Chipping Sodbury Library is an exceptionally well run local community asset that provides services and a meeting point for all people in the Town. There is now a very real threat that it will be closed completely due to South Gloucestershire council spending plans, resulting from the government's austerity policy. This will result in the loss of one of the only community focal points in Chipping Sodbury accessible to all and especially useful to the elderly and families with young children. Removing community assets such as libraries can have a profound affect on the local area and should be strongly resisted. Please join us by signing this petition and look out for local schemes to support the library.

As a cultural hub that has long served the local community and embraces all cultures around Ladbroke Grove, The KPH has been listed as Asset of Community Value by the local authority. However, we feel that more protection of this unique venue is required in order to safeguard it against closure and unsympathetic development. Situated in an area of high property value, developers have spent two years running an aggressive legal campaign to rid the venue of its current manager and redevelop it for sale to an estate agent. The case is particularly urgent due to a complication arising from a legal dispute between the current manager, Vince Power, and the freeholder, SWA Developments Ltd. If an appeal hearing on 17 March 2016 is decided in favour of the latter, The KPH faces immediate closure. https://player.vimeo.com/video/155539254?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 The KPH has been a pub and entertainment venue for 150 years and is located on a busy junction on Ladbroke Grove. It borders on what used to be the slums of Notting Dale and North Kensington and is in walking distance of world-famous Portobello Road and the more affluent streets of Notting Hill and Holland Park. It has a colourful past of serving famous and notorious patrons, from John Christie to The Clash. Under its current management, The KPH has succeeded in attracting members of the area’s diverse social and ethnic backgrounds, warmly welcoming new arrivals as well as long-standing regulars from the Irish and West Indian communities. There are already too many examples of pubs closing in the area. Even if the facades are kept intact, conversions into supermarkets, estate agents and luxury flats have a lasting effect on the neighbourhood’s distinctive look and feel. This particular section of Ladbroke Grove has retained some significant original features and is in danger of irrevocably losing its distinctive character. The KPH is one of many pubs facing closure in the current climate of aggressive property development. According to CAMRA statistics, 29 pubs are closed every week across the UK. Music venues face a similar fate, and the Music Venue trust is at the core of a campaigne to protect grassroots music venues like The KPH. Unfortunately, the anticipated legislative changes may come too late for the KPH. https://player.vimeo.com/video/147334918?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 Please sign and share this petition asap.

Southwark Council are threatening to evict the Feminist Library from the building on Westminster Bridge Rd, London, that has been its home for 30 years. The council have given notice that the rent on the Library’s space in the building, which has housed a variety of community groups alongside the Library for the past 30 years, will be raised from £12,000 to £30,000 a year. Council officers are refusing to negotiate - join us in calling upon them to work with us to save the Library. On 10th February, Southwark Council Cabinet approved a report that ‘highlights the need for a thriving VCS (Voluntary and Community Sector) that mobilises community action and makes best use of community resources, skills, knowledge and spaces’. We cannot understand how treating our organisation in such a way is consistent with approving this report. [1] Dr Laura Schwartz, Associate Professor of Modern British History, University of Warwick has said: ‘"The Feminist Library is a wonderful cultural resource that needs to be defended at all costs. Generations of my students have used it for their academic research, as well as informing themselves about the continued oppression of women in our society and how to fight against it. The Library is now the only archive in London where a wide array of feminist publications are truly accessible to the general public and available on the open shelves. It also provides one of the few spaces in central London where women and feminist activists can come together to meet and organise for a better world. If the Feminist Library is evicted from its current premises, Southwark Council will not only be guilty of cultural vandalism but also of silencing women." Learn more about the Feminist Library and donate to our Emergency fund here: http://feministlibrary.co.uk/support/emergencyfund/ About the Feminist Library: The Feminist Library has an incomparable collection of over 7,000 books, 1500 periodical titles from around the world, archives of feminist individuals and organisations, pamphlets, papers, posters, and ephemera. We also provide space for meetings, readings, exhibitions and events, a space which supports and encourages research, mutual support, activism and community projects, with well over 20 different groups having used the events space just in the past calendar year, a number of them national and international. We are volunteer led, as we have been all our life; we are intergenerational, being significant custodians of our feminist heritage, whilst looking to the future; and our approach is intersectional – we provide a space for different feminisms to co-exist. We support not just archiving work, but also publish our own zines and support independent producers and artists. We are a registered charity, and completely self-funding. [1] Details of report http://casouthwark.org.uk/focus-southwark/southwark-council-agrees-new-voluntary-sector-strategy ‘Southwark Council Agrees to New Voluntary Sector Strategy’

