Seven-year old Rowan Fitzgerald was travelling back on the X18 bus having watched his beloved Coventry City FC play when the bus he was travelling in crashed into a shop in Coventry City Centre. The crash killed the seven-year-old from Leamington Spa, as well as 76-year-old Dora Hancox from Nuneaton. Many, many more could have been killed or seriously injured were it not for the swift, brave actions of a local man. The fact that the driver had been driving 70+ hour weeks for 3 weeks leading up to the crash was undoubtedly the critical factor that led to this accident and on the day of the incident he agreed voluntarily to work a further 8-10 hour shift. He was 77 years old. However, this is presently entirely legal under British law, as local bus drivers are not subject to the same working hour regulations as long-distance bus drivers or lorry drivers. This tragedy could have been avoided, potentially, if driving hours for local bus drivers were capped at 56 hours a week, and no more than 90 hours over any two consecutive weeks, as it already is for long distance bus drivers and HGV drivers. It is imperative that we do everything we can to help protect people using buses, as well as pedestrians in our town and city centres – two more lives cannot be lost the next time a bus driver is asked to work too many hours than is safe or an individual driver chooses to work excessive hours.

Lots of people use it, young, old and in between. It goes to the hospital at one end, school at the other and people who don’t have cars need to get there. It’s a happy service and we would not like to get a grumpy driver. We were very nervous about starting big school but it has made our journey much easier.

A few months ago I needed to attend Churchill Hospital several times for treatment in relation to suspected prostate cancer. The services I received were both speedy and efficient. I received excellent care from both administrative and medical staff. I was horrified to learn that a tendering process had resulted in the sale of the Churchill PET Scanning services to a private company. The Churchill Hospital is a recognised centre of excellence in relation to cancer care and all efforts must be made to preserve the integrity of this precious resource. The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has the power to stop this sale going ahead. This decision needs to be reversed as soon as possible.

This is important because this service is one of the few services left to Enfield residents. The so-called “consultation” conducted by the council revealed a majority of residents preferred to keep the bin collections as a weekly service rather than change it to bi-weekly with additional charges for garden waste.

Jazz Now is a vital outlet for contemporary jazz with an edge from experimental to free jazz, and free improvisation. It is the ONLY dedicated place on the BBC that plays and promotes these musics. Plus it provides emerging artists with a platform to share their music via the BBC Introducing uploader. With Jazz already marginalised on the BBC this programme needs to be saved for the curious listeners of improvisation! To cut Jazz Now will be damaging for both artists and fans if these cherished non mainstream musics, reduce diversity on Radio3, and be a betrayal of the BBC’s founding Reithian principles to inform, educate, and entertain!

The George Bryan Centre offers inpatient support for patients suffering from mental ill-health. Closing the facility will mean that Tamworth Residents requiring in-patient Mental Health support will need to attend St Georges in Stafford or further afield. It also means that people from Tamworth visiting friends or relatives will face a 60-mile round trip.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has continually failed to protect our water, air and land. * 69% of Northern Ireland's rivers, 76% of lakes and 60% of coastal waters failed water quality standards (2018). * 98% of Northern Ireland's protected Special Areas of Conservation exceeded critical levels of ammonia deposition at which ecological damage occurs (2017). * Northern Irelands' Freshwater bird population has decreased by 42%, the Skylark population by 48% and the Greenfinch population by 52% (1994-2016). Legislation for Brexit will give overriding power to DAERA, even if a project damages the environment. Northern Ireland has no Independent and Accountable Environmental Protection Agency. The Republic of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales all do. We need equality in protecting the air, water and land masses that we all share. We need good governance as we leave the European Union. We need to create a safe and vibrant Environment and Economy which will protect the Health and Wellbeing of our families and communities, everywhere in N. Ireland.

