The City Council has announced plans to close Hove Library and re-open a new service in Hove Museum in 2017. We are concerned that the new service will be less central, smaller and won't be able to accommodate the full range and scope of the existing service. We are concerned that Hove Library as we know and love it is closing, and an iconic piece of local history will be lost forever. Hove Library is well used and loved by our community. It is a lifeline to many. It is free to use and popular. It provides great value costing the council taxpayer only 32p per week per person. Our library helps our community: 34% of library users have no home internet access and 32% are jobseeking. Over 30,000 children use libraries in Brighton and Hove ranging from homework clubs to baby boogie. Over 600 people attend reading and writing workshops. Hove library is home to special collections, provides a safe space and helps break down barriers.

Memory Lane is for those with Dementia and their carers. It is from 2 to 5 pm once a month. Carers can chat. Share Chair Yoga with those they care for.Have light refreshments and sing along to live music It make a relaxing Saturday afternoon. With the winter on its a cheerful afternoon which we can no longer have.

The citizens of Argyll and Bute is reject these appalling, destructive and cruel plans in their entirety. If allowed to happen, these cuts will rip into the heart of our communities at a time when depopulation is already a huge issue. Here is an idea of what is proposed: -Reduction in Additional Support Needs assistants across areas by 45%. -Withdraw services that the council is not required to provide for children under 5. -Move to 3 weekly collection for general waste (green bin). -Removal of Attendance Officer posts. -Removal of all School Librarians in all Secondary Schools. -Remove Discretionary Community Transport Grant Funding. -Reduce subsidies to freight operators in Campbeltown. -Increase Burial & Cremation charges by 20% over and above inflation. -Close 43 public conveniences. -Replace annual bedding display with grass areas. -Remove rose and shrub beds and return to grass. -Reduce Environmental Team. -Reduce street sweeping by 50%. -Further reduce staff (grass cutting, street sweeping, wardens, public conveniences). -Removal of Christmas lights installation. -These are just a small highlight of the proposed cuts that can be found here: https://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s103359/Service%20Choices%20Report%20-%20Appendix%201.pdf

This service is vital to those without there own transport and unable to use public transport to the RUH Bath

Mental health in the UK is in crisis. As it's seen as an invisible problem, cuts are being made across the country in the hopes that the public won't notice or care. But most people will experience, or will have a family member or friend experience, mental health problems - this is in fact an issue that touches us all. We need to fight for our vital services. We need to fight for Winterbourne Therapeutic Community. The Winterbourne therapeutic community (TC), a large part of the Berkshire Complex Needs Service, is due to end in November 2015. The TC has been operating for almost 50 years and is highly-respected among therapists who work with TCs. This is a therapeutic model that works by bringing people together, all of whom suffer with longstanding emotional problems, and turn them into a community. Members’ experiences include abuse, neglect, trauma, deprivation and loss, particularly early in life, which leads to an inability to take care of themselves and form healthy, sustained relationships with other people. The fact that members are able to form a community is a huge testament to the hard work of both the members and the therapists. Winterbourne TC offers its members therapy of 18 hours a week for 18 months. Every member joins knowing that TC offers no quick fix, but is extremely successful when hard work and commitment is applied. In today’s world of cuts and demands for immediate results, it’s no wonder that therapeutic communities are unpopular and at risk across the UK, despite their efficacy and cost-effectiveness in the long-term (http://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/…/a1CG0000000GTAxMAO). TC can only operate with full openness, which is why it’s particularly disturbing that there has been a lack of this when communicating about the future of TC. Members, both current and former, were only informed about the imminent closure of TC this month, September, meaning we’ve had very little time to organise and get a campaign plan going. Ex-members were invited to a workshop regarding ongoing psychological services provided by Berkshire Healthcare NHS trust at the beginning of September. As there was no context, and it was held from 3.30pm til 5.00pm, people who were working didn’t attend, whereas they would have made special arrangements to have attended had the workshop’s purpose been clear. The official reason for the closure of Winterbourne TC, given by Cathy Saunders, a spokeswoman for the Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, is that the site has recently been deemed “unsuitable for use” (http://www.getreading.co.uk/…/patients-outrage-over-closure…), without further detail. There had been signs for some time that the TC was under threat for financial reasons: for a long period of time prospective members have been hard to find, despite the fact that previously TC was in such high demand that there was a waiting list. Additionally, this year the number of therapists in each ‘small group’ has decreased from 2 to 1. Small groups consist of up to 6 members of the community, where psychotherapy and discussion can take place in a more sustained, detailed way. Therapists are an integral part of the small groups, so this cut has been sorely felt. Winterbourne TC is incredibly special. It operates through a “living-learning” experience, which includes tasks like providing a meal for all members and therapists, teaching members how to get on with the ordinary business of living. For the incredibly hard process of leaving, a leavers’ group helps members think about life after TC, professionally and in terms of their own welfare. It also provides 24/7 support – outside of community hours, members telephone each other for support. Physical support, when telephone support just isn’t enough, can also be arranged, where members of a community come together to offer support and love during what can feel like the very darkest hours of all. This community has kept people alive. It has taught many people how to live, not just exist. This petition calls for this invaluable service to be kept open - it has been a literal lifeline to so many people. A member's story - Samuel: I would wake up every day and within seconds I’d be crushed by the disappointment that I was still here. Every hour I was conscious my time would be consumed either by unhealthy coping mechanisms or fantasies of suicide. I attempted suicide multiple times before the age of 22. Had I not been referred to Winterbourne Therapeutic Community in early 2014, I likely would be dead or dying by now. I am 24 years old. In September 2015, I completed my treatment in the Therapeutic Community and barely recognise the person I was when I started. During my time there I developed confidence, self awareness and a desire to live. I learned the skills required to leave my parents’ house and live independently. I made friends and made plans for a better life and made peace with my past and my decisions and my pain.

