Dumfries Infirmary can be a 70 mile journey there and back for most people in this area. This is not good enough. People have payed their National Insurance for decades. Where has that money all gone? Kirkcudbright Cottage Hospital needs to be reopened. A 70 mile round trip to Dumfries Infirmary is ridiculous and stressful. The Cottage Hospital had a nice homely feel to it, which I'm sure the patients appreciated.

We don't know exactly how many children in the UK experience child abuse. Child abuse is usually hidden from view. Adults in the child’s life may not recognise the signs that they are being abused and the child may be too young, too scared or too ashamed to tell anyone what is happening to them. By making our Social Services the 4th Emergency service and increasing funding, we could save many more children from abusive and hostile environments and prevent further tragedies from occurring.

UPDATE, MARCH 2023 Thanks to everyone who signed the petition to save the M&S building on Oxford Street. It has become an extremely high-profile case attracting national media attention and supporters including the actor Kristin Scott Thomas, the TV presenter Griff Rhys Jones and the writer Bill Bryson. Since we launched the petition a lot has happened, as you will know from our email updates. We made a video, we smashed our crowdfunder, we held a lecture at the Royal Academy, we issued a report documenting the campaign. And, of course, we fought a two-week public inquiry against M&S on heritage and sustainability grounds which could have far-reaching consequences for our demolition-first approach to development. The planning inspector’s recommendation is now with the Secretary of State who has the final say. His decision is expected “on or before 3rd May”. Find out more in our report, The Battle for M&S Oxford Street: Why This Landmark Case Matters, which you can download from our website. And thanks again for your support – we couldn’t do it without you! If you’d like to know more about our work and how to help SAVE Britain’s Heritage please visit our website. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The demolition and rebuild of this 6-storey building would pump 39,500 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere. This handsome landmark building has characterised Oxford Street for almost 100 years, helping shape one of London's most famous and historic streets. In September this year M&S announced it was ramping up its ambitious green agenda, seeking to cut a third of its carbon emissions by 2025 and be fully net zero by 2045. Now the company board risks betraying its own carbon targets in the midst of a global climate crisis. According to M&S’s own planning documents, the projects carbon cost of 39,534 tonnes of CO2 would require the planting of 2.4 million trees to offset its impact. If the former Oxford Street department stores of House of Fraser, Topshop Debenham’s can all be refurbished for office and retail use, why can’t M&S follow suit? We therefore call on the Chairman and CEO of M&S do the right thing by history, and by future generations. Save and re-use this building and show your customers and investors that M&S is serious about sustainability and its own net zero commitments. M&S must seize this opportunity to boost their green credentials and keep this part of London’s heritage in the process. Built to a high specification, this prestigious building is ready for adaptation and repurposing to suit a variety of uses, and capable of lasting another 100 years. Under the proposals, designed by architects Pilbrow + Partners, the unlisted 1929 art deco landmark is set to be bulldozed along with two extension buildings to be replaced with a 10-storey retail and office building. Despite substantial local and national opposition, and a listing bid from the Twentieth Century Society, the plans were approved by Westminster City Council on 23rd November 2021, with a £1.2 million ‘carbon offset’ payment to be made by M&S to the council. It’s not too late for M&S to think afresh and respond to the concerns of Londoners and customers, through saving and reusing M&S Marble Arch. www.savebritainsheritage.org www.c20society.org.uk