Save Our Trailer! Bombetta London, is proud to be based in Wanstead and grateful to be voted by its customers as an Opentable Dinner's Choice award and reviewed by Time Out as one of the best Italian restaurants in London, and with glowing reviews in GQ Magazine, The Evening Standard as well as featuring in The Good Food Guide for the last 2 years. Buying fish locally from people in Wanstead, such as Kevin the fishmonger, bread from Ronnie who owns The Duke and The Bread Station and a regular feature in silent auctions and raffles to support local schools, we now need local support. The Bombetta Trailer has now been parked up in our own loading bay, not causing anyone any problems since June 2017! Now in these difficult economic times, our small little independent restaurant is being squeezed by the council. Our trailer is under threat and we are calling for the local community to help us by showing their support for our trailer to be parking in our own loading bay. The council are limiting our ability to use the space we lease and it will threaten the commercial viability of the business. The Background: - Station Approach is a privately owned road on which Bombetta London is based, leading from Wanstead High Road to Snaresbrook Station. - There are loading bays in front of the building for the exclusive use of the occupier, us. - We invested heavily to develop the site from an empty shell which had prior to our arrival, remained vacant for some time. This space is directly in front of our restaurant and forms part of our 20 year lease. - The site was awarded a restaurant A3 planning permission and was purpose built with that in mind, with a chimney fume extract point through the centre of the building. Therefore thoughts about the use and practicality of the loading bay, which is in front of the front door, perhaps were lacking. - Our alcohol licence covers any seating in the ‘loading bay area’ and recognises these practical issues. - Initially Bombetta London took on the lease and applied several times to pave the area as the exclusive user of the space, but this was rejected on the grounds that it made the road narrower. Bombetta spent thousands of pounds with various appeals but to no avail, as in addition to utilising the space more effectively, it also would make the area more safe. - Since this time new buildings have been granted planning permission making the road narrow by default anyway, to house a taxi office and initially and laundrette, now a coffee kiosk. - In addition the car spaces opposite the Bombetta London loading bay have been removed, making the public highway wider than the buildings that were approved. - Bombetta London also rents three parking spaces on the road for its staff and customers and for deliveries so that there is no impact on the road. - The council have previously suggested that the trailer prevents emergency vehicles accessing the station, however the restaurant has provided countless photos of emergency vehicles easily accessing the location and provided detailed vehicle sweep flow diagrams at considerable expense that show an emergency vehicle could access the station even when there were parking spaces opposite. - The trailer can be accessed from inside the restaurant meaning that it can be used for people to sit in, adding value to the restaurant and making it safer for people to enjoy alcohol and food in the space permitted and using the space that Bombetta London are leasing more effectively. - The trailer also protects people physically who come in and out of the restaurant space, from traffic that otherwise would be walking directly onto tarmac from the front door with free flowing traffic and is illuminated with lighting within the walls in addition to internal lights which help highlight it to drivers. - Redbridge council last had dialogue with Bombetta London in November 2017 and have only now in March 2019 sent a letter demanding the trailers immediate removal. - In the latest correspondence, that has come out of the blue, there is now a shift away from concentrating on the narrowness of the road and a focus on how the trailer negatively visually affects the site and area. We adamantly disagree with the council that the our trailer parked on our loading bay is aesthetically an eyesore and should be removed on this basis. We decorate it internally with flowers, candles and fairy lights and externally with flowers and rosemary bushes all within the Load Bay area. Once spring there is here to stay, there would be fresh flowers in pots also along the base. We rely heavily on the seating area to generate enough income to survive. We invested all our funds into developing the site, so this coupled with the length of the lease would make re-location challenging. It would also leave another location in Wanstead empty and it would be a challenging location for many businesses to occupy. Our customers seem to love the area, the roof of the trailer slides back in the summer and as it is parked in our loading bay, if it wasn’t the trailer it could be a van still in the space or a roped off area still used for customers but far less safely. If anyone has any influence over the Redbridge planning office or can offer any support, we really hope you’ll help us. We have until the 12th of April to put in an appeal and we are currently thinking about all our options.

In March 2018, Alan Davey wrote "Our listeners are, we know, up for adventure, discovering new things and getting new angles and depths of knowledge on the familiar." (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/9b05cdcd-5c23-4275-893a-9caf3ffd6dde accessed 16/03/2019) The reduction in broadcast time for the one BBC programme that fulfils this remit is a retrograde step, impacting on the pleasure of listeners, the work of artists (often in the most precarious endeavours) and the cultural status of the country. It would be hugely disappointing to lose such a broad, open and exploratory curated programme, and would be difficult to recapture its spirit in the changes proposed. Its reach cannot be replicated, its influence cannot be over-estimated. It is not just background radio to those who listen, but an essential part of their ongoing understanding of the cultural landscape and a connexion to the wider cultural community that is often in this area disparate and isolated, and as Luke Turner points out "Crucially, this has a huge impact on the diversity of the show’s programming"(https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/15/bbc-radio-3-late-junction-carries-john-peel-spirit-into-digital-age accessed 16/03/2019). Although there are cost-saving to be acknowledged, the return on investment from this programme must outweigh any potential savings. The support of small local music venues, upcoming artists, avant-garde labels all benefit from the way this programme is curated and presented; to have that reduced so drastically will have a profound effect on those communities. It is also clear that BBC Radio 3 is the natural home of this programme. Re-iterating Peter Maxwell-Davies' warning at the introduction of Radio 3 that we might 'lose whole realms of experience' (Humphrey Carpenter 'Envy of the World' 1996:262), Late Junction has proved itself a bastion and for it to be shrunk so dramatically would be a sorry retreat. Please reconsider this decision.

Late Junction is a vital outlet for new 'folk' , 'experimental' and 'world' music. It is one of the only places on the BBC that gives a platform to new world music artists directly from the BBC Introducing uploader. To cut the already limited potential airtime will be damaging for both artists and fans of these genres. If the BBC needs to save money , please trim some fat from the mainstream programming and leave these vital areas to grow and thrive. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/15/bbc-radio-3-late-junction-carries-john-peel-spirit-into-digital-age

The Leith Walk community is in real danger of being ruined. Local community businesses such as the Leith Walk Café, music venue, Leith Depot and others are threatened with early closure thanks to the actions of the developer, Drum Property Group. The University of Edinburgh who was their partner has now withdrawn from the plans. The red sandstone building at 106-154 Leith Walk used to house up to 40 offices and shops in its two floors. Yet even without a university tenant, the developer, Drum Property Group wants ‘vacant possession’ as soon as possible. Drum is threatening to end the leases of these last 4 businesses as soon as they can. Instead Drum could at least offer rolling leases until plans for the building are finalised which would give them a couple of years of life as the council recently rejected their planning application. Drum claims they want to take the needs of the local community into account when building new student accommodation. It can do this by offering existing businesses month to month or longer, repeating leases and also offering the vacant shops to new businesses on a similar basis. We call on Drum Property to Open The Shops at 106 -154 Leith Walk. Please sign below

1 Because the Inspection on the 23rd August 2018 was very damning and it was advised not to give a licence. 2 The Veterinary Report on the 1st October was equally damning quoting dogs with conditions such as:- severely damaged eye, deformed left hind foot, abscess under left ear, rotten teeth, born without left eyeball, bilateral protruding nictitians glands, entropion, ulcer left eye and eyelid infection. This is just a handful of some of the conditions in this hell hole of a place. There are no windows, dogs kept in tiny so called kennels on deep litter straw with liquid (mixture of urine and faeces) trickling out from underneath and under the feed bowls, filthy floor, filthy walls, heat lamps with the wires perilously close to the dogs. water bowls containing green water, very strong stench.