We believe Bexley refuse workers and street cleaners deserve a fair wage for a fair day’s work. The London Living Wage is £10.75 an hour, but these workers are paid just £8.90 to £9.50 an hour. That’s up to £3,300 a year less than the recommended amount. Furthermore, many workers are on zero hour contracts and aren’t being paid sick pay. Serco, Bexley Council and Peter Craske, the Councillor in charge of public spaces have a responsibility to its 180 underpaid employees to provide a wage that lets people live, work and provide for their families in London. In Greenwich, refuse workers and street cleansers are paid £13.50 an hour and get paid up to £8,300 more annually to do exactly the same work. Why does Bexley Council and Peter Craske believe our workers’ time and efforts aren’t worth as much as our neighbouring borough? Serco made profits of £102.5 million in 2019 and increased their profits by over 20% from 2018. Serco has profited from underpaying and overworking its staff and Bexley Council has allowed this to happen. Refuse workers and street cleansers provide a valuable service for our borough and it’s about time they were paid a fair wage.

Jess would leave a huge hole if she left our community in Leek, this is her home she is part of so many people’s life. Jess would also be confused, stressed and potentially unhappy, she knows and loves the entrance of Morrison’s in Leek.

The National Gallery's Portrait exhibition is due to take place in April in the Ulster Museum sponsored by BP - one of the world's biggest polluters. Climate change is the biggest threat we face. But rather than acting on it, BP is trying to make clean up it's image by sponsoring art exhibitions here in Belfast, while it continues to make huge profits. BP is one of the companies most responsible for the climate crisis. It is the 11th biggest corporate source of greenhouse emissions in history. Late last year The Scottish National Portrait Gallery announced it will no longer stage the exhibition due to BP's involvement. There is no reason why the Ulster Museum can't do the same.

As a community we should be objecting to this proposal due to several factors which include - the safety of the children who play in this area with the increase in vehicular movement. - an increase in noise and pollution next to the 3g sports facilities and skate park. - the loss of green space used for public events such as the shows, fireworks, circus etc. - increase in traffic flow over the Victoria bridge causing more congestion. - potential of traffic self diverting causing a rat race through the residential area. - adding to the surface water run off in an area already susceptible to flooding - loss of green space which is beneficial to mental health and well being. - potential damage to the surrounding trees and wildlife. So please as a community help us fight against this proposal and save our green space at whittinghame drive, a space used by many, from children, to dog walkers and families. Let's stop this car park that will lead to the changes to our historic town centre, which could ruin people's businesses. Businesses which right now are thriving.

This policy would primarily help parents who are struggling with the ever-increasing demands on their finances. The cost of a school uniform can often be too much for many families to afford and therefore adds an unbearable pressure on the parents and often leaves the children not having a school uniform. Children grow so fast that it isn’t simply a case of budgeting to buy a new uniform every September, sometimes items need to be replaced 2 or 3 times in a year, this then becomes astronomically expensive. Having the school logo in badge form can help make it possible for all children to be equal by creating an affordable solution to the rising cost of branded school uniforms. It might also help parents whose child is disabled and may not fit standard uniform clothing. With the cost of living constantly rising, we need to stand together and ask ALL schools to work with families to make things easier. On a final point using badges would complement the environmental agenda, many clothes recycling schemes cannot use branded clothes so by creating the ability to remove the branding it means that many more children can benefit from an item of clothing.

This is a lifeline in every sense. Too many people will die as either have to travel too far or not be seen at all. There is only 1 road in and out to rah from vale/dumbarton. Takes too long to get other hospitals. Vale of leven is on our doorsteps

