The newspaper for retired BBC Pension Scheme members • December 2019 • Issue 6 PROSPERO A NEW HOME FOR BBC PENSION AND PENSION BENEFITS CENTRE SCHEME PAGE 3 | RETIREMENT AGEING WELL IN YOUR OWN HOME In October’s issue, we reported that a spokesperson from Care & Repair Wales had addressed the BBC Volunteer Visitors at their summer conference. The English equivalent of Care & Repair has provided the following article about their service and ideas to help you stay happy and healthy in your own home. Home adaptations financial help* • Small items of equipment where the cost is less than £1,000 (such as toilet frames, walking frames, grab rails) should be provided free of charge where these are assessed as being necessary by health professionals (e.g. hospital staff) or Social Services. Phone your council or Age UK (0800 678 1602). gov.uk/apply-home-equipment-for-disabled • Financial help with larger home adaptations, such as stairlifts, bath/shower alterations, should be available from your local council through a Disabled Facilities Grant, but in most areas this will depend on your income (but not the value of your property). An occupational therapist will usually visit to assess what adaptations you need and what the grant would pay for. Apply through your Social Services or see gov.uk/disabled-facilities-grants *These apply to England but there are similar schemes in Scotland and Wales. s we get older some of the simple, everyday As well as a general guide, there are six specific tasks that we used to take for granted can guides covering respiratory problems, macular Abecome a challenge. disease, heart disease, dementia, stroke and arthritis. Getting out of the bath or going up and down stairs Find out more at careandrepair-england.org.uk/ Mystery Sudoku can start to feel not only difficult but also dangerous, planning-ahead-for-housing-in-later-life/ with the worry about falling, especially if we live alone. Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains the letters ACEGLNORS in some So how do we know what to do to our homes to order. One row or column contains a five or more ‘future-proof’ them before a crisis, and where can we letter word, title or name with a BBC connection. get advice and help with adaptations? Solve the Sudoku to discover what it is and send Living with a long-term health condition your answer to: The Editor, Prospero, BBC Pension Conditions such as arthritis, eyesight loss (such as and Benefits Centre, Broadcasting House, Cardiff macular disease), respiratory problems and heart CF5 2YQ by Monday, 6 January 2020. disease are common in older life. While medication can help us to manage these conditions, the The winner gets a £10 voucher. Many thanks to symptoms (stiffness, reduced vision, breathlessness) Neil Somerville for providing this puzzle. can affect the way we manage at home. Most of us like our home and want to live there for as O R long as possible. With a few changes we can help to make our homes good places to age, even if we have S C R a long-term health problem or disability. We can alter our homes to help us to live with Adaptations and equipment information G A L these health changes – for example, by improving and advice lighting and heating, installing handrails, replacing Impartial information and advice about E G the bath with a level shower, or putting in a stairlift. equipment, assistive technology and adaptations O L S N E A Special equipment and new technology can also help is useful – even if you are paying for the and this is likely to become increasingly used to help equipment yourself. G O us to stay safe at home as we age. The Disabled Living Foundation can help – visit Planning ahead their website at dlf.org.uk or call them on 0300 S C L A group of older people, working with the charity 999 0004. Care & Repair England, have produced a series E A G Many areas have a ‘Home Improvement Agency’ of self-help guides which explain the housing that can offer information, advice and help implications of particular health conditions. C L with organising home adaptations, whether Each guide advises on what changes you can make you qualify for a grant or are paying for the to your current home to make living with the The Sudoku winner in work yourself. condition more manageable. They also describe October 2019 was Mr N Willmot. possible alternative housing options and offer To find out if there is one near you, visit WIN The answer was ‘Jo Brand’. suggestions about where to find more detailed findmyhia.org.uk or call 0300 124 0315. £10 The Crospero winner was information, advice and help. Mrs S Tredwen; the song was ‘How are things in This article has been provided by independent housing charity, Care & Repair England. Glocca Morra’. 