Sign this petition to ensure the public an opportunity to respond to these outrageous proposals and a full enquiry into how the council have been allowed to enforce gagging orders on council employees to prevent them from speaking out. Our children's future is at stake. I am one of many parents in the area with a child who has additional needs. The proposal to remove support within schools affects all children. There maybe as many as 5 disruptive children in a class of 22 with the teacher expecting to deliver the curriculum without any assistance. The whole system will collapse. And this is just the BEGINNING of the cuts.

Councils and Councillors now have significant control of railways in the North. Twenty nine Councils make up a new body called “Rail North.” Although Rail North cannot decide whether our railways should be publicly owned (which is what most passengers would prefer!) they will be deciding on many important issues that affect passengers. This includes train service levels and what station and train staff will be available to assist passengers and protect their safety. One of Rail North’s first big decisions will be to help determine with the government the rail franchise agreements for Northern Rail and Transpennine Express Trains (TPE) services. These agreements start on 1st April 2016, shortly before the local elections in May. Worryingly the current proposed franchise agreements mean there will be fewer rail staff to help passengers and protect their safety. There are no guarantees that ticket offices will be kept open. And no safeguards that as many stations as possible will have properly trained and directly employed station staff to help passengers. In fact there will be cuts to rail jobs.

Classes are being closed without consultation or preparation. This is affecting non exam classes where adult learners are developing skills and social contacts that are vital to their well being.

On 14th September the Vice Chancellor and Student Services Director at the Open University announced plans to close seven English regional centres in Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Gateshead and London. They claim this is with the aim of putting students first and giving them a better support services experience. 500 highly qualified, experienced and dedicated staff members stand to lose their jobs or face having to compete to retain their posts at another location with all the disruption this causes. Worst of all is that their academic and student support expertise would be lost. The Open University has already closed one regional centre and transferred student services from a regional to a faculty based model. This already means that students who once could have all their support needs met in one team might now have to contact as many as four separate teams for this. Increasing reliance on online resources also leaves students floundering when they could previously speak to a student support expert as a first resort. The plans to close offices and jettison staff teams with as much as 190 years of academic and student support experience among them, for new, inexperienced staff working in call centre conditions are only likely to further reduce the quality of service students can expect

Hundreds of children and young people with autism/learning disabilities and mental health problems across the uk are being shipped miles away from their families because there are no provisions in their own locality. As Norman Lamb said " we wouldn't ship a child hundreds of miles away for a broken leg, why are we doing to children with mental health problems." This has disastrous consequences for not only the child, but their loved ones. Often families find it financially difficult to travel, emotionally draining having to listen to their loved one heartbroken in an unfamiliar environment 100s of miles from home, their condition often deteriorates leaving their recovery period much longer and more painful, children are often drugged and restrained as a means of treatments (control) This barbaric treatment has to stop, children should be in their own locality and received the necessary treatment they need surrounded by their family. If no such provision is available then bespoke placements should be built around the home locality of that child and specialist experts in their condition be available. Children and young people have a voice and should be heard, they should be listened to and every effort made to adhere to their wishes and feelings and not ignored and dismissed as the NHS says EVERY CHILD MATTERS!!!!

