Council bullies in solar loo grab! Local residents face a David and Goliath battle with Hackney Council to retain ownership of the community restored Brooksby’s Walk public convenience. The Council plan to terminate the community’s lease on 8th February. Residents re-opened the toilets serving Chatsworth Road, left closed by the Council for 30 years. After a long campaign and formation of the Clapton Improvement Society, they were granted a 5year lease in 2013, with the promise of a 100year peppercorn lease to follow. The Society raised funds from the Lottery and loans from members to renovate the toilets and convert the gents to a café/restaurant to pay for their maintenance. The current operator is David Bez’s Pride Kitchen, a vegetarian café. Altogether more than £40,000 has been invested. Clapton has Britain’s only luxury sustainable solar powered free public toilets as a result. But from the beginning, the Council has made life difficult for the volunteers. Officials raised a series of petty complaints about the works done by local contractors. Building inspectors demanded an expensive sprinkler system and then didn’t issue the certificate after completion of the works. A local councillor raised unverified complaints about the café and persuaded the licensing committee to refuse an extension of hours, which had been granted planning permission after an appeal to the independent planning inspectorate. Now the Council’s estates department is seeking to terminate the community’s ownership on wholly spurious grounds (including not having the building completion certificate) without any plans to keep the toilets open. “It’s an outrage!” says Society secretary Mary Doyle. “ As someone who is wheelchair fast, this is the only local toilet I can use”. “The Council has always resented our campaign to re-open the toilets and provide decent facilities on the street. Now they want to steal our community asset. Far from helping community initiatives as they boast in glossy reports, they undermine, bully and ignore them when they can.” PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION!

A serious accident is going to happen and more lives are going to be lost. People work hard to keep there cars on the road. People are having to pay for repairs to their cars, some people are struggling as it is. Something needs to done.

The wild “decoy bird”, its most vital instincts frustrated and abused by confinement, suffers a terrible fate. Close to the ground it is terrorised by predators, and watches as its fellow birds are brutally killed in front of it. A number end up being found dead through neglect. The Larsen trap is a cage bird trap made of wire and either a wooden for metal framed cage where one live bird (decoy bird, or call bird), usually a crow or magpie, is placed to encourage another bird, not always of similar species, to come down to it. This visiting bird, not knowing its fate, falls through a false floor into a compartment, where it awaits its fate with the gamekeeper. Larsen Traps were designed by a Danish gamekeeper (Larsen) in the 1950s, but are now banned in that country because the traps are viewed as inhumane for trapping magpies and crows. The live traps use a “decoy” bird, which is kept in one compartment, and when another bird lands on top, it falls through a one-way gate. Legally they must have a perch, shelter, food and water, but this is often neglected.

To prevent the un-recyclable cups going into landfill, it is essential that Waitrose make this change.

Due to a high traffic accidents! Pedestrian safety/child safety while walking to and from three local schools. Traffic accidents at a high with fatalities due to speeding vehicles which needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency! High volume of traffic including large vehicles now using this as a through road where cars are parked on both sides of the street.

To keep the changing areas and poolside clean, visitors to Edinburgh Leisure swimming pools are provided with and encouraged to wear blue plastic pool shoes. While this does achieve its desired result, it results in a lot of plastic shoes ending up in landfill after a single use. If Edinburgh Leisure can provide a sustainable solution to this, we can seriously reduce the amount of plastic ending up in landfill and significantly decrease Edinburgh Leisure's carbon footprint. These plastic pool shoes resemble plastic carrier bags in many ways and, like plastic bags, are only designed for one use. We would like to see Edinburgh Leisure either get rid of them completely and encourage people to go barefoot when visiting their pool changing areas or replace them with a reusable, washable, fabric alternative.

Lea Village park is an important resource for the whole community to share and to be proud of. We have tried to do our own bit to make it better but we can’t do it alone. Having pupils in our school that rely on wheelchairs, it is important to us that the park is accessible to all of us and that they aren’t excluded from trips to the park. We would like to see the park used to its full extent by all local people. We are happy to do some fundraising of our own to help with this cause.

We do not accept the level of power that is given to the developers of our city. We demand that all new housing developments should have both insulated buildings AND renewable energy. This requirement should not be dropped because of 'urban design'. We do not accept unsustainable development that contributes to climate change; our communities need clean energy, transport links, and schools, doctors surgeries and amenities.

There are far too many deaths and accidents on rural roads and much time and energy and money goes into debates and changes in Communities and Councils all over the United Kingdom. Meanwhile we have the same black on white stripe sign on hugely varying stretches of road which gives a 60 mile blanket de-restriction. I am proposing a Green stripe replace the black on the sign on roads which have all or some of the following hazards, particularly prevalent in rural areas :- The road has many bends where vision is restricted, is too narrow in places for 2 cars to pass, has no pavement but is used regularly by walkers, cyclists and horse riders, particularly when part of a bridleway follows it on the ordinance Survey map, farmers drive sheep and cattle along it from field to field, the road is used heavily by farm vehicles of all sizes as well as all other types of road user. It is the main through-fare for communities. I am proposing that the maximum speed limit would be dropped to 40 or 50, but this is for debate as well as a No Overtaking except of stationary vehicles rule. Communities across the UK could then apply for this new category of driving limit in their area which would require no extra signs, just a very bright green rather than Black stripe and would be Nationally recogniseable. I am sure that many people as in our community have their own stories of fatalities and near misses and would welcome a solution that would at least give drivers a slightly different rule and understanding of the road they find themselves on.

Cut down on plastic

We the residents of Tower Hamlets are extremely concerned in the breakdown in waste collection for a number of weeks over the festive period. Waste built up to a level which became a health and safety issue. We demand that the council pursues an inquiry with its waste contractors Veolia to explore and make clear to residents what transpired and pursue contractual penalties to ensure value for money from Veolia Waste Management services for the lack of appropriate service. Maium Miah & Paul Hanes

‘Tradition’ could be upheld, and hunting dogs kept within the law, yet foxes, domestic pets and others could all be legally safeguarded. If you’re hunting a scent trail, legally, muzzling makes no difference. Why not?