Alston is the highest market town in England, and lies 21 miles from any other towns-only 2 of which have a hospital. Alston is over an hour's drive from Carlisle Hospital. ALL 5 roads out of Alston cross high moorland in the North Pennines, and these are frequently closed or rendered treacherous by winter weather between November and March. Ambulances would face a very long, slow and difficult journey to reach a patient and to get them to hospital. Lives will be put at risk. Lives may well be lost if the threat of closure of our Cottage Hospital beds is carried out. Moreover, our absolutely brilliant Doctors Surgery, which depends on the hospital beds to sustain it, could then also eventually close. Where will the 2000-3000 residents of Alston and Alston Moor then go for initial emergency care, to see a doctor, or for other general GP services? There is no bus service to speak of (also cut back). In addition some of the stunning roads in the region produce more than average numbers of road accidents, particularly involving motorbikes and are often very serious. One of our local GPs can be on the scene within minutes--at the moment. If the GP Surgery also has to close, the nearest 'first response' possible will have to travel 21 miles (on notoriously slow windy roads) just to reach the casualty. Do all these lives count for nothing, that we we should lose our hospital beds, our local GPs and an effective emergency response, simply because we live in a beautiful but isolated locality? Why not, indeed, use the beds at Alston (and a small number of other places in Cumbria similarly threatened) as 'OVERSPILL' beds. These beds could be used temporarily by those patients, often elderly, who no longer need to receive medical treatment on the Ward but who need some nursing and monitoring.....whilst they wait for appropriate care to be provided in/by their own community. This would also relieve and 'unblock' several beds in General hospitals for those on the waiting list, and for emergency treatments. Surely this a much more cost-effective way of using our Cottage Hospital beds, rather than simply closing them and leaving a great facility redundant?

There is no public transport to the other surgeries meaning elderly/disabled patients unable to attend unless prepared to pay £14 for a taxi. The other surgeries are already struggling with their list and finding GPs to fill positions. Right now it's 3-4 weeks wait for an appointment there which will only increase when 10,000 patients are added to their lists.

The Belfast Telegraph recently published an article outlining plans to demolish the Movie House on Dublin Road. "Plans are now under way to knock down the Movie House cinema on Dublin Road and build a £65m 12-storey office scheme with a capacity for 3,000 staff." You can read more here http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/65m-office-block-at-belfast-movie-house-site-will-create-600-jobs-35398523.html I believe that the Movie House on Dublin Road is one of the best cinemas in the city, out of the very few that we have. Losing it would be yet another nail in the coffin for the arts in Belfast for the sake of the commercial and financial gain of the minority. Any proposal to demolish this wonderful cinema would be yet another example of the rampant 'beigification' of Belfast. Those of us who want to save the Movie House from such shameful fate need to fight for it right now. A petition signed by 1000s of people whilst an open consultation process is ongoing may just make developers think twice about demolishing our cinema. We need the power of signatures to help us convince developers that the cinema is worth keeping and important to many people. We must unite and reject any proposals to destroy our arts scene.

Lewes District Council has just announced that it will no longer calculate Council Tax Relief based on self-employed people’s actual income and that it will now use an arbitrary income figure based on a calculation of 37 hours times the Minimum Wage. This will have the effect of immediately cutting the amount given in Relief to many of our hard-working self-employed. In this area many local residents are self-employed and together make a huge economic contribution to our area. They are to be valued, not penalised.

Public services are being cut back to the bone due to the political choice of austerity, playgrounds and sports facilities are being closed, the NHS is under attack, community groups, the disabled and vulnerable face all sorts of challenges from closures and budget cuts – this decision is an utter disgrace.

This service engages children, young people and families with lived experience, to improve health services. It gives us a voice, that we otherwise wouldn't have. Our thoughts and opinions are listened to, discussed, and acted upon to turn our often difficult experiences into positives to change child and adolescent health services for the better. It puts the service users at the heart of shaping services throughout the whole of the Child Community Health Partnership here in Bristol and South Glos, and allows medical staff and young people to come together and be a team. Many of us were referred to this service whilst incredibly vulnerable, having missed out on key parts of pre adult life due to illness or disability. Slowly, taking into account our own abilities and needs, this wonderful team of staff encourage us to find our voice. The sense of pride, empowerment, and achievement this process instills is second to none. The Bristol CCG is planning to axe this wonderful service by 75%. The majority of the staff team supporting the service users have been made redundant. This team of people really are one of a kind, and work tirelessly and enthusiastically to ensure our voices are heard, and our suggestions and opinions both positive and negative are acted upon. It is appalling that it has already been cut by 75%, and we may be at risk of losing it completely. I have been a young person engaging with this service for 5years. When I first arrived, I couldnt speak, was only well enough to leave the house for an hour a week, and having been housebound and often bedridden for the last 2years of my school education, had lost all sense of confidence and hope for my future. With the support and understanding of the NHS/ Barnardo's HYPE team, I have gained so many positive experiences, skills, friends, and so much confidence, that I have now given talks to 100 professionals at a time, on what it's like first hand to have mental and physical illnesses whilst at school, and what can help them to help children and young people in future. The feedback that me, and other young people gain from doing these talks, is incredible - to be given the support and platform to speak out and improve things for the future generation is down to the HYPE team. This is only a tiny aspect of the work we are involved in. Other opportunities we have, are to sit on recruitment panels for health workers, create artwork for hospitals and clinic spaces to make them more user friendly, work with different medical teams to provide information in the best and most accessible way to young people, and also work with the medical professionals in the partnership to bridge the gap between 'service users' and 'professionals' to let everyone be heard. I cannot fully explain how important this service is, and what a massive impact it has on the way the Bristol NHS works for children and young people. Without this service, many of us would have remained in desperate situations, and have continued our isolation and silence. By the huge reduction of this service, the commissioners are taking away our right to have support to find our voice, and make a difference to these services, as well as to ourselves and future young people. After hearing the government once again last week promise more funding for mental health services - it is even more disheartening to see this wonderful service working to improve those services, being axed. We do have a voice, and we DO matter. Please join us in challenging their decision.

