This is a local route for our children to walk to and from school, it is also used by many children to get buses to and from school. Drivers will regularly go over 60mph on this road and unless we have speed cameras that’s not going to change After the tragic incident where a local resident lost his life due to a speeding driver, action needs taking!!

The emergency legislation that allowed Councils to suspend holding meetings during the Covid-19 pandemic also enabled meetings to be held virtually to allow democracy to continue. Almost all councils are now holding virtual Full Council meetings. This enables all elected Councillors to represent the views of residents and for democracy to continue. South Tyneside Council is a notable exception. The last meeting of South Tyneside Borough Council was held in February 2020. There are currently no plans in place to hold a Borough Council meeting before February 2021 by which time the majority of those elected to represent the people of South Tyneside will have been silenced for a year. As Councillors for Beacon and Bents Ward we have repeatedly asked why we are the only Council that are not holding these meetings. Responses received to these requests have included we aren't able to organise a virtual meeting of this size, it would be too difficult for officers who wouldn't be able to see every Councillor on screen at the same time and some Councillors are not IT literate enough to participate in virtual meetings. These are not reasons they are excuses. Councils far larger than South Tyneside have been holding virtual meetings since six weeks after lockdown began; the government have held virtual meetings with hundreds of MPs taking part; and a trade union recently held a virtual conference in which over 700 delegates took part. We have also requested that all virtual meetings that are held and live streamed are recorded and published on YouTube so people can watch them when they finish work. We have been told this is too difficult to do but other Councils have done this for months. There is no legitimate reason why South Tyneside Council cannot hold Borough Council meetings and why they cannot record and publish all meetings. As Councillors for Beacon and Bents Ward we have been contacted by residents from our own Ward and from others who want to know why South Tyneside Council is trying to stifle democracy. We have been asked why we voted to introduce local restrictions. But the truth is that we, and the majority of Councillors across the Borough, have had no say in this decision. We are being asked about plans for the future, for reviving our town centre, and for rebuilding our economy. Again we have to say that we are being prevented from raising questions about these and other important issues because Borough Council is not meeting. The residents of South Tyneside deserve better. They deserve to be represented. They deserve to have their voices heard. And they deserve to see democracy return to our Borough. The Chief Executive has left and can only be replaced by Borough Council. Officers have been left without leadership and residents without a voice. This is not about Party politics. It's about doing the right thing, returning democracy to our Borough and working together to create a better future when the pandemic finally ends. Councillor Angela Hamilton (Labour Party) Councillor David Francis (Green Party)

Homelessness is a not a choice.

Local campaigners have been opposing this plan on the grounds of intolerable climate and radiological damage since 2017. Her Majesty now has a direct role to play in either facilitating or stopping this plan in its tracks.  Her Majesty’s Crown Estate signed an Exploration Agreement with West Cumbria Mining on 21st July 2017.  This agreement ran out on 2nd October 2020.
 
 Also on 2nd October 2020 Cumbria County Council were minded to approve West Cumbria Mining’s plan.  (The Secretary of State told the council they could refuse but not offer final approval for the plan, pending his decision) 
 Developers, West Cumbria Mining require Her Majesty to agree to an Exploitation agreement in order to extract the coal.
 
 Her Majesty has visited Sellafield, the world’s known riskiest nuclear waste site.  Sellafield would be just five miles from the deep undersea coal mine.  Mass void removal is known to induce seismicity.  As well as this certain seismic risk the mine would be directly below the radioactive sediments which have settled on the Irish Sea bed from decades of Sellafield discharges.  The radioactive sediment which includes plutonium is named as the Cumbrian Mud Patch. 
 There have been many peer reviewed and independent reports indicating that subsidence/disturbance of the Irish Sea bed will resuspend these decades of radioactive wastes into the sea.  It takes just 4 years for radioactive wastes from Sellafield’s discharge pipeline to reach the Arctic. Far less time to reach our own coasts. The New Scientist has reported that Sellafield "reprocessing plant has released 40 000 billion becquerels of caesium-137. “So far, about 15 000 billion becquerels have reached the Arctic. This is between two and three times more than the contamination from Chernobyl, which is reaching the Arctic via the Baltic and North Seas.”  https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15420811-400-sellafield-leaves-its-mark-on-the-frozen-north/
 
 
 Mike Berners-Lee the climate expert has said of the Council approval of the coal mine that "12 Cumbria County Councillors have serious climate blood on their hands after approving the coal mine yet again - even though the case for has been shown to be 100% bogus. Unlikely there is anything any of them can do in their lives to undo this much damage.”   
 
