Southern Water seek to gain Michael Gove’s approval to increase river abstraction to levels NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Climate change is exacerbating the situation. We desperately need alternative & timely options to supply public water. The internationally rare English chalk stream riverine habitats & their wildlife are now under severe threat from over abstraction, especially in times of drought. This could prove catastrophic for species such as the genetically unique chalk stream salmon, sea trout, or Hampshire’s last population of the rare native crayfish, let alone the rivers themselves & the livelihoods that depend upon them. We must stop Southern Water using a Public Inquiry to gain Michael Gove’s approval to increase river abstraction to potentially catastrophic and reprievable levels. They intend to sidestep the correct procedure and ride roughshod over our public bodies, which are there to safeguard our environment. Challenging Natural England’s advice & the EA's sustainable licensing to increase abstraction to ruinous levels on our precious chalk streams, in order to meet their corporate goals – profit. We desperately need alternative, sustainable and timely options to supply public water. Action NOW is essential to ensure our rivers are properly protected in the future. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Hampshire Wildlife Trust, Natural England, Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) Hampshire, Salmon & Trout Conservation, Wild Trout Trust, Test and Itchen Association, Angling Trust and Fish Legal, and the Wessex Chalk streams and Rivers Trust, all oppose Southern Water’s position. HOW? Beginning 13th March, Southern Water through public inquiry are asking Michael Gove (Secretary of State) to approve their increased abstraction plans directly. If upheld, this will by-pass the normal procedures for obtaining an abstraction licence, and will not involve full public consultation including direct and fair engagement with river owners and users - an absolutely CRUCIAL involvement as there is so much at stake in these very complex decisions. SW are using ‘strong arm’ tactics in the Inquiry to make the EA use their legal powers to force river owners and users to co-operate. Some of these proposed actions are highly emotive and again deny the public the fair right to comment. WHAT OTHER DAMAGE COULD THIS CAUSE? Increasing populations and housing in Hampshire are greater than our natural water resources can now sustain. Demand has already exceeded the capacity our rivers and aquifers can supply. So at a time of water scarcity, on already over abstracted rivers, the threat is that SWS customers will be literally sucking the life out of the rivers Candover, Itchen and Test. This will deplete the river flows to levels that will devastate the natural aquatic environment. People will be watering their gardens as the flow of these rivers falls to dangerously unprecedented levels. Is this what people would want if they knew about it? THE SOLUTION - As we speak, Southern Water are preparing to publish a 'draft Water resources management plan' (and Drought Plan) for public consultation. They claim their plans will have a bold vision, with ambitious and innovative ways to secure the necessary alternative sources of supply to enable the Environment Agency’s licence changes to be made. These alternatives will be costly and include trading with Portsmouth Water, Havant Thicket Reservoir and a desalination plant in the Solent. That is what it will take to protect our Chalk streams from over abstraction. HOWEVER, SOUTHERN WATER WILL ONLY IMPLEMENT THESE AMBITIOUS NEW PLANS IF IT LOSES THE INQUIRY! If it wins then it may well in likelihood implement a shadow version... This Inquiry is Southern Water’s last-ditch attempt to cling onto its 40-year-old business model of over exploiting our chalk streams – one that generates a healthy profit margin at huge expense to the environment. TO CONCLUDE - No more stalling by this corporate Leviathan, which is investing large amounts of bill payers’ money on scientific models not fit for purpose to prove their 'case'. Instead they should be working together with and not against NGO’s, stakeholders, their clients and you the people to find alternative water supplies that will safeguard our rivers for generations to come. Please help support the EA's and NE's efforts to protect our rivers by signing our petition to ensure that Southern Water Services take note of their customers’ concerns for the sustainability and protection of these British gems. Many Thanks, Jim & Howard. "The proposed increase in water abstraction from the Test, Itchen & Candover will have a serious, if not disastrous, effect on the delicate balance of this unique ecosystem. We obviously need to meet the water needs of our ever-expanding population but there are less harmful ways to do this. The true chalk streams are only found in Britain (apart from a small presence in Normandy); we are custodians of these precious jewels & we owe it to our children and grandchildren not to undermine them" PAUL WHITEHOUSE - Comedian & fisherman. SW's turnover last year was approx £800 million, with a profit of more than £250 million. Their divis to corporate shareholders were somewhere over £100 million. Thankfully their operations and behaviour are now being scrutinised. See BBC news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43139857 Documents for the public enquiry - http://www.hwa.uk.com/projects/itchen-candover-and-testwood-water-abstraction-inquiry/ Photo by Charles Rangeley Wilson