This centre is absolutely vital for babies and parents. Life as a new parent can be challenging and, at times, isolating. This centre is crucial for meeting other parents and getting the support needed for your baby, whether that be for weighing, feeding or any other concerns. Without it many people would have to travel to Burghfield, which is very difficult for many people in the area.

That we the Fisherman and Farmers of Scotland have No Confidence in Richard Lochhead to stand and fight for our industries that are an important part of our rural economy, an important export earner for Scotland and vital to our food security

We, the undersigned, care deeply about the arts, and equally the natural environment and the rights of humans around the world. We believe arts and cultural institutions should break their ties with oil companies such as BP, a company which has caused repeated environmental catastrophes, including the Deepwater Horizon spill, and been implicated in numerous human rights violations. Furthermore, BP is turning a profit on the continued extraction of dirty fossil fuels, pushing us towards runaway climate change, whilst lobbying against environmental laws and clean energy alternatives [1, 2]. By accepting sponsorship from BP, cultural institutions give the oil giant much-needed positive publicity, and help it to obscure the destructive reality of its activities with a veneer of respectability. At the same time, oil sponsorship taints the reputation of the institutions that accept it. We recognise the vital importance of arts funding, particularly after public funding cuts. However BP sponsorship provides less than 1% of the annual income of the British Museum, Tate, and Royal Opera House, and just 3% of the income of the National Portrait Gallery [3], yet BP are allowed to place their name and logo alongside the names of these institutions, on their website and in exhibitions (despite many artists and arts workers having strong views against such branding) [4, 5]. BP needs these institutions far more than they need BP. This is the 26th year that BP has sponsored the Portrait Awards, through an agreement with the National Portait Gallery (NPG) in London. Fortunately this agreement is due to end this year. The NPG could choose not to renew the agreement, and to find a more appropriate sponsor for the Portrait Awards. However, negotiations about renewal are already underway. The NPG will not drop BP as a sponsor without strong pressure from the public and the arts sector. We need to act now. Over its 26 years of sponsorship, BP has repeatedly caused great harms to the environment and people; it has been responsible for multiple deadly explosions and oil spillages, including that of Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 people, decimated ecosystems and livelihoods in the Gulf of Mexico, and resulted in the largest corporate fine in history [6]. It has traded with oppressive regimes from Azerbaijan to Libya, and has even been implicated in torture in Colombia [7]. It has recently expanded into tar sands, an extreme form of energy production which contaminates water and tramples on indigenous rights [8]. Worldwide, fossil fuel companies have currently laid claim to five times the volume of oil, gas and coal that humanity can burn without causing dangerous and destructive levels of global warming [9] - despite this, BP has stated that it will continue to explore and exploit new reserves of oil and gas into the future. In 1989, the National Portrait Gallery ended its eight-year Portrait Award sponsorship agreement with tobacco company John Player [10]. It is time for this national cultural institution to show such moral leadership and forward-thinking once again, by cutting ties with BP. As a partner of the National Portrait Gallery, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery can influence this decision. We call on this respected national cultural institution to put pressure on the NPG to find a more appropriate sponsor, and to refuse to host the BP Portrait Awards until a new sponsor has been found. For more information, please see: http://bp-or-not-bp.org/ http://bp-or-not-bp.org/scotland http://platformlondon.org/p-publications/picturethis/ References 1. http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/may/02/bp-deepwater-horizon-oil-spills 2. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/21/bp-tops-the-list-of-firms-obstructing-climate-action-in-europe 3. http://platformlondon.org/p-publications/artoilinfographic/ 4. http://fossilfundsfree.org/who/ 5. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jun/24/no-oil-painting-bp-sponsorship-npg-portrait-award 6. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/02/bp-will-pay-largest-environmental-fine-in-us-history-for-gulf-oil-spill 7. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/22/gilberto-torres-survived-colombias-death-squads-now-he-wants-justice 8. http://environmentaldefence.ca/reports/canadas-toxic-tar-sands-most-destructive-project-earth 9. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 10. http://platformlondon.org/p-publications/picturethis/ 11. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-risks-as-conclusive-as-link-between-smoking-and-lung-cancer/

