afloat and clearly that isn’t
Sustainable in the long term it means hard choices ahead for everyone in local government and Carl’s with me now the story of two councils there but probably true for many more yeah you could have picked anyone and actually we’ve seen evidence at the sharp end of how bad
Things are with some councils around the area haven’t we we know woking thork cud have all declared section 114 um which essentially is local government’s way of saying their bankrupt they’re spending more than they’re getting in um and we’ve spoken to many other councils who fear they may
Be going that way and what it does mean for local councils is they’re having to concentrate on the key areas of the statutary things that they have to deliver things like Adult Services children’s services and housing and it could have real consequences for taxpayers uh yeah it will it will help
People in the pocket I think councils have been given a limit to what they can raise um but I think all of them will be going to the 5% more on your council tax so expect to be paying that but also things like 7 and a half% just above on
Council rents uh which is a big thing for a lot of people um and at Cost of Living crisis that is not what one of PE what people want to hear and tomorrow I think we’ll be hearing how much the mayor is going to put up his part of the
Council text don’t expect that to be too low either no uh Carl thanks very much indeed that’s KL merer our political correspondent there you’re watching BBC London still to come before the end of the program for anyone looking for a remedy for the long cold dark Winters nights
Join me in Canary Warf and 19 installations aiming to light up London Next it’s been a bitterly cold week hasn’t it with temperatures plunging below zero so spare a thought for the residents of one block of flats in southeast London who’ve told us they’ve been without heating for three months despite paying thousands of pounds to a management company who were responsible
For the hot water and heating as Wendy harell reports it’s not the only problem to beset the flats in lewisham at Lee Court an art deco Block in leishan Heating and hot water is included in the service charge the lease holders pay and usually the central heating comes on in October which is
When little liar was born we came back home from hospital and there was no hitting was was horr and so blessed that we felt so bad for her and 3 months later we were still without heting meanwhile her neighbor Kath had just been told her cancer was in remission
The emotional toll of cancer and the physical toll um I I could have done with that without that additional stress I kept calling the management company they knew that personal situation felt like I was having to beg to be um treated with any kind of dignity which
Is just not right so she mobilized other residents which revealed lots more serious problems the sight left after part of the building was demolished really noisy Dusty disruptive and then since the summer this is how it’s been left the unkempt rubbish strewn garden and the leaking roof hi Chris how are
You I’m Wendy Chris a pensioner owns one of the 48 Flats last year he paid his service charge to the managing agent drivers and Norris it was £4,000 well this is my bedroom and you can see the state that it’s in it’s even coming in under the lintle in the window
Now I’m frazzled I every every time it rains you imagine trying to get to sleep when you got that drip drip drip I’ve put cotton wool in ears ear plugs but you can still hear it there was a contractor fixing the roof while we were there and following media coverage
Someone from Better Properties turned up too representing the Freeholder Grand pecs they’ve never been to site before but here they are now looking on the roof as you can see this is just off its hinges for legal reasons he didn’t want to comment publicly at the time all right good of you to
Visit are you are at all satisfied with that conversation well I mean no comment is kind of unsatisfactory it feels like it’s quite convenient for them to just blame drivers and Norris but this is their building they own this building drivers and Norris work for them um my
Concern is that they’ll just pass the buck better properties later said we are liasing with the leaseholders on all matters pertaining to the building this is not stopping us from conducting a full investigation into what has happened and the managing agent drivers and Norris says the fix to the heating
System was complex maintenance has been carried out on the building every year which is included in the yearly service charge due to the age of the building more maintenance has been required over the last few years there was little support from the leaseholders for doing all the works at significant expense in
One go who takes responsibility for all this is more complicated because residents have now taken over the building management in order to fix the problems we know that the brick work pointing the roofs the gutters the down pipes the services such as the heating and hot water are all in a desperate
State so this will take quite some time the case is being raised in Parliament by the local MP at a time the government is debating reform to the leas holder Freeholder system Wendy harell BBC London a brief look at some of the days other news now control room workers at a
Bus company in Southwest London are to take strike action over pay every Friday until the end of the month the United union says around 40 abello staff based at baty and Twickenham who look after almost 20 Roots have rejected an offer of 5% and the London assembly is urging the
Government to provide more fun funding for child care in the capital from April free child care for children under three will be offered but the assembly’s report says funding for nurseries offering free places doesn’t cover the cost of delivery the department for education has said funding rates reflect varying costs around the
