this is bbc news. we will have all the headlines and amine stories for you at the top of the error straight after this programme —— the main stories. i don't think people fully realise how much people do use the a1. it's really scary. you get cars which will come

within inches of you. the road surface has worn out. it's been down, some of it, for 30 years. i it was so frustrating, sat in traffic all day, every day. we have major mechanical issues. we are kind of stuck in the middle of the a1. never, ever happened in my life before. so there's a lot on my shoulders. the amount of language has been a bit atrocious. i can see you are all super keen! we've got six hours to do what we need to do. everyone's like, "quick, get signed off. we need to get out." time is not our friend now.

this is the biggest project, both value—wise and duration—wise that i've ever worked on. in my role, i'm responsible ultimately for all construction works. i think there's probably a perception by the public that there's not a lot happening on road works. but, you know, to have 150, 200 people on site every night when the public are sleeping, if they could see that, if they could drive through and appreciate how much is going on, i think they'd be surprised. right. you all right, lads? start with the tm. so, yeah, ifeel very responsible for everything that goes on out there. there is a lot on my shoulders. the scotswood project involves installing a new lane northbound and southbound throughout the a1 through newcastle.

i don't think people fully realise how much people do use the a1. it's for things like food, clothing, going to hospitals, and to improve them roads, it's very good for the community and for the northeast as a whole. hi, everyone. my responsibility is environmental compliance for the a1 improvement schemes. we've got to do this to avoid environmental harm. so this can be things like waste management, water management, protecting our watercourses, which potentially our scheme could affect negatively, ecology and training of people as well. any questions? i can see you are all super keen! to get some work done! aye! being a lady in construction,

it does not feel any different to anywhere else that i've worked before. i've got my areas of expertise. other people have got their areas of expertise. it's very inclusive. at the end of the start of shift briefing, you can tell that people are under a little bit of pressure because everyone�*s like, "quick, get signed up. we need to get out." there's a lot of pressure on night shift. we're normally out there for half nine, by the time it's fully safe and it's all isolated and we've got maybe six hours to do what we need to do and get out of there so that our traffic management teams can reopen the road for six in the morning. tonight there's a crew in tarmac—ing the road. they're resurfacing. we've got people putting new bits of barrier in. they can't start until we shut the road. it's not safe to work on the a! with it open. once we've got it all closed, that's ourjob done for the night. and then they'll come in, the contractors do what they've got to do and when they're finished, it's back on, thejob, starting again,

reopening the road. traffic management is... i know people probably think we're annoying, but essentially what we do is we close roads. i've done traffic management for six years now. just having the freedom, you know, being outside, it's a lot better than being cooped up in an office. that's all sorted. i've got a one—year—old daughter, so i do see her a lot more than i would if i was on a day shift, so that works for me. hiya. what's happening? becoming a dad was probably the best thing that's ever happened. want some water?

it's something i've never, ever wanted when i was a bit younger. but then, obviously, i meant my partner. and eva's just amazing. we live two minutes from the seaside so she loves the fresh air. she loves being out and about. here we are. in we go. i try to get enough sleep so i'll not be tired for the night shift, but at the same time, i want to get up and see some daylight. good girl. but then i want to go and pick eva up straight at the way and have a few hours with her. trickiest part is coming to work. you know, before i come to work, my partner's always bathing eva. you dancing? and i would like to get involved with that, you know, pull out the bed. that's the hardest part, because i hate saying bye to them. such a clever girl, aren't you?

it's really scary. there are cars which will come within inches of you. and i really don't understand why. because if it was flashing blue lights, people would slow right down. i enjoy working and dropping the cones out, you know what i mean? this job is completely different from otherjobs because it's safety orientated. so if a car does come flying towards us in lane two, it'll hit the back of my crash cushion and the cushion willjust fold in like that. and it'll take the impact. and hopefully protect

the people in front. i can't stress enough — it's really dangerous. because if you step a foot out of place someone could get injured and possibly die. and it has happened before. so it could happen again. there's been a fatal within traffic management where i think a car was getting chased through roadworks and the driverjust hit one of the vans and they killed the lad that was in it. but it shouldn't be happening. there shouldn't be deaths on the road. one death's one too many. i do like to try and get out on the site at least once a week at night—time to see what's going on.

before working on this particular project, i commuted through this route for about eight years and it was so frustrating. sat in traffic all day, every day. my night shift visits are mainlyjust to see progress on site, to speak with all the different contractors to make sure everything's going all right, any issues. how's it going? not too bad. off and running now. i am a road surfacing supervisor, which is basically repairing the roadways throughout the country. ian is very knowledgeable, very experienced. so who do you want us to ring

if there is an issue? so my phone's usually busy, shall we say. for the last two months, leading into completion and opening the road, ian's team are definitely the most important on site. i've been in this industry approximately 30 years now. this job is as close to i've been working at home for many years. i like seeing other parts of the country, but north—east's fun. so i'll push straight. push straight through. road surface is worn out. it's been down, some of it, for 30 years. as we're widening the road from two lanes to three, it's getting a new surface, all of it, so hopefully it should be quieter — the new surface for

the residents, so hopefully they will be a bit happier. the planer at the moment is removing the old road surface, so it's milling it up, cutting it off, putting on top of lorries and sending it to our recycling plant. the fact that we can't keep digging holes for getting stone, a certain amount of material is recycled back into the surface now. just to make sure everything keeps going in a circle and we just keep on going till the night's over.