Stop Incineration in the North East (SINE) is shocked that such an old-fashioned way of dealing with waste is even being considered. At a time of unprecedented threat to local air quality and the global climate, our Councils are pushing a scheme that will: · Pollute the local area, releasing deadly dioxins into the air, water and soil, plus furans, cadmium, and other particulates. · Concentrate all waste management vehicles in the region into one location creating traffic chaos and increasing air pollution · Emit vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that will contribute to climate breakdown. We don't yet have the technology to capture this carbon dioxide. Waste incineration in 2019 “gave rise to 13% of greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generation, even though it produced only 2.4% of the UK’s electricity”. (Koppelaar, Guardian, 16.11.20) · Emit tiny particles of carbon into the atmosphere that lodge deep in lung tissue · Emit NOx and SOx into the atmosphere that also cause lung damage and asthma · Create a market for waste, incentivising waste production. This will drive down the value of recycled materials and act to reduce overall levels of recycling (as resources in waste can be burned instead) · Cost councils £millions more than they currently spend on waste management. The money will have to be found from somewhere. · Incineration Tax may be applied by the government, and is likely in such a long contract, but isn’t taken into account. The local health impacts created by incinerators are much worse for people on lower incomes as the facilities are normally sited in areas with high levels of deprivation - as is the case with the Redcar facility. Though modern incinerators are equipped with technology that reduces dioxin levels, they are not completely removed. Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer. What stage are the plans at? This climate-killing project quietly slipped through the early stages of planning unnoticed. It was granted Outline Planning Approval in 2010 through a delegated decision made by officers without public consultation and little scrutiny of any kind. Construction was due to start in December 2021, but delays have meant that companies have yet to put in bids to build the incinerator. What should be done instead? Once the incinerator is built your council will be locked into a 45 year contract, forcing us to keep paying, year after year, for the incinerator to pollute. In the future, any council that does the right thing and helps people and businesses cut their waste will face financial penalties. That’s just plain wrong! Stop Incineration North East supports positive ways forward to manage our waste in a safe and sustainable way. Food waste - There is a government requirement that food waste be collected separately from 2023/4, and anaerobic digestors with methane harnessed for energy already exist within the region; more can be built on a local, modular basis. A fraction of the cost could set up repair and re-use arcades in central locations. Recycling is going down in the NE, partly driven by the market for waste created by incinerators, but we can instead improve household recycling. Reduce packaging - Everyone has a job to do in cutting out unnecessary packaging, manufacturers, retailers and us, the consumers. The problem is that burning waste lets manufacturers and retailers off the hook, leaving us to pick up the bill. Repair and reuse - Products are often too hard to reuse or repair. We need products that are designed to be opened and fixed. What’s more, repair shops and spare parts should be zero VAT rated. Recycle - Only when something can’t be reused or repurposed should waste then move on to be recycled. This monster incinerator will burn through our plans for a more sustainable and safe future for the North East. We call on the Council Leaders from these authorities to cancel the planned build of the Tees Valley, Durham County and Newcastle incinerator at Redcar. We call on the Council Leaders to put our health and planet first and produce a Regional Waste Strategy designed around the need to transition to a circular economy. SINE is a group of organisations working together to stop the incinerator.

In previous years when Roots has been moved the University has ignored many requests from the society. We need you to show that you support these proposals and demonstrate the vitality of having a community garden on campus, for education, for biodiversity, for mental health.

Students that are female and non-binary in particular have been spiked with date rape drugs via injection in their arms at a college bop. I feel unsafe in my college and at this university. Procedures need to be put in place to punish the perpetrators and protect further students from harm in their university colleges. Help me make Cambridge University and Hughes Hall College a safer space for students that identify as female or non-binary.

