Thurrock is the most polluted area in the whole of UK but the Government have put forward proposals for a third Thames crossing between Essex and Kent which could make local people's lives a misery. Option C for the crossing would devastate over 100 acres of Green Belt as well as destroying a Fen, villages and a wildlife Hospital. Thousands of people will be given no choice but to sell their homes to the government and relocate. There is very little pristine land left in this part of the country. The new Thames crossing is being proposed on the grounds of reducing delays and congestion. Yet evidence from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England shows that new routes actually increase congestion and road usage rather than reduce it. And with toll gates due to be removed on the existing crossing and bridge from 2014 the problem could be eased without the need to build another. Kent and Essex councils have already backed route C and whilst the department for transport says that it is considering all options there are indications that the decision has already made. Not only this, but at £5 billion Option C is more than double the cost of other routes at a time when budgets are stretched. Please sign the petition and help us stop these plans.

Even the analysis used by the Council to justify the change suggests that cycling speeds will only be reduced by 1 or 2 mph. In the space of a couple of hours, over 120 users of Wandsworth Common signed a petition to oppose the change. The Council chose to ignore them, to ignore their own policy, to ignore the needs of disabled people and ignore common sense. The Council used money from Transport for London to put the lines in. They now plan to use more money from TfL to take them out! Doing nothing would be infinitely preferable to this crazy scheme. By spending a fraction of £85,000 on simply improving the existing lanes and signage, the safety of all users could be improved. (NB funding amount was originally stated in this petition to be £82K).

This will support the local economies and create a more fluid connection between North and South Wales. At present the only rail connections from North to South Wales must divert through England.

This will allow local residents an opportunity to experience their streets and the common in a different way and see if it delivers the proposed benefits. On the basis of experience elsewhere, the changed layout should: Stop through motor traffic on Nightingale Walk and Windmill Drive Make a more quiet and pleasant local environment. Make it safer for local residents, and users of the common. Reduce pot holes If towards the end of the trial local residents feel that it has not been an improvement then it will be easy to re-instate the current layout. Worth noting that this approach has already gone through the system for a network of streets in Tooting. By end August we should know when it will be implemented. This approach is also supported by the Wandsworth Cycling Campaign (part of London Cycling Campaign - http://www.lcc.org.uk), and Wandsworth Living Streets (local group of Living Streets - http://www.livingstreets.org.uk).

Cycling is becoming increasingly popular in the capital and this tecnology is urgently needed to prevent more needless deaths on London's streets.

http://www.bringbackbritishrail.org/images/eastcoast.png East Coast is currently the only rail franchise in public ownership; it is also the most successful. The East Coast railway line from London to Scotland is run by the publicly owned Directly Operated Railways (DOR). It went into public hands in 2009 when National Express became the second private company forced to drop the franchise after financial difficulties. Despite the success of the publicly owned East Coast line, the Government plans to hand the franchise back to a profit-making company by 2015. If this happens, it will be much harder to improve the railways in the future by running them publicly. East Coast is better for passengers: Public ownership of East Coast has improved journeys for passengers. The line achieved a 92% overall satisfaction rating in the Autumn 2012 Passenger Focus National Passenger Survey – the highest score on this franchise at any time since the survey was first launched in Autumn 1999. This score was three percentage points higher than the 89% average for all long distance train operators. East Coast was rated higher than the long distance operator average for 16 out of 19 measures. Passengers rated East Coast 13 points higher than the long distance average for how the operator deals with delays. The train operator won a national award, the Silver Whistle prize, for its provision of customer information at times of disruption. East Coast is better for taxpayers: The publicly owned East Coast group is paying more money back to the state than any private operator ever has. It has paid more than £600 million in premiums and profits into government coffers in the three years to April 2012. This is more than Virgin's West Coast line has paid in the past 15 years. A study by the Office of Rail Regulation, the official industry watchdog, noted that the East Coast line requires significantly less government funding than the other 15 franchises given to the private sector by the Department for Transport. Whilst Virgin West Coast last year received 3.6p per passenger mile, £133 million in total, East Coast was given a net subsidy of 0.5p per passenger mile. This petition is supported by these organisations: http://www.bringbackbritishrail.org/images/coalitionlogos.png

