Brooklands was initially designed as a pleasure park, not an educational nature facility. On the door step are many settings more equipped to be such places like widewater, pullbourough brooks, woods mill, southwater, swanbourne lake and of course the downs. What the locality doesn't have is an abundance of accesible, fun places to go and in fact, Brooklands was West sussex's first accesible play park! With a 2 millions pound budget it seems very little thought has gone in to what the area wants to retain from the original park instead favouring a blank slate approach. Children enjoy water play, play parks and indeed trains. A large indoor leisure facility isn't required to make it a rainy day attraction instead a small soft play area as before is enough for children. The new plans sound good but they miss out the very young and the disabled and take away a lot of the fun. We should be aiming to make attractions more accesible, currently there is wheelchair swings, roundabout and the train was accesible there seems no plans to parallel or better this. This review is one which highlights how important the facilities are or at least were and could be again for everyone. https://www.euansguide.com/venues/brooklands-pleasure-park-sompting-5611/reviews/brooklands-pleasure-park-totally-wheelchair-friendly-for-kids-1931

Both the Hope Centre and NAASH offer an unmatched and undeniably crucial role in providing vital services to the towns homeless and vulnerable community. No other organisation be it housing, charity or council come near to the services provided or the compassion and heart they are provided with. To allow a business who's bottom line is about profit to take over this service in conjunction with other organisations that are only interested in control rather than compassion is not in the best interest of the homeless community in this town.

The current plan to close Kendal Post Office and relocate it into the W H Smith store at 46-48 Stricklandgate has generated a great deal of controversy in and around Kendal. Especially the concept of customers having to squeeze into the narrow, cramped and quite inadequate space that W H Smith Kendal currently occupy. SIGN NOW TO SAVE OUR POST OFFICE Kendal's Post Office is the main Post Office for a very busy market town and is frequently packed with queueing customers even with 3 or 4 counter staff in attendance. Ironically the proposed relocation is to an inferior premises, where the new operators are currently feeling the internet pinch. As with other high Street retailers, W H Smith's year on year profits have been falling. It's High Street sector profits has dropped by 3% and six stores have just been earmarked for closure. Which? (magazine) has again named W H Smith as the most hated store on the high street. In fact it has finished in the bottom two for the last eight years. Having stores like the one in Kendal will not have done much to elevate this lowly position.Closure of our Crown Post Offices and relocation to W H Smith also means the loss of prime high street stores and this contributes further to the demise of our town centres. SIGN NOW TO SAVE OUR POST OFFICE This petition has been created with support from the CWU (Communication Workers Union). We believe that this "privatisation by the back door" is not good for tax payers who will be funding the Post Office closures. There are currently 74 of these planned and this political ideology risks the jobs of up to 800 post office employees. The public has never endorsed these closures despite the fact that millions of pounds of public money has already been used in the process. £13 million of public money was used in 2014/15 alone to get rid of post office staff, and the CWU estimates the staff compensation cost for this latest privatisation will be at least £30 million. Franchising means the loss of jobs with good terms and conditions as WH Smith replaces experienced Post Office staff with new employees in typically mimimum wage part time roles. SIGN NOW TO SAVE OUR POST OFFICE The good people of Kendal and South Lakeland deserve to have a properly funded state owned Post Office service as indeed does every community in Britain. According to Gill Furniss MP, Shadow Postal Services Minister " The next Labour Government will end the closures of our Post Offices and give communities the ability to shape their high streets and town centres, by strengthening their powers to protect post offices". PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION and help to stop these nonsensical closures and sell offs. SIGN NOW TO SAVE OUR POST OFFICE

Most of us in the UK today were delivered by an NHS midwife. Most of us in the UK today will die in the care of an NHS doctor or nurse. Show your appreciation of the greatest cradle-to-grave healthcare system in the world, by signing the petition to put a portrait of its founder on the country's largest banknote.

Cammell Lairds has just won £619M worth of contracts to maintain the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Ships, but in stead of reassuring their workforce, they have decided to propose 291 redundancies with the first taking place, just weeks before Christmas. We need to be Turning the tide on Casualisation, we believe it is not acceptable that companies like Peel Ports who have a controlling stake in Cammell Lairds, can take such aggressive steps to maximize profits.