Users of the park visit the Ham Common (An SSSI area " of great beauty and interest.") and engage in sport & leisure activities that are based at Lake Pier. Perhaps most significantly they are residents of the local area including the youth of the borough, adults previously encouraged under ‘well being’ schemes, mature residents who visit to enjoy the environment and many others; fishermen, children and families - ‘crabbing’ and enjoying the shoreline. Most unfortunately the Poole Harbour Canoe club that has recently been encouraged to invest in a new boathouse at the site and who support the engagement of all ages in enjoying canoeing and kayaking may also suffer. Juniors, families and adults will all now sadly be discouraged by the introduction of these charges negating the good work of many in the borough who have previously encouraged active participation of these diverse groups of the community. The club has "Top Club" status from the National Governing body - the British Canoe Union through the diverse nature of its work and activities. http://www.pooleharbourcanoeclub.uk

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident in the St Albans Conservation Area. Recently, for example, an other locally listed building (Hawthornden, 23 Hatfield Road ) was demolished nearby. Let's step back from this path or we will lose the special character and architecture of the city. In 2012 the Victorian Society wrote: "The Pemberton block was built as an extension to the 1883 Hatfield Road Boys School and is now the only part of the school which still survives", and further: "The Victorian Society is backing local campaigners opposed to the demolition of the Pemberton block, the last remaining evidence of the town’s historic St Albans school for boys." Finally they conclude: "'Victorian and Edwardian schools were built to last and lend themselves well to adaptation. The demolition of the Pemberton block would be an appalling waste of a structurally sound historic building, and the site calls for a much less destructive solution". How could demolition have been approved against all expert opinion coming from Historic England, the Victorian Society or the Secretary of State (2012 decision), and against the wishes of the vast majority of the local St Albans Community including leading organizations like the St Albans Civic Society or the St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society? To conclude here is a link to a 2012 letter by Mr. Donald Munro, former president of the St Albans and Hertfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, about the importance of this building and why it should be protected: http://www.stalbanshistory.org/page_id__443.aspx

Last year more than 3000 children spent 24 hour to 48 hours in a police cell due to the inadequate amount of secure accommodation currently provided by local authorities in London in particular . Some have been arrested for very minor offences indeed. The psychological impact on a child of such lengthy detention can be very damaging. It is not acceptable in a civilized society to imprison children for such lengthy periods , it goes against the agreed guidelines which recommend children be released from Police custody and be transferred to secure accommodation within 4 hours after arrest , if there is no responsible adult to collect them .

Foraging has been a part of life since humans can remember. The right to forage is not something that should be taken away. Picking wild berries has been a past time of many families when out for a stroll. Taking this right away is ridiculous!

1. Mae’r celfyddydau'n dod â phobl o bob oed at ei gilydd gan gyrraedd pawb 2. Mae gweithgareddau celfyddydol hygyrch ar lawr gwlad yn cael effaith uniongyrchol ar ansawdd bywydau pobl 3. Mae'r celfyddydau'n gwneud gwahaniaeth gwirioneddol i'n cymunedau 4. Mae'r celfyddydau'n cyfrannu'n helaeth at economi'r sir drwy gynnig cyflogaeth a chynhyrchu incwm 1. The arts bring people of all ages together from all walks of life 2. Accessible arts activities have a direct impact on the quality of people's lives 3. The arts make a significant difference to our communities 4. The arts make a significant contribution to the county's economy by offering employment and generating income

The imbalance in cultural spending between London and the rest of the UK is inexcusable as it is. This move will only exacerbate that imbalance. The UK's national collections are supposed to be or the benefit of all its citizens, not just the minority who live in London and the south-east.