relatively relaxed at the moment. you know, we're getting going. when there's other people out on site, they go, "oh, i love the smell of tarmac and..." uust... — i can't even smell it any more. like, it'sjust in the background all the time. it's generally the time of the project when tarmac is going down, you know you're nearly finished, so that's always a good sign. we've been in construction phase for just over two yea rs now. we're a few months off finishing, so we're nearly there. my boss likes to remind me now and then when our target open date is. yeah, it is quite a lot of pressure to take on at times, but we've got a really good team. i hope when this airs, we've made it. that's the tarmac paving

machine, and it's only ——currently had a minor breakdown. it's going into limp mode, basically like your car does, you know, when it's not happy. once you've cut into the road, you can't open it until it's put back, so it doesn't help with the stress. definitely not. there's a lot of things that can go wrong on night shift. there can be a lot of plant machinery breakdowns, so we have to have a lot of contingency plans in place to see, you know, if this happens, what do we do? we've sent our low loader to pick up the back—up machine. he should be in the next hopefully half hour, a0 minutes, if that. and then we'll get going again. but obviously, it's delayed things. it's not ideal. it'sjust, it's time, isn't it? time is not ourfriend now.

becka: i love doing night shift. - so we're just going to take a water sample out things might get forgotten about, missed — the procedures or maybe it's not getting followed quite as effectively. just to make sure that it's not got any suspended solids in it. our work can affect the watercourses, if any sediment, which is basically soil or concrete wash—off, get in at these watercourses, it can negatively impact and possibly pollute them as well and reduce the biodiversity. just be careful, there are trip hazards around here. we'vejust come to check the fence at

night time to make sure it has been well maintained. if we find newts on the scheme, it could potentially affect the work. we are within 500 metres of their breeding ground and at this time of year, they are migrating, to their breeding ground, so we put the defence up ground, so we put the defence up to protect the works from the newts so they do not come onto the site. ijust love being out on site just in the thick of it making sure that we are doing things correctly, protecting the environment, complying with the legislation. we need to try and educate a site team to use this correctly. it is not a rubbish bin. i would actually say it's my favourite job —— bin. i would actually say it's my favouritejob —— my bin. i would actually say it's my favourite job —— my dream job.

when the road's closed, we'll usually leave two people on a closure point, and that ensures that no members of the public come through. i've heard of stories where people are pulling up to closure points and, you know, they're not happy, theyjust want to be through, so they will get out and attack the operatives with — it could be weapons, it could just be spitting at them, which is horrendous so, yes, it can be a dangerous job with members of the public. one of the biggest risks of night shift work is people driving into our road closure. that can be by accident, or sometimes it can be on purpose. we've got a lot of people on foot on that road working.

the site traffic travels at ten mile an hour and a car comes through at 70, 80 mile an hour... it really does scare the team. that is a danger to life. there's a few people in traffic management. they've got their sons in. and i think it's a big thing because of how dangerous it is. i wouldn't be letting her get into the traffic management. definitely not. you know, why would you want your daughter to work on the roadway, when it's this dangerous? yeah. so their life is on the line. he's the back—up paver here. that's what i've been waiting to see. if you have a small hiccup at the beginning of a shift, it's amazing how you never seem to recover, and it always puts more stress on the end of the shift. we probably won't get as much material laid as we would hope tonight, but we'll do our best with the time we've got left.

we have mechanical issues. fairly major mechanical issues. we've got... well, how would i put it? both pavers are incapacitated. neither is laying. we are kind of stuck in the middle of the ai. you don't want to appear on the radio just letting all the drivers know that the motorway is shut for overrun roadworks. there's plenty of people doing myjob, all been in a similar position where you think, "oh, my god, we're on the radio. we're famous now.

we've made the radio". it's not a nice feeling, to be truthful. the first one started the night with re—genning, then it's just stopped. so we've only laid 200 tonne, like... he's probably pulling the hair out of his leg cos he'll actually have to explain tomorrow why what's happened happened. never ever happened in my life before. i'd buy a lottery ticket if i was that driver. you very rarely get two. it's unheard of. we have fitters, mechanics on call all through the night just in case there's an issue. northbound junction 78. off slip, we're here. i'll let tso know you're coming through. there's a fitter coming up now — hopefully he can find a way to get round this system or find out why it's not clearing itself. but obviously you're looking at a lot of money stacked down there in the backs of lorries. they are loaded with tarmac.