Noor Imyat Khan gave her life for the cause of freedom in this Nation‘s war to overthrow the Nazi Regime. Ms Noor served in the WRAF (Women‘s Royal Auxiliary Air Force) before transferring to the top secret Special Operstions Executuve set up by Winston Churchill, then as part of SOE was airdropped into France and organized and ran Churchill‘s network of resistance communication in Paris. Ms Noor was betrayed, and after suffering starvation and torture by the Gestapo in Dachau concentration camp, was executed by firing squad by the Nazi SS in 1944. Ms Khan was posthumously awarded the George Cross by King George VI in 1949. Here is proof of the inclusivity within Britain of the Muslim community. Ms Noor was also the first female radio operator sent into Nazi-occupied France in 1943. She was 29. Here is an opportunity to recognize the United Kingdom‘s inclusivity and its belief in democratic freedom. I respectfully invite likeminded members of the public to sign this Petition to the Bank of England.

Many groups and individuals, often those who refuse to give the source of their funding, are allowed to air opinions on BBC news and current affairs programmes. They are rarely asked the source of their funding. At the same time millions are being raised in the USA to fund British rightwing think tanks who are frequently asked by the BBC for their opinions. As a result we, as the audience, can never know whose opinions are being represented. This undermines fair access to information, a cornerstone of a healthy democracy.

I've lived in four different counties in England and Wales over the past decade and it's struck me that despite wanting to recycle, every time I moved, I had to do hours of research to find out what was locally recyclable and what wasn't. Why can I recycle polypropylene (plastic no. 5) in Northamptonshire, but not in West Yorkshire? Why do I have to throw out into general waste what I could recycle, were I in a different county? Should I keep all that waste and recycle it at a friend's house 150 miles from my own? This is not an acceptable state of affairs. All we want to do is the right thing: divert unnecessary waste from landfill. Landfills use land, pollute waterways and the air we breathe. They affect humans, animals and plants alike. Landfill should be a last resort for our waste, and recycling should not be an uphill battle. Many manufacturers want to do their bit too. But when there are different rules in different councils, how can they ensure that their packaging can actually be recycled everywhere and not in just a few areas? How can they be expected to solve such a massive problem? Locally managed recycling schemes don't work for consumers or manufacturers. They add to confusion and frustration. A nation-wide recycling policy would reduce unnecessary waste going into landfill and make the most of existing facilities. It would lead to less confusion and higher recycling rates. It would also allow manufacturers to make economically safe, more environmentally-friendly decisions about their products and their packaging. The more we recycle, the less waste goes into landfill and the lower our impact on our environment is. Calls for a unified recycling policy and kerbside collection have been made over a decade ago.(*) This issue is only growing in importance. The time has come to show some real leadership and do the right thing. * Guy Singh-Watson, Riverford, in 'Guy's Rant: The Plastic Problem', https://youtu.be/Cylp_tTrSZg?t=208

🐝 There has been a Government commitment to create a network of wildlife habitats in the countryside since 2010. Our bees and other pollinators are in trouble, their wildflower habitats are widely fragmented and they are unable to move north to escape from climate change. 🐝 The Protection of Pollinators Bill, due for 2nd reading on 26th October, would create an English network of B-Lines – corridors where wildflower meadows would be restored, linking back together the homes of our endangered pollinators. 🐝 Without bees and other pollinating bugs we would not have apples, strawberries, tomatoes or many other crops – they are worth about £700 million to British agriculture. Our pollinators are also wonderful animals and our populations of wild flowers and birds depend on them as well.