The service times of the Glasgow Subway are not satisfactory. People often need to get around the city before 6.30 am, and particularly after 11 pm. The situation is even worse on Sundays, when there is only limited service available between 10 am and 6.30 pm - it is not even possible to get into town for e.g. a cultural event on a Sunday evening. Extending the service times would make public transport in Glasgow far more attractive. SPT is a public body, which means it is owned by the people, and hence it should meet their need for efficient public transport. (SPT often say "regular heavy maintenance" is needed to be carried out at night and on Sunday evenings - but other and often larger subway systems all over the world seem to be able to offer far better service times.) On top of that, and scarcely announced, the popular 10 and 20 journey tickets (for 12/22 £) were scrapped on 29 June without public consultation. They are meant to be replaced by 7 day and new 28 day season tickets: http://www.spt.co.uk/subway/smart/ However, season tickets are far more expensive - 45 £ for 28 days - and less flexible compared to 10/20 journey tickets because they expire. This lets down frequent but not daily travellers. This petition is not directed against new "smart" tickets per se, but against punishing regular but not daily travellers through a massive price hike. We really would like to know what SPT mean in detail when they say "SPT would like to reassure customers who have made use of our multi-journey tickets in the past that there will be a similar ‘smart’ ticket product in future." If, as SPT claim, the "smart" tickets cannot count to 20, then alternative solutions are possible, e.g. in the form of top up offers (pay 22 £, get a 28 £ top-up - this would be equal to the old 20 journey ticket). But making regular users pay for a single ticket every time (even from a top-up card) is not good enough - and increases the price for 20 flexible journeys from 22 £ to 28 £, a 27.3 % increase. Prices were already increased by 9 % last year ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-19300997 ). But still, there is no service improvement at all - we, the public, have to live with appalling opening times and bad access for the elderly, disabled and prams. A customer complains on Facebook: "The heart of Glasgow yet your happy t scrap 10&20 journey tickets that so many people rely on. I currently spend £22 a month using your subway. Your price changes mean you want me to spend £44. If your introducing "Smart" cards is the reason for this, then why are they not "smart" enough to deal with 10&20 journey? Disappointing and you have lost a loyal customer of 5 years from July!" Another customer says on SPT's Facebook page "I think your new 7/28 day tickets are just an excuse to make extra money, I work 4 days a week and only use the subway one way so a 10 journey can last me over 2 weeks, on your new system I would be more than double the money for the same period." As a publicly owned and run body, SPT is not serving our interests. Therefore we would like to ask Gordon Maclennan, SPT's Chief Executive, to listen to us as SPT's owners by improving service times and proving that the new "smart card" ticketing system lives up to its name and can handle 10 and 20 journey tickets.

HS2 is merely a politicians' vanity project. With passenger numbers forecast to increase even further, the aim of current and future rail improvements should be to increase train, stations and line capacity; to make life more bearable for current and future passengers, not to shave half an hour off a single route from London to the north. There are already many environmental opponents to this vast waste of taxpayers money. Surely a majority of taxpayers would support using rail money in a far more efficient way.

Staffordshire County Council is proposing to charge £380 a year per child for transport where children are not attending the nearest school. The figure does not take proper account of income and could be increased. For thousands of families their nearest school is not the local catchment school there is no way of avoiding this cost. An estimated 72 schools are affected and could face losing pupils. http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/Staffordshire-pupils-facing-pound-380-school-bus/story-19171776-detail/story.html In Perton where I live the nearest school is in Wolverhampton which is another Local Education Authority. We have no choice but to send children to Codsall if we want them to go to the local catchment school. The council is suggesting that pupils should walk to school if parents can't afford the transport costs or drive them, but with many of the those affected living in rural areas, walking along unlit 60 mile an hour roads is not a safe or viable option. It will also lead to a increased volume of cars on many roads causing disruption and congestion to other travellers. This policy is poorly thought through and unfair especially at a time when many families are already struggling to make ends meet.

East Sussex County Council want to build a link road from Bexhill to Hastings to regenerate the local area. On both counts, they are misguided. A landmark study from the University of Toronto (The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities, 2010), showed that building more roads (or widening existing ones) leads to more traffic. The more roads you build, the more cars you have. And with cars comes more noise, more congestion, and more CO2. Indeed the Department of Transport has gone on record to say that the new road will be a significant producer of carbon emissions. But that’s not all. The new road will border Combe Haven nature reserve - disrupting wildlife and adding noise and pollution to an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. This is bad for animals, and humans who want to enjoy the outdoors. And it will destroy the original site of the battle of hastings. And it’s been assessed as number 39 in the 40 priority road schemes in the country We don’t need this road. We call on East Sussex County Council to stop this project and invest in quieter, cleaner, more equitable public transport. Not only will this reduce congestion much more effectively, it will improve access for everyone, just just those with cars.

Over one and a half million hydrogen powered vehicles could be on UK roads by 2030 according to a joint Government-industry study published today. The forecast is made in an interim report commissioned to evaluate the benefits of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and ensure the UK is well positioned for their commercial roll-out. For more see: http://news.bis.gov.uk/content/detail.aspx?NewsAreaId=2&ReleaseID=422877&SubjectId=2

20mph speed limits should be the norm in communties in Wiltshire, making them nicer, safer and healthier places to live. Many forward thinking Councils already have widespread 20mph limits and Wiltshire Council should follow their example.