you have a certain time window to get that material laid before it cools. so that becomes rubbish. it goes back to the recycling plant. obviously it's a tremendous amount of moneyjust wasted. i left school with very poor a—levels, couldn't get into university, so picked up an apprenticeship and worked my way up on the tours. it's given me a great understanding of what's going on out on site, what the teams face on site, what challenges they face. we're off to see barry, who is a site manager for one of our specialist subcontractors. barry is a good laugh. we was only talking about fishing. we're talking about something i know now instead of work. but he is also very experienced and very knowledgeable, knows his craft inside out. fetch it back a bit more, steve.

teams with special skills are not necessarily available in the north east, so they travel from outside the area to come and work on the project. we live in doncaster so we travel up to the north east and stay up here. we've been everywhere, from scotland to southampton. it's all right. it's better than where i live, to be fair. - yeah, better — nicer place. always looks good when we do it. it always looks good. we make it look easy. but i don't let them bother you during the day when you're asleep. i need beauty sleep. i'm not like you — i need it. laughter when you're certainly on a night shift, when you're out on site monday to friday, working ten—hour shifts, you need that craic with your fellow colleague and you want to be enjoying your work.

full ppe. you know that. ten out of ten. bang on, great stuff. sojust need to do a bit of noise monitoring up here, cos there's noisy works going on, so there's like residential houses up there. john's dead canny. he is very knowledgeable about health and safety, and then he comes to me for the environment advice. you can well imagine that people who are trying to sleep do not want them noisy works on the night shift on the roads waking them up. we've got values that we shouldn't be exceeding, and if we do exceed them, we've got to take action. so the sound here seems to be acceptable. we do have a lot of fun. what do you think about the new top gun? it's f a b. what does that spell? fab. he is a bit of a moaner, but he probably says i'm a bit of a moaner as well.

so, yeah, it's good going out withjohn. john likes going out with me. sometimes. we do have a bit of a laugh and a joke, but you've kind of got to as well at that time of night. i think that's us done for the night. ok, champion. it's cleared. we've got it going. so, aye, we've got one of them going. yeah, we're going to try and get the one that can't on top of a low loader. we regenerated it and off we went. i dare say ian'sjust gone from stressing like thatjust back to the calm, normal self again.

it's always worrying when you've got that much money tied up, like, to be fair. better than we thought or hoped for. that's three load down, isn't it? so we'll keep on going. it is 20 to four. the road opens without an issue now. what do you say you've been swearing as much since that microphone...? ——would you. i haven't been swearing as much, but honest, the amount of language has been a bit atrocious. you do get a sense of accomplishment when sections are complete. i suppose that's the big thing. you've actually achieved something. i at one point had a feeling that we weren't going at all again. we'll get there. we'll not lose that much.

so it'sjust a little after four in the morning. get myself packed up and head home. ijust feel really, really tired. i don't know if i've got like... my craic is not as good as it was at the start of the shift. sun starting to go up. birds are chirping. you just think, "i just want to get back into bed." well, that's it. that's the end of the night. it's been trying, but it's down. so that'll have to do for tonight. we'll go again tomorrow. without the breakdown. it's really rewarding when it's

all open, there's no roadworks. when we drive up, we can, you know, we can say to our friends and family that we helped to do that. it's definitely the best part of the night. it should be done in the next ten, 15 minutes, then on the way home. so when i used to get stuck in traffic before i worked on the road, it wasn't the best and you didn't like it. but now i understand why we're doing it and why there is traffic. everybody wants to go home safe at the end of the day. so that's why we're stuck in traffic, it's to protect the workers. nobody likes sitting in roadworks. i don't like sitting in roadworks. and the one thing i'm looking forward to when the road gets reopened is my family and friends stop texting me and ringing me and asking when it's going to be reopened. i think the majority of people, the first time they drive up might go, "well, that seems all right." and then it's just the norm. and really that's what

you want, to be fair. members of the public happy, and then that's that, really. hello there. it looks like we'll see some improvements to the weather as we head through thursday. that's because we've lost wednesday's deep low pressure system. however, it stays wet across the south—east for much of the day on thursday. elsewhere, it's sunshine and showers. that rain band lingering across the south—east, as you can see there

from our weather front, and this new area of low pressure may increase the shower activity across the south—west of the country, along with strong winds through the day. so a wet, damp morning, certainly for the south—east corner, the rain eventually clearing away through the afternoon. but elsewhere, some good spells of sunshine. a few showers, most of the showers affecting wales and the south—west of england with increasing winds here. top temperatures, 13 degrees in the south. only ten or 11 further north. it's an improvement, though, for friday. a ridge of high pressure building in, so it's a chilly start. early mist and fog will clear. plenty of sunshine around. but it will feel cold after that chilly start. across the northern half of the country, up to around 13 or 11! in the south.

the cop welcome to bbc news. i'm mark lobel. the cop lobel. our top stories. the japanese government issues a rare emergency alert after north korea launched ballistic missiles towards its territory. a surprise peace deal after nearly two years of civil war in ethiopia. it's hoped it will allow aid into northern tigray — where 90% of the population is going hungry. with less than a week to go until the us midterm elections president biden says democracy itself is on the line. we must have one unified voice, speak as a country, and say there is no place, no place, for voter intimidation and political violence in america.