Grantown Initiative and Grantown-on-Spey and Vicinity Community Council recently wrote to The Highland Council regarding the changes to parking arrangements in Grantown-on-Spey which appear to have been made without due consultation with community organisations or consideration for businesses in Grantown-on-Spey. We believe that changes made to the parking arrangements in Grantown-on-Spey have resulted in a dangerous situation for drivers and pedestrians, are potentially damaging to businesses in the town and generally make the Square far less attractive to visitors. Meanwhile Highland Council has failed to provide adequate additional parking in spite of the fact that it holds land at the former council depot which could be used for such. A review of these newly made parking restrictions and a meeting to discuss was requested by both groups. Whilst we support the principle of Highland Council taking civil enforcement powers in respect of parking in Grantown, we must object to the implementation of this draft Order. We feel that that the Parking Scheme recently introduced in Grantown, over which Highland Council appears to be seeking these powers, is not fit for purpose. Not only does it raise serious safety concerns but it has removed essential parking bays around the Square and along the High Street. Not having had the opportunity to discuss the recently introduced parking scheme, Grantown Initiative now requests that The Highland Council takes immediate steps to rectify these issues enact sensible parking restrictions in Grantown-on-Spey. Specifically we request the following changes; • The removal of the parking bay(s) opposite the Co-Operative which have added to congestion around the busy High street / Seafield Avenue junction and have created a hazardous situation for pedestrians and motorists alike. • Removal of the chicane style parking bays along the length of the square which creates congestion, particularly around the Bus Stops where busses cannot properly access the stops due to parked cars. We would suggest that spaces be realigned to allow easier access for buses and freer flowing traffic and reduce unnecessary congestion. • Removal of the new double yellow lines, which have robbed the square of 20 parking places. • The creation of a new off street parking facility to provide sufficient parking for the town as a whole. This could be provided at the site of the old council yard adjacent to Grantown Primary. This could also be used to provide a safe drop off area for the school. • Provide an opportunity for the community to have a say in parking restrictions in Grantown-on-Spey

The recent successfully prosecuted fraud case where a Capita employee stole over £2million from Barnet Council underlines the urgent need for the Council to take back control of all of the former Council services from Capita. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45641513 Barnet Council commissioned Grant Thornton (GT) to undertake a major review to identify how such a large scale fraud had been able to take place. This project, called Project Rose, was given a budget of “up to” £500,000 and has been on-going ever since. The review found: • Lack of budgetary controls • Not carrying out basic bank detail checks • Inexperienced managers responsible for large amounts of money • Lack of written financial procedures and checklists Barnet Council agreed to pay Capita £252.54 million But, Barnet Council have already paid Capita £352.41 million with FIVE more years to go! Barnet Council is in financial crisis with a budget overspend of £10.3 million this financial year and a funding gap of £66.8 million over the next three years. Frontline services such as street cleansing, waste and recycling, Libraries, social care are all facing more and more cuts that are already affecting Barnet residents. Capita Plc are in their own financial crisis. Their Share Price has dropped from £13 a share to under £1.50 a share in the space of the last two years. On 11 December 2018, Barnet Council Policy and Resources Committee will decide on whether to end both contracts. We are campaigning that they VOTE to end both contracts and begin the urgent process of taking back control of those services. End Details of the Grant Thornton Review on Capita https://www.barnet.gov.uk/citizen-home/council-and-democracy/finance-and-funding/Financial-controls.html Is this the end of Capita in Barnet - Grant Thornton's report is a devastating critique of Capita's dismal performance http://reasonablenewbarnet.blogspot.com/2018/09/is-this-end-of-capita-in-barnet-grant.html Project Rose: the devastating report Barnet Tories didn't want you to read http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2018/09/project-rose-devastating-report-barnet.html Damning report slams Capita and financial management at Barnet Council http://barneteye.blogspot.com/2018/09/damning-report-slams-capita-and.html

Paul Ermitano, a highly respected cardiac physiologist and his wife Jamila, an experienced nurse, are Filipino citizens who gave up their careers overseas and came to Poole over 3 years ago to tackle staff shortages in our NHS. The Home Office are refusing to grant the family an extension on their visa stopping Paul carrying out the vital, life-saving heart scans that he is trained to do. They’ve been ordered to leave the country immediately. This decision has come about because they briefly accepted child benefit for their son. They've paid it back in full. The family have no means to support themselves financially and Jamila is due to give birth to their second child in 3 months time. Our new Health Secretary the Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP has put NHS workforce and efficiency at the top of his agenda. Therefore it defies common sense and decency that resources are being spent on ejecting these lovely and useful people. Home Secretary Sajid Javid should extend the stay of this family so they can safeguard the delivery of their unborn baby and continue their vital work for our NHS.