Another (but much more expensive) option would be to widen the ramp leading to the mid-level parking area/main entrance and provide effective vehicle/pedestrian segregation. When approached, Tesco Management have said the closure is due to "incidents and undesirable behaviour" from people using the Carlisle St entrance. We appreciate that is a problem, but suggest that having a security guard and CCTV etc, at that entrance, plus effective co-operation with council and police, would solve the problem. (There is a security guard at the mid-level car park/main entrance; there should really be an additional traffic marshal ON the ramp.) We understand it saves money if you don't have to hire an extra security guard, but making your store basically difficult/dangerous to access for people without cars is not community- (or environmentally-) friendly. Keeping the Carlyle St entrance closed discriminates against the disabled and those with limited incomes. It also results in people taking risks that may lead to serious injuries or worse (it's just a matter of time), and favours people who use cars over those who walk or use public transport. To reach the other entrances, people must walk more than a third of a mile/600 metres (Googlemaps' estimated time to walk: 7 min) to get to the ONE pedestrian-only entrance (on the other side of a VERY large store) – or even further (at least half a mile/800 metres) to the lower car park entrance. (These pedestrian entrances are NOT signposted.) Note: If the lift is out of order and you cannot cope with stairs, there is zero pedestrian access (except via the "travellator" from the lower car park, also accessed from Savile St. – a commercial/industrial zone in which nobody lives). What people do instead is use the mid-level car park ramp (still an extra 250 metres/3 minutes' walk), which is intended for cars rather than people, and means that cars pass dangerously close to pedestrians (many of whom have small children with them), and at speed. This is very unsafe, yet there are no signs saying pedestrians should not use this ramp, nor that cars should beware or give room. Thus, keeping the Carlisle St entrance closed encourages people to visit Tesco in cars/taxis rather than on foot/by bus (not very green), and disadvantages those on limited incomes (who don't have cars/can't afford a bus let alone a taxi), the elderly, those who are visually impaired or otherwise disabled, those using pushchairs/prams/wheelchairs, parents with small children in tow, and/or those who are carrying heavy shopping. Here are some comments from people in the community: "As a wheelchair user it requires me to spend even longer in the road than the average pedestrian as I need to use the dip at the crossing, and it is out-and-out dangerous. Cars speed around that corner, often not indicating. The bit of the road, that I can only presume is the walkway, is often full of trolleys and signs and of course is so narrow it isn't even wide enough for two people to cross. I feel safer going down the centre of the road and treating it similarly to walking on country roads." === "Silly and unsafe. During lockdown no cars used the ramp. Now they do. My granddaughter nearly got run over by a car going round the corner on the ramp. My husband told the folk at Tesco. It seems from their staff that the Management has permanently closed the top pedestrian entrance. We would like to see their risk assessment. Hope they look at this again soon. We don’t shop there with kids until they do. Life is worth more than shopping at our local shop." === "With small children, one in a pushchair, and shopping I really really resent being forced to walk the long way round, or dice with death, when car drivers have 2 choices of entrance. It totally discriminates against local people who don’t have access to a car." === "......it is really annoying having to carry all the shopping up the road; it's too much for the elderly and for people with disabilities." === "I've seen mums dragging prams, small kids and bags of shopping up the ramp as cars whizz down. It's totally unsafe... and no way those mums will choose the other exit, with small kids in tow that could be a good 10 mins onto the journey, with heavy bags and toddlers. The design of the Spital Hill entrance was bad, they need to find design solutions to make it better – not shut it." ===

Better working conditions for HE staff makes for better education outcomes for students. A fairer HE makes for a fairer society.

Redlands has provided a wide range of sports facilities for many years and is a valued local facility that the town needs. The decision to close the site in the summer of 2022 is going to seriously reduce the provision of sports facilities in the area. The site is owned by Dorset Council and leased to Weymouth College so both organisations are in a position to work together to keep the site open. So we are asking for the site to be kept open whilst a longer term plan for its future is worked out. It is now widely recognized that having an active lifestyle is critical to remaining fit and healthy. So the provision of a wide range of sporting facilities is essential to ensure as many residents as possible can keep active. Closing Redlands makes no sense from this point of view.

Each year animals experience prolonged panic, injury and too often death here on our animal rescue site purely at the hands of those setting off banging fireworks without regard for the harm they cause. This issue is prevalent across the country, an annual practice which can run from October into the New Year. Banging fireworks are still legally sold in the uk unlike some other forward moving countries which aim to protect those badly affected and in doing so make a significant contribution to the progress of environmental refinement. The misery which banging fireworks cause to animals, their owners, the elderly and vulnerable people is both unfair and unnecessary. Fireworks should be made enjoyable for everyone. No one should suffer because of fireworks. We Must Ban The Bang.

As temperatures drop, energy bills are rising. It’s normal for direct debits to go up as we heat our homes this time of year – but some energy providers have been accused of hiking monthly payments above what’s needed in a ‘stealth raid’ on customers. MoneySavingExpert founder Martin Lewis is warning that some firms are hiking direct debits right now to help their cash flow, even when it isn't justified. But, British Gas, the UK’s biggest energy provider, has already said they won’t do this, freezing direct debits for most customers until February next year. We know enough pressure on other energy companies could force them to do the same. Sign the petition now and demand energy companies put their customers' wallets first, not shareholder profits.

While other areas have seen older sports & leisure facilities replaced by new modern ones, Plains has seen no such regeneration in this sense. Our playing fields have been abandoned by the local authorities, the pavilion & changing rooms demolished over a decade ago with no thought of a replacement, the janlin centre replaced by a rarely used garden & a dilapidated community welfare hall which other than for elections has been rarely used also. Stripping working class communities bare of all recreational facilities & then people wonder why there’s so much deprivation & hopelessness in areas like this. We hope everyone can get behind this campaign and we thank you all for your continued support.