2 | BBC PENSIONS BBC PENSIONS MOVES PROSPERO Prospero is provided free of charge to retired Scheme members, or to their spouses and dependants. INTO CENTRAL SQUARE Prospero provides a source of news on former colleagues, developments at the BBC and pension issues, plus classified adverts. It is available online at bbc.co.uk/mypension BBC Wales’ move from Llandaff to To advertise in Prospero, please see page 12. the new broadcast centre at Please send your editorial contributions, Central Square in Cardiff city or comments/feedback, to: Prospero, BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, centre began on 21 October. Central Square, Cardiff CF10 1FT Email: [email protected] Please make sure that any digital pictures you send are scanned at 300dpi. Please also note that the maximum word count for obituaries is 350 words. Contents Ageing well in your own home 2 BBC Pensions 3 he new address for correspondence is: BBC Pension and Benefits Centre, Central Square, Did you know? TCardiff CF10 1FT. • Central Square’s net internal area is Letters 4-5 14,454 square metres (that’s around The move will see around 1,000 production and 150,000 square feet) support staff relocate to the new building, with the final teams reaching Central Square in spring 2020. • It is roughly half the size of the current Llandaff sites and less expensive to operate Back at the BBC 6-7 Central Square is the first BBC centre in the UK to use on a like-for-like basis BBC launches BritBox streaming service Internet Protocol (IP) technology so widely across both its production and broadcast operations, • Around 1,000 BBC staff will be based there 50th anniversaries – Monty Python future-proofing the facilities for years to come. when it’s fully operational and A Question of Sport As well as the technology advances, Central Square • An economic impact study published by BOP Meeting David Attenborough is designed to be the BBC’s most open and accessible Consulting (April 2018) found that BBC Wales’ building – and the public will be invited into the decision to relocate is expected to deliver a centre for a range of tours, community and £1.1 billion economic boost to Wales, leading learning activities. to the creation of 1,900 additional jobs over a Memories 8 ten-year period The centre will also be a base for S4C as well as the The Exmouth Term independent production sector – with meeting and • Central Square is the first BBC facility in the production facilities available to key partners. UK to use the Internet Protocol (IP) Opening up technology so comprehensively across both BBC Cymru Wales Director Rhodri Talfan Davies said: its production and broadcast operations. Obituaries 9-11 ‘Central Square is all about opening up. Broadcasting and media are changing before our eyes. And our Construction facts audiences these days expect to ‘get up close • There are around 250 miles of copper cable in the and personal’. building – this is about the distance between Odds & ends 12 ‘We’ve designed this building to let the light in – not Cardiff and Bangor and back again, on the train Full circle seal it off – and the fantastic location means that we’ll • There are around 52,600 metres of fibre cables London Lunch be more accessible.’ in the building – that’s around 48 times the height Caption competition As part of the drive to ‘open up’, inclusion is a key part of Snowdon of the design of Central Square throughout. As well as • 47,500 cubic metres of material was excavated opening up the ground floor to the public, the new from the site – this would fill 19 Olympic building will be thoroughly accessible for people with swimming pools a range of neurodivergent conditions. Prospero December 2019 • The backup generators based in Central Square Central Square has been awarded a BREEAM new The next issue of Prospero will appear weigh 36 tonnes and could power 3,000 homes construction rating of ‘outstanding’, the highest level in February 2020. The copy deadline of sustainability. • The rainwater harvesting tank holds 160,000 litres is Monday, 6 January 2020. – that’s nearly 27,000 toilet flushes A number of features allowed it to meet this status, including 500 square metres of photovoltaic panels • There is over 10,000 square metres of glazing and on the roof which will reduce the need for power from roofing panels in Central Square, enough to cover the grid, while underground rainwater-harvesting the entire pitch at the Principality Stadium tanks are used to collect rainwater to flush the toilets. • There was 2,300 tonnes of steel fabricated Located next to Cardiff Central Railway Station, staff and constructed for the base build – that’s will be encouraged to choose sustainable transport the equivalent weight of around 190 methods as they travel to work.