No new opencast coal mines have started in England since 2013. Since then the Government has said that it will phase-out coal by 2025. It's vital that we prevent a new mine starting which would cause local and international environmental destruction and which the local community have clearly rejected. Bradley is a greenfield site in County Durham between the villages of Dipton and Leadgate. The site supports a wealth of plants and animals, including Great Crested Newts, badgers, red kites. Banks Group plan to mine 550,000 tonnes of coal from the site, starting work this spring. The Bradley opencast mine is a case where the original decision to grant planning was grossly wrong and the development is likely to damage the wider public interest. Since the planning permission was granted in June 2015 there have been significant changes in national and international policy with regards to coal and climate change. 1) Coal use in the UK has dropped to 7% of the UK’s energy mix compared with 30% in 2014. 2) The government has said it will phase-out coal by 2025. 3) The UK and Canadian governments want to be world leaders with their Powering Past Coal Alliance. 4) The Paris Agreement requires that action is taken to prevent global temperatures from raising by 2 degrees and pursue efforts to keep them from a 1.5 degree raise. Thomas Davison, 28-year-old a resident living 300 metres away from the proposed opencast site said; “Banks' desire to extract 550,000 tonnes of coal is driven by nothing more than profit and not at all by a genuine need for energy. We have moved onto other forms of cleaner energy for the good of our global climate. So why is it worth harming the local wildlife and the local economy for one last money grab?”

If everyone who saw this, signed and shared it would achieve its objective within the hour! NO WASTE INCINERATOR IN CAMBRIDGE: PROTECT OUR AIR QUALITY AND PUBLIC HEALTH Unborn babies, infants and children are most at risk from incinerator emissions research has proven. Waste incinerators are associated with direct causal links to all-cause mortality, cardiovascular mortality and mortality from lung cancer, higher rates of adult and childhood cancer, birth defects, increased respiratory hospital admissions, a range of emotional and behavioural problems in children, learning difficulties, and delinquency, cell level genetic changes which pose a risk to future generations , and in problems in adults including violence, dementia, depression and Parkinson’s disease, after adjustment for other factors. These findings come from a wide variety of peer reviewed research, meta-analysis and reports conducted by The World Health Organisation (WHO), British Heart Foundation, British Lung Foundation, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, The British Society for Ecological Medicine, DEFRA, Asthma UK, Client Earth. All conclude that incinerators should NOT be approved. This directly affects your health and that of your family and friends. Don’t say you weren’t warned! YOUR VOICE MATTERS and IT DOES COUNT. If approved against all advice from world leading environment, climate change and health advisory bodies, Cambridge air pollution WILL increase, forever, with significant and predictable life threatening and life changing health consequences for many, particularly affecting the most vulnerable youngest members of society. Amey Cespa proposes a £200M waste incinerator in Cambridge that will burn 250,000 tonnes commercial and household waste /yr, from 5 counties incl. Isle of Wight (selling surplus to China), fed at this rate minimum to justify investment. AC already provides facilities for waste recycling, composting, landfill and mechanical biological treatment. Yes, it proposes energy for 45,000 homes and 300 jobs during construction and operations but does that justify proven and predictable health effects above? Read them again – all-cause mortality, cancer, mental health, adverse effects in unborn babies, infants and children who by nature are in a biological window of vulnerability. AC submitted their application 20th Dec for a 21 day public consultation, just before the busiest holiday period of the year. They have followed min. statutory requirements to notify the public. For such a major infrastructure application that presents enormous city wide public health and environmental impact, providing 2 short notice site public information meetings (advertised briefly in neighbouring villages) and 2 recent short notice neighbouring parish council meetings, it does appear like AC would rather prefer the application flew very much under the public radar. The UK and Cambridge has a problem with waste management but if incineration is the answer, somebody asked the wrong question. Waste incineration in Cambridge will produce an unprecedented health risk for people living in and around the city, air pollution WILL increase and forever with significant and predictable health consequences. AC cannot guarantee that waste incineration is safe for public health. Toxin emissions and particulate pollution have to go somewhere. EC reports advise reducing NOT increasing air pollution to reduce and prevent land, coast and sea ecosystem damage due to acidification, thus also protecting water, food chains and organic farmers. There is already local evidence of significant health impacts from the AC Cambridge waste management site. 2016- AC was fined by Cambridge magistrates £50,000 for causing sickness and adverse effects on human health, and prior to these incidents, received 3 enforcement notices 2015 by the Environment Agency. ‘AC fined £50,000’ by F Snoad, Cambridge Evening News, Sep 2016. The environment agency continues to receive regular calls reporting problems with air quality relating to this site. Local newspapers have reported ongoing problems with local residents and workers complaining of feeling sick, gagging, wheezing, sore eyes and throats, constant unpleasant smells causing them to have to keep windows shut. ‘The waste park is poisoning us: Cambridgeshire villagers concern at Amey recycling centre’ by Samar Maguire, Cambridge Evening News, Sep 2017. It is enshrined in EC and UK legislation that reducing emissions produces true health benefits, prevents unnecessary burden on healthcare, and protects against the impacts of acid air and water on local and wide ranging ecosystems including land, coast and sea. Costs of incineration, together with research investigating nonstandard emissions from incinerators, has demonstrated that the hazards of incineration are greater than previously realised including that relating to fine and ultrafine particulates. Operating waste incinerators in urban areas results in dangerous health and environmental consequences from both construction and operation. The accumulated evidence on the health risks of incinerators is simply too strong to ignore and their use in Cambridge cannot be justified now that better, cheaper and far less hazardous methods of waste disposal have become available. The planned chimney stack height is out of keeping with surrounding local village architecture and the Fenland landscape: contravening NPPF guidelines. The proposed site is greenfield which will potentially be adjacent to major new residential areas. Waste minimisation, recycling and composting through innovation and behavioural change are the answer not incineration and certainly not in urban areas. Residents of Cambridge have human right to clean air and their health protected.

