Update 03/01/17 Following our petition there were some community meetings held at Parson St School. At these it was heard “that petition really kicked up a stink!” [at the Council] and Metrobus acknowledged the need for additional safety measures, described many options and said they would consult the residents of Highbury road, though would give no timescale. Since then we have asked when we would have responses to the concerns that were submitted as objections to the traffic order and been told that no responses were formalised but the comments were taken into account as part of the decisions report. The decisions report does not get published – instead you have to write/email to get a response. Please take the time to do this, contact details below. It does not seem right that this is not automatically published given the high level of concern and numbers of us signing the petition – show them that the response is important by contacting them and asking for an update. If we all do this they will realise that it would be better to issue a public response and that we will not be fobbed off over our children’s safety. Also since the issues were raised we have had no indication of what action, if any, they will be taking and they have not communicated with the local school over this, despite there being ongoing campaigning for greater road safety prior to this new issue. There is another meeting but the council will not be writing to residents about this meeting (as it is not an official council event) – please attend if you can and show your support. Monday 16th January at 6.30pm at Parson St School, Bedminster Road entrance – share with everyone and encourage people to attend as all eyes will be on the turnout. If you would like any updates you need to contact Councillor Mark Bradshaw –do it as soon as possible so we start the New Year showing we are committed to keeping our children’s safety a priority. Correspondence address: c/o Labour Group Office City Hall PO Box 3176 Bristol BS3 9FS Bus. phone: 0117 353 3160 Email: [email protected] ************************************************************************************************ Original content The proposed changes will increase traffic on the already congested Bedminster Road. Hartcliffe Way and Highbury Road. These are roads directly by the school and where the school entrances are located and the community is already concerned about safety. Furthermore the proposed changes include removing a crossing which is opposite the school which children use to cross Hartcliffe Way (an exceptionally busy road) safely. With increased traffic and reduced crossings our children's safety is being compromised significantly. Please look at links and object through the council as well as signing this. (NOTE these 2 links no longer work as initial consultation has closed). https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/1116390/E14017-TRO-450+Hartcliffe+Way+movement+Restrictions.pdf/0c61715e-202f-4b69-8c83-b6a9045d02f1 https://www.bristol.gov.uk/documents/20182/1116390/Statement+of+Reasons+v2.pdf/f7124074-9bf2-47ce-80de-ba3709f69d76 This is copy and pasted - it has the information to email/write and officially object - please take the time to do this - you are welcome to use points from this petition to do so. We have so many signatures and growing each day but we need the emails/letters too. Many thanks. ************************************ CITY OF BRISTOL (HARTCLIFFE WAY AND PARSON STREET, BISHOPSWORTH AND FILWOOD WARDS, CITY OF BRISTOL) (PRESCRIBED AND PROHIBITED MANOEUVRES) ORDER 20-- The City Council of Bristol hereby gives NOTICE it proposes to make a traffic order, the effect of which would be:- 1. to introduce a southbound in A4174 Parson Street prescribed straight ahead into southbound A4174 Hartcliffe Way at its junction with Parson Street eastbound carriageway; and 2. to introduce a prohibition of right turn from northbound on A1474 Hartcliffe Way into Parson Street eastbound carriageway. Further information available from 16th September 2016 Further details of all the proposals are contained in the draft order, which together with plans and a Statement of the Council’s Reasons for proposing to make the order may be inspected at the Citizen Service Point, 100 Temple Street, Bristol, BS1 6AG, between 10.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Monday to Friday. The draft order, plans and Statement of Reasons are also available to view on the City Council website at www.bristol.gov.uk/trafficorders. In addition, the draft order, plans and Statement of Reasons are available to be inspected at Marksbury Road Public Library, Marksbury Road, Bedminster, Bristol, BS3 5LG during normal opening hours. How to object Objections to the proposals, together with the grounds on which they are made must be sent in writing to TRO Comments at the undermentioned address or by e-mail to [email protected] quoting reference CAE/NMT/P-1011A by 10th October 2016. Please include your name and address and note that all representations received may be considered in public by the City Council and that the substance of any representation together with the name and address of the person making it could become available for public inspection. Highways Service (WH) P. MANN PO Box 3176 Service Director Transport Bristol BS3 9FS Date: 16th September 2016