Country a former post mistress an independent counselor says she wants to highlight the plight of postmasters who suffered during the post office Scandal she’s announced she will stand against the Kingston and seritan MP s ed Davy in the next general election the leader of the libdems has faced criticism over his
Handling of the post office Scandal while he was postal affairs minister he says the Post Office lied to him here’s our political editor Tim Donovan for more than 20 years Ivon Tracy worked at the post office in New molden she’s an independent counselor in Kingston and now says she’s going to
Stand against SED Davy I want to keep it in the Forefront and if by running against Mr Davey it keeps it in the Forefront so that these poor people get the Justice cuz let’s be honest they haven’t had justice they haven’t had answers if I can help in the smallest
Way I just feel I’ve got to do it it’s difficult I’m not a politician I’m a 68y old grandmother but I’m going to do it I’m going to do it she never herself experienced problems with the Horizon computer system and says she didn’t raise any issues before I I I didn’t
Raise it at the time maybe that’s a little bit of why I think my goodness I’ve got to help them now I actually was concerned I didn’t realize i’ be honest I didn’t realize the extent of the problem sir Ed Davy’s face claims he didn’t do enough to respond to concerns
When he was the minister in charge of postal Affairs he has a majority here of more than 10,000 and it’s hard to say what impact this could have he’s got a big majority here so i’ imagine he’d probably still get him with a reduced majority so it will have some effect you
Think some effect yeah I don’t think he did enough he’s meant to be there to represent the people and I don’t think he did represent the people he’s all right is he I think he’s a decent fellow I think he should have done a lot more
And I think he should be held to account along with a lot of others there’s a lot that have got to answer for that he got involved and was told a lot of lies what do you do there local libdems say their MP was lied to by by the post
Office and hope his record will prevail nette responsibility sits with the post office management and I don’t think we can apply that responsibility to one Minister from about 10 or 12 years ago a minister who incidentally is my local MP and I think does a fine job in this
Constituency Ivon Tracy won her Council seat campaigning against a cycle Lane but the lib Dems labeled her divisive after her team produced a leaflet criticizing an Islamic organization with which their Muslim lib candidate was connected why are you doing this around someone’s face during a campaign dominantly people would think it wasn’t
Local issue no it wasn’t against the faith I just think people should know the person who’s standing in front of them it wasn’t the Islamic faith I I I’ve Got Deep respect for for the Islamic faith with an inquiry into the post office Scandal continuing it could
Yet be an issue with some impact in the liberal Democrat leaders seat Tim Donovan BBC London well recent public outrage at the post office Horizon Scandal has helped highlight how long and drawn out inquiries and compensation schemes can be one of them is the Windrush Scandal which emerged in 2018 and saw many
British citizens mostly from the Caribbean Community wrongly classified as illegal immigrants denied access to health care and benefits and threatened with deportation the justice for Windrush campaign group is now urging the government to speed up compensation payouts well one of the campaigners actor Colin McFarland joins me here this
Evening uh really good to see you thank you uh for coming in thanks for having me on RZ um so you have signed an open letter to the government along with some other high-profile names yeah because we need change because this has gone on for
Far too long and I’ve met a lot of the victims a lot of the lawyers and the victims themselves are going through hell frankly um we’ve got people who have tried to kill themselves we’ve got people who just simply they can’t pay the bills and when you can’t work you
Can’t get benefits you can’t get access to healthcare it’s a nightmare now none of this should be happening the government admitted these are British citizens they were invited here after the war to help rebuild this country what happened was there was a massive backlash and the government of the day
Went oh dear we’ve got too many black people in the country what are we going to do about that oh we’ll do some little covert Law changes behind the scenes we won’t tell anybody about it and that’s what’s led to this nightmare and even Wendy Williams said in the Lessons
Learned review if they knew about the British colonial history this would never have happened these are British citizens and the home office saying we have paid more than 75 million in compensation and they’re continuing to try and make improvements and they have apologized they’ve set up this scheme
And and it takes time the government messaging is very clever but my message to the government would be stop deportations Martin Ford casc who devised the Windrush compensation scheme said rather than spending money on Advertising the scheme and trying to attract more people to it if you’re serious about that give that money
You’re spending on the advertising to the victims stop deportations and they might actually trust you and they might come forward do do you feel that the fast attempt at resolution with the post office Scandal helped by uh the it ITV drama proves that that something more
Could be done is that what you’re saying absolutely because people have actually come that the the owner of the company that made the post office Scandal has approached us to say let’s look at doing a drama about this because we need to take it to another level and we will do
That but also in the short term we’re saying to people if you we wanted to first of all let people know this Scandal is still going on it’s not a Windra Scandal it’s a home office Scandal and they made it and it’s they committed the crime and they’re the ones