 For myself as a long time nuclear safety campaigner and the person who took on the legal challenge against the coal mine with the help of top lawyers Leigh Day,  I know that the climate impacts although massive, are the tip of the iceberg. The nuclear impacts are of a magnitude literally out of this world as it is well known that the high level radioactive wastes sitting at Sellafield could annihilate the planet many times over.  This and the certain risk of resuspension of the Cumbrian Mud Patch wastes means that this coal mine puts the whole planet at direct risk of a nuclear fall out there would be no coming back from. 
 
 
 Please be on the right side of history and refuse to sign the Crown Estate agreement with West Cumbria Mining for further Exploration and Exploitation of coal reserves under the Irish Sea 5 miles from Sellafield and directly beneath the Cumbrian Mud Patch.
 Exploration Agreement with West Cumbria Mining https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07143398/charges/lXWNTRigei_OaJQXhs2MwyKZ7ms Report into Radiological Impacts of the Coal Mine by Tim Deere Jones https://issuu.com/wildart/docs/west_cumbria_mining_-_radiological_implications_of

During Covid-19 and in general, these health and wellbeing activities are extremely useful and keep people motivated and positive, particularly those who can't afford more expensive ways or want to be close to nature. This money making exercise is regressive, unhelpful and a draconian measure and should not be excused under any guise. Please stop this. Please sign, share and support. Maium Miah Talukdar

At the moment families that wish to walk to school are not able to because the A262 is unsafe to cross and cars speed along this stretch of the road.

The Hospital League of Friends shop generates a large amount of money each year towards much needed equipment. Without the LoF, the hospital will miss out on at least £18,000 of funding raised purely by the shop alone.

We are concerned that for Sheffield City Centre, this Development Framework in its current form would increase air pollution and carbon emissions and would diminish a vital city centre green space. Sheaf Valley Park has been widely commended as an innovative and essential part of our city centre infrastructure. The Development Framework’s proposal to drive a dual carriageway through this park is deeply damaging, retrogressive and contradictory to the Council’s own transport, carbon and air quality targets. How can building a new dual carriageway ( swapping the existing dual carriageway with the existing tram line ) in the centre of the city reduce carbon and improve air quality when most independent research clearly states that new roads increase traffic and carbon emissions? It will not contribute to improving air quality and in fact will make air quality worse for Sheffield City as well as residents of Park Hill and the wider neighbourhood. New roads increase carbon emissions: It will not contribute to lowering carbon emissions and will have a substantially negative impact on total net carbon emissions for the project. Of equal concern is the apparent lack of strategic linkage to a clear vision for Sheffield City Region and Sheffield City Centre. The Development Framework is predicated on a series of engineering and land-based asset assumptions. It does not respond to a long-term net carbon zero future for Sheffield nor does it comply with or respond to the City Council’s own multiple strategic and policy commitments. There is so much more which requires an approach that goes beyond specific sites, traffic circulation and engineering design. The whole document appears to be lodged in a 20th century car dominated policy framework, driven by trying to address historic road-based development objectives, without any balanced evaluation of the viability, practicality or value of these assumptions. It is a deeply retrogressive and old-fashioned perspective on city development. The regeneration of the Midland Station ought to be a beacon and demonstrator for Sheffield City Region, pioneering less car traffic on roads; more active transport infrastructure; more greening and a brave and ambitious commitment to integrated, zero carbon transport systems. Instead it feels like a throwback to the 1960s where ring-roads of polluting traffic encircled our cities and personal mobility trumped mass transit systems and where there was scant regard for the impact of fossil fuels and their impact on our natural environment. We welcome the principle of the grey to green conversion of multiple roads as part of the wider strategy. This should be the opportunity for our city of Sheffield to grasp taking a new direction rather than a process of retrogressive transport planning.

Each day over 100 children cross twice at this crossing, which is just metres away from a straight run of road where nearly half of the vehicles regularly recorded exceed the speed limit.