It's around 8am on a dusky day in July 2016, and I'm standing on the far platform of Tain railway station, gazing out into the misty depths of the Dornoch Firth. The previous night I had come up on the late train - the 21:06 - from Inverness, though there's also a midnight service north. That left from Platform 7, which, intriguingly enough I had to walk across a car park to reach. Very few rail journeys start with a walk through a car park. But, increasingly often, many, many journeys from Wick and Thurso to Inverness involve a walk across a car park. This walk culminates with getting into a car and, well, driving down the A9. And why is this? There is a perfectly good rail line linking Thurso and Wick with Inverness, via the commuter towns of Dingwall, Tain and Invergordon, with four trains up it and down it each day (only one on Sundays). Many people marvel at the beauty of the line - it traverses all kind of landscape; the Beauly Firth, the Dornoch Firth, the Cromarty Firth, the mountains of Sutherland, Loch Fleet, incredible seascapes, marshy vistas, and vast tracts of peat bogland (the Flow Country). The line also connects with the NorthLink ferries north from Scrabster, near Thurso, to Orkney, and many people use these each year. In fact, I do. It's why I was at Tain in the first place. At Dounreay, on the north coast near Thurso, there used to be a nuclear power station. As this is decommissioned, things are transported out to Sellafield by rail. There's also timber extraction going on near Kinbrace en route - and the trees could be transported by rail. So why are people not using the line as much? Unsurprisingly, it's to do with the service. Things have become very unreliable. Delays and cancellations occur very frequently. Stops are often omitted at some of the line's busiest stations - including Thurso and the recently-reopened Beauly and Conon Bridge - to make up the time lost. The chronic problems behind these occurrences are caused by a combination of missing infrastructure and absent crew members. Out of these two, the infrastructure is the biggest problem with the line. But why is this? Well, the line is single track for its whole length, aside for some 'passing loops'. This is where there are two lines, or 'double track', but only for a short distance (think road 'passing places'); and there are loops at Muir of Ord, Dingwall, Invergordon, Tain, Ardgay, Lairg, Rogart, Brora, Helmsdale, and Forsinard. Otherwise, the train's can't pass each other. Because of this, delays can build up, causing a knock-on effect that leads to cancellations and skip-stopping. The stretch of railway between Inverness and Dingwall has only one passing place, at Muir. But this line is shared with the service to Kyle of Lochalsh (for Skye) and sees 13/14 trains per day in each direction (7 on Sundays). That's nearly 30 trains a day; and the constraints provided by the lack of track on the Far North Line, in particular between Inverness and Muir, mean that many, many of these are delayed, or cancelled. And so we return to Tain. My train northwards arrives a couple of minutes late. Not much of a delay, though we manage to pick up more and more delays on route, so that we end up around 15/20 minutes behind time on reaching Thurso. This makes commuting between the towns and villages on the southern section of the line and Inverness very difficult. And it also severely affects the northern end, too; because Thurso serves the ferry services at Scrabster and Gills Bay to Orkney. People need to be able to make their connections; being shunted out into a taxi at Wick doesn't help with things. But there is a solution. Until 1966, there were six miles of double track between Clachnaharry - to the west of Inverness - and Clunes, near Kirkhill. Since this was ripped away, this bottleneck has become worse, and worse, and worse. This is the solution; the Lentran Long Loop, as it's become known to the Friends of the Far North Line (or FoFNL). But why the name? Well firstly, it would go through the Lentran are. And secondIy: in railway terms, a 'dynamic loop' is a passing loop that's long enough to allow two trains to pass without stopping. For example, there's a couple on the main line south of Inverness, and there's one on the line from Glasgow to Barrhead and Kilmarnock. Having the Lentran Long Loop would improve services massively. An hourly service from Inverness to the towns of Easter Ross - Beauly, Muir of Ord, Conon Bridge, Dingwall, Alness, Invergordon and Tain - would become possible. Scenic tourist trains could run down the line, boosting the local economy in a ways similar to the North Coast 500 road route. The line could become a major freight corridor. But, more importantly than all of those: the trains could run on time. The ball is in your court.