We we don’t we no longer want to be in charge of this we need an independent body so we’re asking people to go to our website Justice forwind r.org follow us on socials atj forwind Rush sign our open letter and we will make CH we can
Fix this and we the great briti the home office says taking out of their Department might make things even argument is oh there might be some more delays hello there’s been 5 years of delays can I talk about some of the real consequences to people of the time that
It takes because you know many have told us that they do feel forgotten and not heard but but that trauma that anxiety and in some cases the victims are not here we have two victims in our film that which Annie LX made with me which you’ll see on our socials and there’s
Anthony briyan who’s been waiting 5 years and they’re offering him something like £40,000 when he’s probably owed about £600,000 I mean that’s the other problem with this we’ve got glender Caesar who’s also in our film who tried to commit suicide because of the impact I’ve had a lawyer
Ring me up today saying Colin I’ve got a lady in tears simply trying to fill out the application form I mean it’s a nightmare and it should not be happening it’s disgusting everybody I speak to the Great British public that I go around showing my films to speaking to they all
Go Colin thank you for doing this because we think the leaders of this country out out of step with the public mood and we think like the post office Scandal when people know the truth we can make change Colin mcf thank you very much indeed for being here with us the
Home office as I say saying that they’ve already paid out 75 million and have reduced the time taken to allocate compensation 500 million that they put to one side they haven’t even got into that yet thank you we will keep going there for now thank you so much for coming in that’s Colin
McFarland next to some of the entrepreneurs who are helping fill the gaps of some of the empty shops on our high streets giving their online businesses a retail store trial for a few weeks D Shaw has been checking out some of the popups that have been well popping up in
London a morning pep talk before they meet the customers these entrepreneurs all run successful online businesses now they’re getting their first taste of High Street retail on London’s world famous carnaby street for clothes it’s so important to try things on and see them in real life so being in store is an amazing
Experience to give to our loyal customers I work with discarded balloons turning them into fashion accessories and home wear meeting customers in a space like this has been great the feedback is amazing totally boosting my confidence more and more popup shops like these are filling retail spaces that fell vacant during covid as
Lockdowns accelerated the trend towards online shopping this shop was empty 6 weeks ago it’s now full of brilliant creatives from across London who are learning how to do their own shops re-energizing our high streets and making them better for everyone this project Pro is supported by the mayor of London’s
Office but some entrepreneurs have seen a business opportunity in satisfying this demand for Popup spaces popup Club has run more than 25 shops like this one across the UK since 2017 this latest one in Victoria Central London took over a space left vacant by a chain of tea retailers we go into
Empty spaces we share out collaboratively um and say have 30 to 40 different artists or makers in one space and make it affordable and accessible for them we call this trend online to offline or o to0 and what we’re finding is that a lot of these retailers that
Started their lives purely online are now actually benefiting the High Street by opening physical shops such as the demand for pop-up spaces there is even a kind of Airbnb platform for them run by another business called appear here it offers space in all kinds of places from shopping centers and outdoor markets to
Warehouses the hope with all of these popups is that on online entrepreneurs will get a taste for face-to-face retail and so become the next generation of High Street shop owners I definitely think I’ll have my own shop in the future DG Shaw BBC London now to The Curious Case of the
So-called ghost bus it’s a one-way rail replacement service that runs between West eing and West rice liip the operator Chilton Railway is compelled by a law that’s almost two centuries old to provide an affordable service known as the Parliamentary train but as Harry low reports it’s using a bus not a train
Because it’s cheaper is it a bus or is it a train this unique service runs just once a week in One Direction and has done for the last year known as a ghost bus it’s replacing a train to avoid having to go through the long and costly process of
Closing a railway route for the driver who usually draws up schedules the West deing to West rice liip route was too good to refuse some weeks it’s interesting because no one turns up and some weeks you are driving an empty bus and then some weeks I have eight people
And some weeks I have a BBC crew so it’s it’s all very no no week is the same every single one is different it’s one of the uh rare and wacky things that you can do in London on a Wednesday if you like quiet buses I’d recommend
This yes it’s an enjoyable bus that’s right there’s nobody on their phone uh you simply get to enjoy um something that wouldn’t normally be possible children Railways told us we are Duty bound to manage industry finances responsibly and the cost of the Parliamentary bus is significantly less than operating the rail journey and
Training drivers on this route Bran’s most bizarre bus route actually it really does need to be the parliamentary procedures need to be gone through and it needs to be closed down because hs2 and old o common have severed the line so the real reason to have it as a