Onshore wind energy is our most abundant and cost effective form of renewable energy, and until it was banned by the previous government it was our most successful. It remains highly popular with opinions polls (including the government’s own) showing almost three quarters of the public support it - this support has been consistent for the last 20 years. With energy bills in Britain generally regarded as being too high and our government proposing a cap to address the issue - it makes no sense to pay considerably more than we need to for new forms of green energy. Fighting climate change with green energy is essential, we should not make it more expensive than it needs to be. A recent report from the ECIU (Energy and Climate Change Intelligence Unit) estimates that we will pay over £1 billion more on our energy bills - over just the next four years - if we continue to exclude onshore wind energy. Onshore wind is an economic and environmental opportunity for Britain.

The Kirby Misperton Protection Camp (KMPC) has been invaluable in our community’s struggle against fracking, now we stand to protect it! The camp was set up last December after the community lost a high court appeal to prevent Third Energy from fracking on the edge of our village. The camp acts as a community hub, its a place where we can go and seek support, information and share ideas. It also hosts events such as family fun days, solidarity weekends, know your rights workshops, legal observer training and a retreat. The camp is also home to some of the newer members of our community and offers a place to stay for campaigners with bigger distances to travel. The fracking of the KM8 well is putting our villages directly in harms way, but we also recognise that we are on the frontline of England’s struggle against the fracking industry. Fracking in Kirby Misperton is a local issue of national importance. All protest involves a level of disruption, but neither we nor the camp support any kind of violent or abusive behavior. As local residents we are grateful to friends who have made the choice to live so sacrificially to join our struggle. As such we welcome KMPC and the support from protectors around the country.

Xplore are proposing two alternative routes to the 32/33 bus which would cut out Forfar Road. Their consultation highlights that the route could also stay as it is. You can see the proposed two route changes at this link http://nxbus.co.uk/files/NXDundee/misc/FintryRouteReview-PublicConsultationDocument.pdf This re-routing would severely restrict people's ability for travel: • make it harder for people with disabilities and older people with mobility problems to catch a bus and get out of the house, potentially leading to loneliness and social isolation • safety concerns of having to work through a scheme to get to/and from the bus • get to and from work • visit friends and relatives • access education and training • access to hospitals, doctors, dentists and other medical services • access to leisure activities including town and countryside locations Fewer buses on the road will mean more traffic congestion and delays which affects all of us.

