Acomb is a non-parish suburb in York. With a growing population of around 22,215, Acomb is the largest of all areas of the city. However, a plan for a Town Council for Acomb should be actively pursued. With the City of York Council too busy playing playground politics among political parties, refusing to listen to our community and leaving parks and play areas in Acomb to despair; we are campaigning to create Acomb Town Council. The formation of an independent Town Council for Acomb would mean better direct access to government funds and grants. This could benefit the community by being channelled into local projects and would open many opportunities for the area and its residents with a more tangible impact. The status ‘Town Council’ should be used over ‘Parish Council’ due to Acomb having a sizable population and to reflect the range of services that would be available to local residents. Also, there is already an existing Acomb Parish Council in Northumberland. If successful, the newly formed Town Council can provide services around litter, parking, crime prevention, public toilets, community hubs, libraries, parks, and green spaces. We would become York's largest civil parish, leading the way for local voices and local decision making, giving residents more power and a say in how we can shape our community. To do this, we NEED a petition containing the signatures of at least 7.5% of Acomb residents, which is roughly 1,600 people, which I am sure we can achieve! If you are a resident and/or you work in Acomb, please sign the petition and share far and wide so we can create Acomb Town Council.

In the light of various allegations made recently, coupled with speculation already mooted on Social Media and Main Stream Media, together with the appalling behaviour of the former Health Secretary, this has now left the general public with a total loss of confidence that an Inquiry some time in the future will be open and transparent. The Covid-19 Pandemic has profoundly affected all aspects of people's lives and resulted in over 125,000 extremely traumatic deaths. Businesses have been descimated. Care Home residents abandoned by the Government. Education has been severely disrupted. The Pandemic is something no government has had to deal with for over 100 years and it is now paramount that the general public see and hear what lessons could be learned from how the Government has dealt with all aspects of keeping us safe, including how [wisely] taxpayers money has been spent in appropriating PPE, hospital equipment, mental health provisions etc. Leonardo da Vinci once said "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence" WE WILL NO LONGER BE SILENT.

We are particularly concerned about road maintenance and the closure of Congleton’s Household Waste & Recycling Centre. We acknowledge that funding grants from central government to local authorities has DECREASED BY OVER HALF since 2010. Cheshire East Council does its utmost to support those with the greatest need, however year on year cuts mean that services must evolve to adapt to the funding it receives. Without more funding the loss of some services and a deterioration of road standards are inevitable.

It is extremely important that the conditions some of the most vulnerable people in our society are housed in are improved. Families with children should not have to endure such conditions which have negative impacts on young children’s development. With homelessness increasing every year it is very important that more social housing is built that people on a low income can afford. This is even more important with two million people fearing they won’t be able to find a home after the eviction ban is lifted. Temporary accommodation has become institutionalised and it isn’t sustainable. This must be reversed by building more social housing.

As frontline keyworkers all NHS and Health & Social Care Workers have faced unprecedented challenges throughout the Coronavirus pandemic. They have placed themselves and their families at risk to provide care and support to their patients, residents and service users. The least they can expect is to be in a position to use their routine NHS PCR test for travel purposes thus preventing them for incurring the cost of private PCR Testing.

To Honour the Children who were committed to the Industrial Schools in Ireland.

Testing is an NHS service British taxpayers already pay for and should be entitled to access it whatever the reason. It’s discriminatory: No other activity deemed “risky” by the government requires people to pay for testing eg if contacted by Test and Trace after a pub or cinema visit, testing is free. Why should travellers be different? It’s more efficient and safer: The NHS testing system is well established and efficient. Even at very low levels of uptake the private providers have failed to deliver a service of a similar standard. On performance so far it seems unlikely they could scale it efficiently which puts the testing efficacy at risk It balances health and economic risk: Private testing will significantly flatten demand for overseas travel particularly amongst low income families. By making testing free for British taxpayers it gives the travel sector a real chance to build itself back up and secure the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people who depend on it, whilst providing the government with scientific data on which to monitor variants

The scientific research carried out by the researches benefits not only developing parts of the world, but can have commercial applications here in the UK too. For example : Simon McQueen-Mason, from the University of York, is nearing the end of an ODA-funded project using novel enzymes to reduce industrial waste from sugar mills in India. He fears that all the understanding and knowledge they have gained to date will fail to come to fruition if their funding is pulled at this stage. “It’s devastating because the results so far are really promising,” he says. McQueen-Mason and his team had high hopes that their work would be able to significantly reduce waste streams from one of India’s major and highly polluting industries, whilst also increasing profitability and creating new jobs. And it won’t just be India that loses out. “The systems we have developed would have been incredibly valuable for the UK with potential for making aviation biofuels, bioplastics, organic acids used in industry and high quality re-cycled textiles,” he says, adding that the industrial partners involved in his project that had invested significant amounts of their own money in the work are livid. “At least one of the companies I work with has already written to Innovate UK to ask for their money back,” says McQueen-Mason.

The right to protest is a human right. The changes proposed in part III of the Home Office's Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill (published 9/3/21) will give the police and government powers to silence protests, whether a protest of 1 or a protest of 10,000. Whereas the previous powers (Public Order Act 1986) have allowed police to restrict demonstrations that risked serious public disruption, serious disorder or serious damage to property, the new bill adds additional justifications for restrictions: noise and the potential for ‘impact’. It also increases the opportunity for protestors to be prosecuted if they fail to comply with restrictions they are unaware of, and in broadening the definition of what constitutes a protest. Protests are noisy events - they are designed to demonstrate the public's feelings, many of those people may be marginalised from mainstream politics, with this their only way of being heard. They are designed to make an impact! The proposed changes are a clear attempt by the government to prevent dissenting voices being heard. In addition the changes proposed reduce future scrutiny by parliament through the use of statutory instruments, undermining the democratic process and placing the decision as to whether a protest can go ahead in the hands of the Home Secretary. These changes restrict the rights and freedoms of people from all sides of the political spectrum to assert their human and democratic right to protest. The Bill has its second reading in the House of Commons on Monday 15th and the first vote on Tuesday 16th March - urgent action is required. Please sign, share and write to your MP (link below). Links & photo credit: 1. https://www.politics.co.uk/comment/2021/03/11/silencing-black-lives-matter-priti-patels-anti-protest-law/?cmpredirect 2. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-01/0268/200268.pdf 3. https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP 4. Photo: Police Barricade, Parliament Square cc-by-sa/2.0 - © Nigel Mykura - geograph.org.uk/p/2327817

Britain has drastically cut its aid to Yemen, which has been devastated by conflict for six years, saying the pandemic created "a difficult financial context for us all". The UK government said it would provide "at least" £87m ($120m) this year, down from £164m pledged last year. Aid officials have condemned the cut. The UN chief, António Guterres, said reducing aid was a "death sentence".

As more and more stories get released such as the latest with Matt Hancock the health secretary gave his local landlord a £30 million pound contract to make ppe equipment with no such experience in the field. We cannot have government ministers and civil servants giving out these contracts at a time when everything covid is treated as a blank cheque, I strongly suspect it’s not only illegal to give these contracts out to individuals but you can also bet there is a 360 degree arrangement in place. People need to be held to account

To stop corruption in British politics