As I near retirement I realise that my body cannot physically do the things I could do only a few years ago. The mind is willing but the body is weak. This is despite me performing an office based role for my career. I believe it to be socially unacceptable for this government to expect citizens to perform heavy manual labour for their living beyond the age of 65. To expect people in these job sectors to work beyond the age of 65 will impact on their long term health and life expectancy.

Villages across the nation are losing their tranquillity and wildlife is vanishing, such as our barn owls. With more housing in rural areas, this leads to more traffic, more crime, and more vandalism. There are sites that can't be sold and are not being used that can be reconverted to dwellings without tearing up the countryside.

We are a community-interest company that wants to enshrine the significance of this 107 year old Grade 2 listed building for the benefit of all Londoners. We have a self funding plan, working with London's top developers, architects, space planners, Locality and Article 25. By utilising Section 106 and Local Infrastructure Grant as well as considerable private and social investment we will develop the fire station into a flagship Westminster Women's Resilience Centre, offering: * a community owned and run café * affordable rent flats for key workers * a vibrant art centre showcasing the talent of Westminster's diverse constituency * a state of the art business and conference centre * a People's Town Hall * affordable housing for key workers living in the Tri borough area, * services for all women, including a crèche and childcare centre, * a refuge for women who have survived domestic violence, an accredited training centre for women who want to enter the construction industry * subsidised space for charities and social enterprises run by women * a Fire Station Museum celebrating the history of the building, operated by former firemen, teaching Westminster's young people fire health and safety * luxury flats, for sale only to Londoners, who pay UK taxes and work in London *retail space, a pop up shop and cultural events reflecting the cool capital and enterprise owned and run by Londoners. The community spaces such as the café and People's Town Hall will be open to men, who are an essential part of building a safe, inclusive and vibrant community. This is a space for co-opting the brilliance of London, its citizens' natural talents and building the best and brightest future for women and men alike. Our Purpose: We believe in women as change-makers in their homes and communities regardless of background, culture, class, race or faith. If a woman believes in her inherent qualities and approaches these from a glass half full perspective, she increases the capacity for her natural resilience. She learns to equip herself with the skills and strength to move forward positively in life, she will move mountains. With the support and mentoring of women who have already proved their success, they can mirror successful habits, seed and grow aspirations. We know from personal and professional experiences how challenging life can be. We know how a bad decision can end up in catastrophe. We know how hard it can be to make changes when the system and circumstances seem stacked against you. As resilient women, we believe in creating a safe space where positive change can happen for women struggling to create it for themselves across all levels of society and cultures. By joining our aspirations for better lives and extending those out into the locality, the Westminster Women’s Resilience Centre is a community owned and operated driver for sustainable change, on an individual and a community level. The Westminster Women’s Resilience Centre will be a space for all women as ex-offenders, teenage girls exiting gangs, victims of domestic violence, single-parent families, living in poverty or excluded. It’s also a space for the most successful women in business and society. Together they will meet, learn, inspire and be inspired by each other in a safe environment that taps into their shared aspirations and experiences. This is a unique space, perhaps the first in the world, where women co create the community and develop the programs and the projects they wish to thrive. Mentoring, sharing and enterprise are our core values. In times of severe austerity, communities, local authorities, social and charitable enterprises and private sector businesses all in the process of recovery, having been traumatised by the failure of the banking system in 2008. We have to build a resilient, sustainable future, with community at its heart, to align with a new commissioning landscape and also with what people want, in their local services. As local authorities face economic retrenchment and austerity it has become more vital to build resilient communities where the local authority works in partnerships with local communities and other agencies to build social capital where local people can build from their own strength and assets. Westminster Women's Resilience Centre will offer social care, housing, probation, medical and counselling services a safe space to meet their service user community. The co location of services, for women to access on a formal or a drop in basis has been proven to show better outcomes. This pioneering building will showcase how we can build social capital, the importance of collaborative working and will explore some of the tools for community building in a digital age.

People who suffer from epilepsy and diabetes receive free prescriptions for life. Why not prescribe free medications for asthmatic people with severe asthma. Asthma can be a life threatening condition that has to be controlled daily, my father died aged just 45 from a severe asthma attack. Only two weeks ago a young boy died in the same way. It is evident this condition is as life threatening as diabetes and epilepsy, so why is it not treated in the same way?

People in receipt of full or part housing benefit should not be demonised and should be allowed the same opportunities to find a home as anyone else. This affects the disabled, carers, parents and carers of disabled children, lone parents, students, asylum seekers and refugees. Ending discrimination in all it's forms is important to the progress of modern society.

Honesty and transparency is very important when working for the people and community. Hadrian's Wall World Heritage is important to the people, when an archaeological dig is performed it should be performed in the right place. A planning application was submitted to build on the footprint of the old sub-station, yet the council allowed Northern Powergrid to build near bedrooms without planning permission, planning permission was not granted until after the event. Powerwatch tells you sub-stations can affect your health. Hadrian's Wall World Heritage is important to the community & the Rest of the World.