The High Peak area is almost completely devoid of electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Between Stalybridge and Sheffield there is a distance of over 30 miles without any publicly available chargers. Given the serious traffic congestion in the area you would expect the local authority to be doing all they can to promote alternative fuel sources to mitigate air pollution, noise and climate change. Electric vehicles will not solve congestion, but diesel and petrol engines are causing excessive and unnecessary harm as the government has recently indicated by targeting a ban on the sale of fossil fuel only cars by 2040. High Peak is currently not in a position to meet this target and risks lagging behind nearby areas. High Peak needs to take advantage of funding sources available for the cost of electric charging and show some leadership in the field - Greater Manchester has an extensive network of free to use charging points.

There are currently 7 primary schools Under the NYCC care in danger of closing. We have already lost 3. In an ideal world Ings would remain open, and the heart of the community however as this now seems futile I feel that there needs to be a full investigation into why we have got into this situation, and how we are going to prevent it happening again. I would also like it to be investigated why we are closing these schools yet allowing private developers to put in planning for two new schools in the area- both of which will be owned by an academy or free school, meaning they will no longer be under any of NYCC remit- a massive safeguarding issue

Oil based plastics & their role in waste pollution are undeniably one of the most prominent problems facing our planets ecology to date, it affects all of us and our future on this planet. While we and our industries now rely on them for various uses, we must ask ourselves whether the damage we are causing out weighs their necessity and also whether the financial costs of making the change are viable. I would hope every single person would quickly and clearly say that in the case of most plastics, the answer is *Yes*. So what can we do?.....There has been a solution and an alternative for a long time: bio-degradable plastics made from hemp cellulose. We aim to get legislation passed that all plastics where possible are replaced with 100% biodegradable plastics & the use of oil based plastics reduced to the most necessary of uses such as HDPE plastics for industrial purposes. This does not mean that we can just sit back and relax, the biodegradable plastics will still require diligent collection and the correct conditions to degrade. This change should be made along side methane capture projects to ensure the methane given off at all landfill is captured and used as an energy source and not just left to escape into the atmosphere. Whilst traditional plastics take a long time to decompose and release harmful toxins into the ground, hemp plastics do not. They do however release methane, which we must be vigilant of - but as stated above this also opens up possibilities in methane capture and re-useable energy. Increased recycling availability (especially near the coast) will be paramount, as will clear identification of biodegradable plastics but this small step will have a great impact for the planet we live on, as well as our future generations. On top of that the increased growth of hemp will have a substantial impact on reversing the effects of deforestation and open up a whole new industry for hemp use in 100's if not 1000's of applications, reducing our reliability on crude oil. Win Win Hemp was once our greatest and foremost industrial crop for thousands of years, it is only in the last few centuries that it has declined in the U.K. And USA especially, due to its affiliation with marijuana and outdated drug laws. Let's work together and make the world a better place 💚

Unconventional oil and gas extraction (“fracking”) will have an impact on our countryside, climate and local communities. It uses vast quantities of fresh water and chemicals and, as we have seen in America and Australia, this type of extraction has a detrimental impact on our natural resources, the environment, health, noise and air pollution, traffic and local communities. Fracking has also been known to cause earthquakes. The people of Sefton do not want this type of extraction taking place in any part of the borough.

Evidence from other countries and from the only Fracking to be carried out todate in the UK at Preece Hall in Lancashire demonstrates the industry has a proven record of environmental failures. At Preece Hall, which was being Fracked by Cuadrilla in 2011, as many as 46 earth tremors and 2 official earthquakes were experienced resulting in the site being closed down. Evidence has also been considered by the governments own Environmental Audit Committee and as part of their 2015 report they concluded: "Despite the assurances from some that environmental risks can be safely accommodated by existing regulatory systems, an extensive range of uncertainties remains over particular hazards—to groundwater quality and water supplies, from waste and air emissions, to our health and to biodiversity, to the geological integrity of the areas involved, and from noise and disruption. Uncertainty about their significance is in part a reflection of the fact that fracking operations have yet to move beyond the exploratory stage in the UK. It is imperative that the environment is protected from potentially irreversible damage. • Fracking must be prohibited outright in protected and nationally important areas. • Full containment of methane must be mandated. • Fracking should be prohibited in all water source protection zones.

Helps to meet our co2 reduction targets whilst reducing energy costs for new home buyers.