Hello! Its Tim here again with your Letter today. The weather is not letting up as we continue to face heavy showers across the region. On tonight's programme, we'll be reporting on the impact upon our homes and livelihoods as the damage continues to hit Hull hard. We'll be letting you know about the charity disaster fund for the city, which has been set up to help the thousands of people affected by the floods. And we'll be investigating claims that homeowners are now struggling to protect their homes as they try to take out new insurance policies, but are refused. Well have the full story on this.
Also tonight, Hessle tennis star, Katie O'Brien, may have crashed out of Wimbledon, but she is still ranked as Britain's number one female tennis player. She'll be live on the programme talking about her future career plans. They're number one in the 7-Digital Download Chart, ahead of many well-established bands, including the likes of Take That. We'll hear from South Park Roundabout from Lincoln. You may not yet have heard of them or heard their music, but they're being hailed as the new Arctic Monkeys. Theyre certainly a band to look out for! And the sea bird colony on the East Yorkshire coast has been protected for more than a century, but now the RSPB wants the law strengthening so that it can protect the wildlife of the North Sea too. And that reminds me to let you know about a wonderful programme going out tomorrow on BBC One. It stars Brian Blessed as he takes a trip around our region looking at the marvellous ways that were helping to protect our local wildlife and how we can take care of our environment for the future. Well be chatting to local lad, Brian Blessed tomorrow too. So make a note of that Saving Planet Earth. The programme will be straight after Look North, so I hope you enjoy! I mentioned yesterday about the smoking ban in public places, which now exists across the country. Emails on this have been sent in, so thanks for those. Peter says, I am a reformed smoker. I stopped after attending a post mortem examination on a smoker. For my wife and myself to smoke at the rate we used to would cost us £8,500 a year. We now own our own house and we have a car each. There would have been no chance of that had we both not stopped when we did. And I read this morning that students are back in the news worried about money yet again! One bank is saying that the students graduating this month will have racked up on average debts of more than £13,250. And thats apparently cheap compared to estimates of debts of up to £30,000 in 2009! The future is looking bleak for graduates in our country with rising house prices and living costs. And in fact the National Association of Estate Agents is saying that the percentage of sales to first-time buyers has dropped dramatically from 28% in 2000 to just 10.3% in March 2007. What will it be like in 2009 then with average student debts at an estimated £30,000? This survey said that there was little surprise that one in ten young people are so put off by the threat of getting into debt in order to further their education that they are turning down places at university in order to save towards a mortgage. Is that the answer? Get in touch on this one. Are you a student and are you c! oncerned about the debt youll have when you leave university? How are graduates finding it after university? How are first-time buyers coping when buying their first homes or are you still having to live with Mum and Dad? Lots of worries for students at the moment. Get in touch and let me know what you think about this. Its the usual address of [EMAIL PROTECTED] for any comments about this or about any story at all that we feature on the programme. Lots of emails have come in about John Prescotts comments last night about flooding in Hull, including many saying he may or may not have stuck two fingers up on the TV! Take a look for yourself. The full interview with Mr Prescott is on our website at www.bbc.co.uk/looknorthhull in our watch again feature. Thats it from me. Take care and remember your umbrella if youre out and about today! Tim And for the latest news and more where you live, go to: http://bbc.co.uk/humber and http://bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the BBC Look North newsletter, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthhull/newsletter/newsletter_index.shtml, enter your email address in the unsubscribe box. 1.94.4