Parliament declared a Climate Emergency over a year ago - and still not enough is being done to stop the worst effects of the climate crisis - in the UK and across the world. The Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill, which already has the support of 70+ MPs, calls for the UK to make and enact a serious plan to cut our emissions, protect our nature, and give ordinary people a real say on the way forward, through a citizens’ assembly. The climate and ecological crisis is the biggest threat to all life on Earth we have ever faced, it is vital we act now and this bill would be a very encouraging step. But for this Bill to stand a chance of becoming law, a majority of MPs need to support it. That’s why I am calling on our MP Rushanara Ali to please support the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill. Please join me! You can find out more about the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill here: https://www.ceebill.uk/

I see on your website that you are closing our local branch Glynnneath in Feb next year. It also says that the next available bank is in Swansea 16.4miles away ......... or Measteg 9.6miles away. If you are working on these calculations, THEY ARE WRONG. IT STATES ON YOUR WEBSITE THAT OUR BRANCH IS IN NEATH AGAIN, WRONG!!! IT IS IN GLYNNEATH - over 10miles further up The Valley than NEATH. Swansea is 21miles away or 3hr round trip by bus Maesteg is 24.1 miles or a 5hr 30mins round trip by bus !! This is without waiting around for a bus to arrive. The population of our village/small town is nearly 4,300. It has a very large quota of elderly people. They do not have the ability to travel even the shortest of those choices. Most do not possess the ability to use your online facilities. They find this action of closure totally dicscriminatory against the elderly and those with mobility issues. An absolute betrayal of their loyalty to you over many years. Many do not have children living near to be able to help. This bank has been the mainstay of this village. You are the only bank of any kind left with 11miles of our village. I therefore urge you please reconsider this action. I understand that financial decisions have to be made, but, there are also moral issues here. The people of Glynneath have supported your bank for decades and feel totally abandoned at this decision. Hopefully now, you are more aware of the huge impact your decision will have on our community. Please would you reconsider your decision.

***New coal mines = climate crisis*** This mine will create 9 million tonnes of CO2 every year through coal burned in UK and European steelworks.That's three times what all the people of Cumbria produce every year [1]. It's 2% of the UK's carbon footprint, which makes it a decision of national importance. Top economists and energy experts agree that this mine cannot be 'carbon neutral' as Cumbria County Council claim, instead it will worsen the climate crisis. [2] ***Breaking the law*** The Heathrow judgement showed that the Paris Agreement [3] must be taken into account in decisions about new high-carbon projects, which is why Robert Jenrick must step in. The UK will host the UN climate summit COP26 in 2021, so starting a mega-polluting coal mine would undermine these vital talks ***No more coal for steel*** The UK's two steelworks are the biggest single-site emitters in the country[4] because of their current reliance on coal, but you can make steel without coal. The mine will lock the steel industry in the UK and Europe into using coal for decades to come, instead of switching to viable alternatives, when instead a transition to clean steel could begin right now.[5] ***The impacts on Cumbria*** The impacts of climate change fall first and hardest on communities in the global south, who are already being impacted. But Cumbria itself is also vulnerable to increasing sea level rise and flooding, which are predicted to get more severe if we don't keep global temperatures under 1.5 degrees [6]. The economic impact of the jobs the mine would provide would be far outweighed by climate impacts on the local economy. [7] As Communities Secretary, it's Robert Jenrick's job to refuse permission to projects that are harmful to communities and that conflict with the UK's international commitments on climate change. It's his job to promote alternatives that would be better for communities. We need a Green Recovery that invests in our futures, instead of being forced to rely on polluting projects for jobs. THANK YOU Learn more about the local groups leading the fight to stop this mega-polluting project: https://www.coalaction.org.uk/2020/09/07/campaigns-to-stop-woodhouse-colliery-cumbria/ REFERENCES [1] Small World Consulting: A Carbon Baseline for Cumbria https://slacc.org.uk/cumbria-carbon-baseline/ [2] UCL: Top Economists & Energy Experts claim Ministers mislead over coal & climate https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/sustainable/news/2020/sep/coal-and-climate-ministers-need-reject-misinformation-new-coal-mines [3] Heathrow Third Runway Ruled Illeagal Over Climate Change https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/feb/27/heathrow-third-runway-ruled-illegal-over-climate-change [4] EU ETS Emissions 2019 https://ember-climate.org/project/ets-2019-release/ [5] Materials Processing Institute Report Coal & Steel June 2020 https://slacc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/SLACC_Appendix-2_MPI-Report_11-06-2020.pdf [6] Areas in Cumbria that could end up underwater due to global warming https://www.lancs.live/news/local-news/areas-cumbria-could-end-up-18256314 [7] Presentation by Duncan Pollard on WCM https://slacc.org.uk/new-presentation-by-duncan-pollard-on-wcm/