Diversionary route and keep the driver’s knowledge has now gone you can’t physically do it so it needs salting really yeah so if that’s the case why why bother exactly yeah absolutely that you’ve said it in a nutshell but in the meantime we’re going to be celebrating the second anniversary I’m sure in early
2025 Harry L BBC London who knew now if you need something to lift the mood on these long dark January evenings how about this a free Light Festival but wrap up warm obviously uh this sparkly spectacular is in Canary Warf and it’s returning this year and that’s where we can join Matt graveling
To tell us more a twinkly Matt a twinkly Matt yes is well wrap up warm to keep the temperature up but you know what to keep the spirits up look no further further than this fantastic light Trail in Canary Warf now it’s estimated that last year an additional
850,000 people braved the cold month of January and came out here to check out these lights will there be more this year well we’ll find out a little bit later with the event organizer but I’ve been speaking to one of the men behind one of these 19 fantastic installations tell me about the
Inspiration behind this uh what you hope people get from it and how it feels to be showcased here so as a studio we’ve been looking at how humans interact with light and how light affects the body um and as part of that human history people have been creating these structures to
Celebrate light and so this is our kind of homage to that basing on a pyramid structure where we’ve encased smoke and lasers for people to kind of have a unique engagement with that physicality of Light how long did it take uh we’ve been working on this for about a year
Lots of prototyping uh lots of testing uh and now finally we’re here and we’re really excited to be part of this Festival to new there with his fantastic installation called vessels well this one is called biophilia and it’s from a fantastic female artist called Frankie Bole let’s find out more about this
Light Trail right now with pipper Dale from the events company now just tell me first and foremost about this fantastic light display we can see behind you yes so this is by Frankie Bo as you mentioned and it’s all about our inherent bond with the natural world so
It’s in the perfect position here in our beautiful uh Roof Garden in Crossroad place now we’ve seen two and we might be seeing some pictures hopefully of some more that we went out and seen earlier but they’re all dotted around aren’t they yeah that’s right so we’ve actually
Got 19 installations in total six of them form part of our permanent collection here but 13 have been brought in specially for the Light Festival so they’re dotted all around the parks and green spaces around Canary Warf you can download a map from our app or you can
Pick up a map when you’re here from one of our stewards and that will take you on a tour of all 19 of the installations thank you than you very much well Riz don’t forget of course wrap up warm but this starts officially tomorrow we had the sneak peek today and
Then it runs for 10 days and the best part about it is completely free that’ll warm you up it certainly will Matt thanks very much yeah absolutely wrap up warm if you’re going to see the lights I don’t need to tell you that it is chilly
Out there but GSA has got the proper weather forecast for us hello hello RZ it’s been really chilly hasn’t it and that chili air is set to continue thank you good evening but the upside of all this crisp sunshine chilly air well we’ve had plenty of sunshine haven’t we this lovely sunset
Sent in from one of our weather watches in Kingston upon TS but as you look ahead to this evening and overnight there is a change on its way we have this cold front arriving in from the north and this will bring more in the way of cloud and you can see the system
Here to the south of us now it look like looks like it will stay to the south of us where it will bring some rain and some snow but for us it will introduce more in the way of clouds so overnight tonight we’re seeing that cloud
Spreading up from the south and later in the night some clouds spreading up down from the north as well so it means a cloudy end to the night and it won’t be as cold as last night but temperatur still quite widely dipping down to minus1 to-3 C but it means for tomorrow
Morning a much cloudier start to the day and that cloud will hang around for much of the morning into the afternoon we’ll start to see some brighter breaks some sunshine especially more Northern parts and temperatures well 1 to 3 Celsius so certainly staying cold for the time
Being now for tomorrow evening well much more in the way of clearer Skies that cloud will clear away the wind direction becomes more more of a Northerly and tomorrow night’s temperatures widely dipping to-4 to -6 or – 7 celus a widespread Frost and where we have standing water the risk of icy patches
Too so another chilly day in store for Thursday but plenty in the way of crisp winter sunshine and temperatures by the afternoon we really struggling we’re looking at highs of around 2 to 3 Celsius but add on that wind coming in from the north and it’ll feel more like
Min-1 to -3 Cel but there is a change as you look ahead to the end of the week so we’re we’re going to lose that very cold air and we’re going to have less cold air coming in from the southwest but it comes with wet and windy weather I’m
Afraid so certainly plenty in the way of sunshine over the next few days it will stay bitterly cold but by the time we reach Sunday Monday Tuesday look at those temperatures climbing up to 12 to 14 celsi but it does come with wet and windy weather too but for the time being
Plenty of sunshine and certainly wrap up in those layers that’s your forecast is that what they call a mixed bag mixed bag R that’s it thanks sir and that is where we leave you thanks very much for watching check out our website for more including going behind the scenes of turning the Royal
Albert Hall into a world famous acrobatic show from all of us here have a lovely Tuesday evening bye-bye
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