The health department wanted to ban cigerettes, and have done so, and now people have turned to ECigs, which are a lot safer. So lets do more to raise awareness that these do not harm people around anyone using these. Maybe start to call it Vaping rather than smoking might also help. It seems that the Government are trying to rule people's lives by stopping things that they enjoy. I am neither a smoker or a Ecig user, but I do feel that people who use them get bullied, and feel strongling about the way the users of both are treated. The number of people who use electronic cigarettes in the UK has tripled over the past two years to 2.1 million, a health charity estimates. It says just over half of current or ex-smokers have now tried electronic cigarettes, compared with 8% in 2010. Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) surveyed more than 12,000 adult smokers. A separate study found that most e-cigarette users were using them to reduce smoking. Use of e-cigarettes among people who have never smoked remains small at 1%, Ash said. Ash has commissioned a series of surveys on electronic cigarette use since 2010, with the latest survey conducted in March. Continue reading the main story "Smokers are increasingly turning to these devices to help them cut down or quit smoking” Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) Of those now estimated to be using electronic cigarettes, around 700,000 are thought to be ex-smokers and 1.3 million to be using them alongside normal cigarettes or tobacco. Current smokers using the cigarettes regularly have risen from 2.7% in 2010 to 17.7% in 2014. When ex-smokers were asked why they used electronic cigarettes, 71% said they wanted help giving up smoking. Among smokers, 48% said wanted to reduce the amount of tobacco they smoked and 37% said they used e-cigarettes to save money. Smoking rate fall Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said: "The dramatic rise in use of electronic cigarettes over the past four years suggests that smokers are increasingly turning to these devices to help them cut down or quit smoking. Significantly, usage among non-smokers remains negligible." Another study, The Smoking Toolkit Study, which covers England, has found that electronic cigarettes are overtaking the use of nicotine products such as patches and gum as an aid to quitting smoking. It also found that the proportion of smokers who gave up smoking in the past year had increased and smoking rates in England were continuing to fall. Study leader Prof Robert West said: "Despite claims that use of electronic cigarettes risks renormalising smoking, we found no evidence to support this view. "On the contrary, electronic cigarettes may be helping to reduce smoking as more people use them as an aid to quitting." Ms Arnott added: "While it is important to control the advertising of electronic cigarettes to make sure children and non-smokers are not being targeted, there is no evidence from our research that e-cigarettes are acting as a gateway into smoking." Ash's survey suggests that most electronic cigarettes users, or "vapers", use a rechargeable product with replaceable cartridges or a reservoir. Simon Clark, director of Forest, a group that supports smokers, said it welcomed the rise of e-cigarettes and was glad people had a choice of what to smoke. But he suggested that most smokers using e-cigarettes were experimenting with them rather than using them to give up smoking altogether. "We haven't seen a significant fall in smokers. Most smokers still find electronic cigarettes quite basic and it will take a few more years for the technology to improve."

At a time of austerity for the majority of working people in the UK and David Cameron and Nick Clegg claiming we are "in this together", the UK government continues to show it is one rule for the rich and one for the poor when it comes to paying taxes. ACTIONS speak louder than WORDS. It is time David Cameron stepped up and made good on his pledge for a fairer Britain.

If this Local Plan goes ahead as it is now, there will be a huge strain put on public services (e.g. school placements, doctor's surgeries, community centres), significant increases in air pollution, increased traffic and big losses of wildlife.

Trans fatty acids (produced industrially as hydrogenated oils) are estimated to KILL 7,000 people in the UK every year. All responsible bodies in the UK, and many countries in europe and states of the USA have already banned them. Doctors, NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence), and main articles in the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail all agree: there is no reason to have these in our food. Many supermarkets have also eliminated them - in their own brand products at least - including Sainsburys, Marks and Spencer, Waitrose, Tesco and the Co-op. But other food sources use them, with no required information to customers and no control over their use. The American Medical Association has stated that there is no safe limit. NICE has called for their ban. These fats have no food value, but increase LDL (bad) cholesterol and reduce HDL (good) cholesterol, and even a 2% amount in the diet is reported to double the risk of coronary heart disease. There is no need for this junk in our food other than for the convenience of the food industry (it prolongs shelf life and is a cheap way of solidifying oil in fast foods). Recently Andrew Lansley has stated that the average UK citizen only consumes under 1% in the diet (though this is still a significant increase in risk), and voluntary codes of conduct are sufficient. The food manufacturers make an identical case. But the average is not the point: better off older people - customers of M&S, Waitrose, and other supermarkets - consume very little. But younger people who naturally use fast food outlets often consume considerably more than that average. They are in general unaware of the risks and, being young, sometimes don't think too much about what will happen in 20, 30 years. Older people have a duty to care on their behalf. One other point. Some supporters think such a ban is against the freedom of people to choose what they eat. But this is a poor argument at best. Trans fat was banned from Denmark 9 years ago, and there is no noticeable change in the taste or quality of food, nor any desire to reverse that change. This is such an easy policy change, and so absolutely beneficial. Just do it! References: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1291041/They-kill-7-000-people-year-trans-fats-wont-banned.html http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/food-drink/why-are-toxic-trans-fats-in-food-still-legal-in-the-uk-28656231.html http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/07/fda-ban-trans-fats-health http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/jan/18/trans-fats-ban-comment

Because on rainy days...how else are we to be entertained?

It is apparent from experience that choosing parties on the basis of stated agendas is not enough to guarantee we achieve anything. The actions rarely mirror the bold promises once in office. It can appear Breach Of Contract is is just an abstract concept to our Political Parties who show exceptional finesse in being able to do a complete 180, seamlessly, without too much trouble, and yet keep voters aligned to them somehow. It's like a collective amnesia where we're forcing ourselves to replay history over and over, convincing ourselves we won't get short-changed again, ignoring the in-built weaknesses and Conflicts Of Interest arising from our current Democratic System.