The NHS is internationally envied for its clinical excellency, efficiency and moral courage. Following the purchaser provider split and changes under New Labour in the late 1990's, the introduction of private contracting has diverted profits from services out of the NHS into wealth creating companies. Subsequently healthcare professionals and patients have seen and felt the NHS change for the worse. Since this Conservative party came into government they have undertaken steps to undermine the financial viability and safety of care provided by the NHS through an ideological choice of chronic underfunding. To quote Noam Chomsky, "that's the standard technique of privatisation: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital". They are now targeting staff and junior doctors. Following negotiations with the BMA doctors union, the department of health offered an unacceptable contract which would reduce patient safety, increase junior doctor fatigue, reduce recognized out-of-hours commitment, and significantly reduce take-home pay. When junior doctors refused the governments precondition to accept ALL of these proposals as a basis to a final contract as a condition of restarting negotiations, the BMA found themselves accused of ‘walking away’ from the table and informed that the contract would simply be imposed upon them in August 2016. Junior doctors, side by side with other healthcare professionals, work in an increasingly pressurised and under-resourced setting, and are known as the medical workhorse of the NHS. Their current working pattern is antisocial and labour intensive, as anybody who lives with or is friends with a junior doctor will know. Tiredness is compounded by a sense of disenchantment, which may explain why these professional healthcare groups did not feel energised enough to understand or stand up to the government on their introduction of the Health and Social Care Act in 2012. Legislation which is leading to the erosion of the NHS in the hands of a Jeremy Hunt, who prior to his appointment as health minister wrote of this ideological support for privatisation of the NHS. Junior doctors now face a situation where their self-perceived head to the ground and carry-on grafting attitude is being rewarded by a contract which is estimated to lead to a startling 20-40% reduction in take home wages depending on speciality, and longer and less protected shifts. The new system would provide us with the assurance of a 20 minute break per 11 hour shift worked. Fatigue from grueling shifts are acknowledged to cause impaired performance, a sobering and concerning fact for patients. We as junior doctors accept that our pay has declined against inflation for years. However, we are asking that this government's ideological CHOICE to devalue our profession, and take money and morale from junior doctors, when the financial privileges freedoms of the very rich and financial sector are protected, be acknowledged and challenged. We oppose government ministers with personal wealth of millions using our wages, which when compared to other peers with similar backgrounds in university and post-graduate years in training are modest, as another excuse to paint the NHS as 'unaffordable'. An NHS which is acknowledged as excellent in the care it delivers, and one of the most efficient services on the planet. This Junior Doctor contract campaign must form part of a wider effort to oppose the overarching plan to ultimately do away with the NHS. As things stand, in 20 years, I as a junior doctor will be working as a private consultant for a private health provider, possibly earning more than an NHS consultant, but paying for my own and my families healthcare in times of greatest vulnerability. I would not chose to be treated by, or treat on behalf of, private companies and insurance merchants for whom profit is the primary concern. A great many who earn less than me may go without the best chances of surviving illness due to their bank balance. I reject that future. I wish to work proudly as an NHS doctor, in the United Kingdom. I believe that patients also wish to be treated by a trustworthy NHS rather than a private company. An NHS staffed by motivated, valued and supported professionals and not by profit. Please sign this petition to support junior doctors, the NHS, and the public.

The Government is currently preparing its Spending Review for the next 5 years and adult education is under threat. Without continued Government support for adult education, many courses across the country will simply not be sustainable and will disappear. Thousands of hard working and hugely motivated adult students will be denied the chance to improve their lives. We need you to help fight to protect this investment in our people and our communities. Please sign this petition. This campaign is being led by the Workers' Educational Association - the UK's largest provider of voluntary adult education - for and on behalf of everyone involved in adult and community learning.