Theresa May has just announced that she will spend £24m in the North. Unfortunately, it's going on cycling. While this is still welcome, it's hardly a priority. HS3 is such a thing; it's what a priority looks like, and sounds like, and is like. It's a priority. The Cameron administration pledged an 'HS3' link for the North. What they meant was a line linking Leeds and Manchester, electrified to run at about 140mph at most. HS2 is planned to reach 250mph. We need a line that runs at the same speed as HS2. Remember 'Northern Powerhouse'? That was just George Osborne's posh name for Manchester The North of England is not just Manchester. It's much, much more. We want HS3 to run into Liverpool and Bradford. And we want half of the trains into York and then north to Newcastle, and the other half to Hull. These cities desperately need a better service than the one they have today. And we also need a high-speed line from Manchester to Sheffield. Sheffield can't be overlooked anymore. The importance of connecting it to Manchester is really very obvious. There is already talk of a new road in a tunnel between the two cities. Why not make it rail? We can only see the real benefits if it is a high-speed line. And then it'll certainly be worthwhile. My parents used to live in Durham. My father worked in Middlesbrough, my mother at the University of Manchester. She had to commute from Durham to Manchester Piccadilly and back every day - and although there were no changes involved, it was piteously slow. I've travelled that line. It was slow then and it's just as slow now. And the trains are even more crowded, the M62 and the A-roads more packed. But there's no alternative. This is what we want to change. For the North to have more autonomy the major cities need to be connected together - certainly more than they need a high-speed umbilical cord to London. People say that 'it's grim up north' - and it's not true. But maybe that's from their experience of travelling from one side of it to the other. We need to build a Britain for the future. And we need a North for the future. Much more infrastructure and spending per head is located in London and the South East. It's time to redress the balance. We need a level playing field. This is more important than HS2. It will effect local business and economies in a bigger and better way. It will massively cut journey times between the fractured sides of the North. Communication between Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Hull would improve massively. The North would seem more united. And as for the many, many people that use the current Trans-Pennine line between Yorkshire and Lancashire, their journeys would be improved ten-fold. Bradford would be connected properly for the first time. Over 500,000 people live there, and it contains some of the most deprived areas in the North. It would benefit greatly from a high-speed service as its economy would improve and its people would be better connected. So that's what we want: a new, high-speed railway line from Manchester to Bradford, Leeds, and then a junction: Hull one way, and York (joining the mainline to Newcastle and Teesside) the other way. And we also want a high-speed link between Sheffield and Manchester. Except this: we don't just want these projects, we need them. Chris Grayling heads up the DfT, so he's our target for this petition. Come on, Chris, make it happen! This is our message to Theresa May: here you have a brilliant opportunity to show how you are committed to improving the North. Take it with both hands, honestly. You need us. Remember that. HS3 gives us a platform (not just a railway one, either) for working on that. Here we have the foundations of a proper, working, breathing North, a North for the future. We all just need to see it.

Many people use the road, especially the elderly, the potholes make it unsafe

Deer Park Medical Centre is a GP Practice providing an excellent service to a large number of people in West Witney due to close on the 3rd November 2016. It is currently being serviced under contact to Virgin Care. Whilst many of us do not agree with the privatisation of health services, Virgin are undoubtedly providing a good service. Whatever it takes to keep this practice open must be done. You cannot seriously consider allowing it to close. Other GP practices in Witney are already badly overstretched and waiting times for an appointment are often measured in weeks. This is not the case at Deer Park, I am a patient and have never had to wait more than days, also they operate walk in clinics for urgent cases. Please don't use the people of West Witney as political pawns in this dangerous game.

For the safety of all pedestrians, joggers, horse riders, and of course all who live in Dry st. A new estate of some 700+ houses is being built, surely they will need a footpath !

It is going to cost in excess of £5,650 per INCH!!!! and for what gain, just to get to the destination 20 minutes sooner. And as Bill Bryson says in his book: if you have 20 minutes to spare, what do you do - have a cup of coffee!

The current system of creating money through the sale of ever increasing layers of debt, and now, the BofE operating an unaccountable balance sheet which defies principle or prudence, is plumbing the depths of fantasy economics, is unsustainable in nature. It is starting to resemble a listing pirate ship liable to sink at any moment. Only Sound money can deliver a reduction of inequality, a sustainable future for the environment and the next generation and re-establish trust in government, creating a new united kingdom that everyone can believe in.

Because of the environment impact on the area.

Worryingly the speed of all vehicles including buses is on an increase with sometimes speeds at excess of 60mph by some cars and in excess of 30mph by some buses. Children are becoming at risk and it will only be a matter of time before the inevitable happens with either a child, pedestrian, cyclist or motorist being severely injured or worse, a fatality.

The health issues/concerns of emissions from mobile phone masts are well recorded. 4g mobile masts/antennas have even more powerful transmissions of microwave radiation. The proposed placement of this mast so close to residential property and children's playing field is of serious concern to local residents. Also the the size of these floodlights and mast would be a blot on the greenbelt land and an eyesore for residents living opposite.

Dropped kerbs make a huge difference to my life and those of other disabled individuals where they are available but this availability is patchy at best with individual roads often having them only in some spots but not in others rendering overall access little better than if there were none at all. Dropped kerbs affect individuals who use crutches or walking sticks or frames or wheelchairs or mobility scooters and also affect parents with prams too so they matter to a considerable section of the community. Dropped kerbs need to be protected from careless parking by means of double yellow lines or they may be rendered useless even where they are otherwise available and these need to be rigidly enforced too. This amenity is particularly important in relation to buildings where disabled access is a necessity yet, taking my local hospital as an example, outside that complex there is no dropped kerb and an over eight inch drop to the road from the pavement. This is a far from uncommon experience and highlights the need for fresh action to put these matters right. Disabled people struggle enough to get around as it is without making this any more difficult thanks to the patchy and ill thought through provision of dropped kerbs that we currently have. Central government action and matching funding is needed as well as local government action to put the work into place.