On Thursday 26th Jan, South Devon and Torbay CCG will decide whether to close four cottage hospitals - Dartmouth, Paignton, Ashburton April this year. At a time when the NHS is desperately short of beds, these decision are perverse The Community hospital beds could be put to full use for looking after patients being discharged from major hospital units in the county where there are no immediate alternative arrangements for care in the community. The proposal to cut the 32 acute beds is dangerous and completely detrimental to the people of South Devon

This is the last bank in our town of Tillicoultry, Clackmannanshire. A branch in the adjoining town of Dollar already closed. Customers would need to travel either to Stirling, or Falkirk, or use online banking. Our argument is that a good number of elderly customers(and maybe some younger) who use this branch have no knowledge of using a computer far less online banking. Many will not be able to use buses to these towns, or have family convenient to drive them to the other branches. We do not want this branch to close.

Camden Council is planning to close Netherwood which is a specialist dementia day centre - the only one of its kind - in Camden. This will be the third time Camden has tried to close it since 2011. Each time we campaigned and won. We need to win again. Situated in NW6 between West Hampstead and Kilburn, Netherwood is regularly visited by people the world over, so impressive is its design and the care received by the people who attend it. If Camden Council closes this centre and sells off the land, as is the general feeling, then it will be lost forever. The council will never be able to afford such a site again. If the closure goes ahead, those attending their beloved Netherwood will be "decanted" to another nearby centre which is not a specialist day centre and is not purpose-built. The council says it will have money to make alterations to the building to make it "dementia friendly". We argue: why spend money on partially reconfiguring another centre when you have one right there that is purpose built? We appreciate local governments are having to make huge budget cuts, but we believe losing such a jewel of a resource will be a travesty and will adversely impact generations to come. Please help us save this incredible community resource a third time! Dementia is recognised as a growing concern in today's society. Not only is it important that there is excellent care for the person with dementia, it is also crucial that family carers are given time to themselves to recharge from what can often be a hugely challenging and exhausting situation. Places like Netherwood enable families to STAY together. They also keep people from being hospitalised and we know how important that is in the current climate. If we have brilliant services in the community the ultimate saving to society, both financially and in terms of general well-being, is enormous. Cutting such lifelines will ultimately cost more in the long run with some families perhaps deciding that residential care is the only solution. The cost of this to the council would be enormous. If we are to have a truly dementia-friendly society then places like Netherwood should never be threatened with closure but should be protected in perpetuity.

Our Post Office is a main part of the community, a post office is a place for the young and the old, a place where they can trust a postmaster to look after there needs. Every week one in four people visits their Post Office and they're a focal point in towns and villages.

Kamelia kids Nursery is the only nursery in West Sussex that has classes especially for special needs children. My son started off at this nursery in one of their mainstream classes. He used to crawl into the cloakroom and lay on the floor to escape the busy environment he couldn't handle. My son is autistic. The nursery moved him to an autistic class within the nursery. He settled immediately. He had extra support and an environment that was specially designed to meet his needs and allow him to make unbelievable progress in his communication and development. These classes give children like my son their best possible chance and a sense of security. Wscc are suggesting that this is about inclusion rather than funding. The truth is we have schools for special needs children funded by the council. That is because they are NEEDED. So why exactly is it that nurseries offering that service aren't? Of course they are! People come from miles around so that their children can access the resources Kamelia kids currently has because they are already few and far between. The early years of a child's development are crutial to shaping their future. As lovely as it would be to believe that all children with additional needs could cope and even thrive in a mainstream environment, as some do, the reality is that there are many that don't. That is fact. For those children they are going to be abandoned to a system that fails them if this is allowed to go ahead. These units/classes are too important to lose. Our special needs children shouldn't be forced into environments they will not only struggle to cope in but where their development will suffer too. This is failing the most vulnerable children in our society. How can that possibly be justified?

On the 24th January, the ESCC Cabinet will be making the decision over whether to stop providing the DofE Award's Scheme in East Sussex. DofE provides an enjoyable and fun way for students from all backgrounds to do something new and get out into the countryside, in an era where there are many other distractions for young people. It is also a great way to get to know and make new friends, building social skills as well as practical ones through the multitude of different objectives participants must achieve in order to get their award. In the words of Cllr Nick Bennet, lead member of the council for Education and Inclusion, "I’ve always believed that the best way for young people to advance in life is not just through academic excellence but through developing broad life skills. Completing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award enables participants to develop new talents, meet new people and give something back to the community." The cost to run the scheme by the council is minimal, but the reward is monumental. It is for these reasons that the undersigned request that funding for the DofE Award Scheme is ensured for young people to come, not cut.