Our homes and businesses here in the Calder Valley, just as in many areas of the United Kingdom, flooded on Boxing Day 2015 and again in the last two weeks (February 2020) due to Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis. Many of us have lost what was replaced or salvaged last time when any flood measures put in place by the Government since 2015 proved wholly insufficient. To be honest, it has been devastating to lose so much again. The community always rallies together and helps each other but the Government does not do enough. We have been suffering through flood defence works totalling £32m since Spring 2016 - what with air pollution, earth works damaging buildings that were already flooded, noise pollution, never-ending traffic jams, building works 6 days a week and through the night - and that still hasn't completed for the one village that has gone through it. The scheme has yet to progress to other towns flooded on Boxing Day 2015 and, in the case of Elland, they are due to get no flood defences at all because the Environment Agency said it was not cost-effective. To refuse to give flood resilience grants to those who have been flooded, whose homes have not been protected despite the millions paid by the Government to private contractors, is beyond heartless. Many of us have struggled to get insurance at all, despite Government promises and the Flood Re scheme, and those of us who do have incredibly high premiums that local emergency grants simply don't cover. Most of us who flooded this time flooded last time as the costly flood defence works were both incomplete and actually left us further exposed due to flood walls that were overtopped in 2015 being taken down by the Government contractors VBA and not replaced, due to works not having been done throughout the valley and due to the Environment Agency's own planning deeming certain areas sacrificial and not cost-effective to protect. In the recent Statement on Flooding in Parliament, on being pressed by Halifax MP Holly Lynch, the Government said the recently announced flood resilience grants - intended to help properties become more resilient to future floods - would not be available for those who flooded last time and who therefore received a grant. The £5,000 is a blanket amount irrespective of how inundated properties were so those who had a foot of water in their cellar received exactly the same grant as those whose homes were flooded all through. Depending on your property and how the water gets in, the grant would cover the average cost of 2 flood doors and frames which is £4,000. A sump pump in the cellar might cost you £1250/£1500 but it would only work for as long as there was working electricity. Part of the grant had to be spent on approved surveyors carrying out a Flood Mitigation Report. Our flood mitigation report identified necessary measures costing over 3 times the £5,000 grant and even then, it said, "Due to the location of the building, flood remediation measures will not totally prevent flooding in the future, but if properly implemented may reduce the incidence of flooding by slowing or preventing water entering the property, reduce damage and loss should flooding occur, and allow faster recovery from flooding in the future." Even spending that money did not stop us being flooded to the same degree, only this time the main points of water ingress were through new points of weakness created by works done to the neighbouring property by the Government contractors VBA. Arguably, the only owners of homes and businesses who didn't receive a grant last time and who are therefore eligible this time are those who didn't own that home or business last time. Many of those bought those properties at knockdown prices precisely because of the Boxing Day 2015 flooding devaluing and damaging properties; in some cases, they also benefited from works carried out by the Government contractors.

The GP out of hours service in Inverclyde has been under pressure for some time with regular closures. This means that patients routinely have to travel to Paisley or Glasgow for treatment overnight. This puts patients at risk and for many in Inverclyde means a journey of over 20 miles just to see a GP. These changes come amid warnings of further service cuts at Inverclyde Royal Hospital and many trauma services also being moved to Paisley and Glasgow. Inverclyde needs a fully functioning health service and, at the very least, that means a full GP service.

The homes of the people of the UK are far more important than a vanity project to build a whole new line to cut travel time when the infrastructure already exists to do this. The Great Central Railway was closed in the 1960s and has the capacity to take high speed trains. It survives almost totally intact and would serve the same purpose as HS2 at a fraction of the cost. ‘ Re-opening The Great Central Railway fulfils all the main objectives of HS2 without the excruciating cost, the environmental objections and absurdities of the latter project.‘ https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/there-is-a-far-better-option-than-hs2-and-it-already-exists/ People are suffering and putting the money saved from a ridiculously inappropriate vanity project into flood defences will save livelihoods and protect our communities.

We would like Essex County Council to know that the people of Colchester are desperate to address the air quality and traffic problem in the town - but we need to give people a clean, effective and affordable alternative to car travel and this can be it. Please put all of your effort into making this happen! We know how dangerous and damaging to people's lives and health poor air quality is. Clean Air Colchester is a hub of general and local information about how air quality affects us all right here in Colchester - https://www.cleanaircolchester.org Why Colchester? Our town would be a perfect place to set up this scheme. We have a very active community made up of many groups and individuals who are very concerned about our residents' health as well as our environment and have been campaigning for better air quality and traffic solution for a long time. Colchester Borough Council is also currently implementing a DEFRA-funded awareness raising and behaviour change project (the only one in the country), awarded as a result of the obvious need and interest locally. Should Colchester be chosen for this scheme, the impacts and transformative effects could be recorded through testing and video testimonies recorded by local filmmakers and campaigners to show the positive impact that moving from polluting buses to an electric system can have. As the oldest Roman town in Britain, Colchester has many narrow roads in the town centre. The buildings flank our roads to form a canyon-like environment which can trap air pollutants, meaning that pedestrians, residents and road users end up breathing in dangerous levels of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and fine particulate matter. There are four areas in Colchester that exceed established air quality objectives. Testing shows air pollution levels in excess of legal limits (40 mg/m3). As the town is developed and spreads at an unprecedented rate, we need clean public transport options to replace the dirty old buses that currently belch out toxic pollution. Please put Colchester forward for this scheme and help us to transform our beautiful town and inspire national change!

There have been numerous reports detailing the link between poverty and lower attainment in numeracy and literacy. The role of a Children’s Laureate is ultimately to engage all children in reading and writing. My proposal would be to take this a stage further in Scotland by identifying those children from low income backgrounds and those with disabilities (physical and mental) and placing more emphasis on reaching children within these groups.

It's part of the very fabric of Leigh on Sea and the community hold many great memories of this amazing building in its heyday. Partially listed and really striking it towers over its neighbouring buildings. Wetherspoons have a number of great and interesting buildings within their chain and hopefully the weight of local support will encourage them to look at saving this iconic part of Leigh on Sea.